001Miss Munoz will you please introduce yourself good evening everyone I'm Rosa Muniz I'm the district interpreter and translator I'm here to help with any questions or comments you may have thank you buenoches thank you Miss Munoz welcome to everyone here and those of you watching virtually we were able to get that working yes okay um where am I going oh to this 27th to this June 27 Dover Board of Education meeting I'm sorry executive session was a doozy um for those who wish to provide public comment remotely a Google form was posted on the district website at 6 30 pm and those remote comments will be addressed in the second public comment section this meeting which is hereby call to order at 6 30 PM oh no I'm sorry at 6 56 PM is in
002compliance 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 March 20th 2023. now can we please rise for the flag salute I pledge allegiance Mr crew may we have a roll call present Miss Downs present Miss grazales present Mr Miller Ms nutting present Miss Phillips Mr Robles Dr Senor present Ms Mendez here we have a quorum um okay yeah yeah so I couldn't hear you boy and I'm usually loud I will talk more into it there you go Dr saner will you please read our mission statement 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
003resilient and who choose to make an impact thank you Dr saner I will now hand it over to the administration to start us off with this evening's presentations thank you we have a special presentation to begin with it's on our hand carry and this evening we would like to take a moment to provide a very special recognition to sulma Calderon Alvarez who has served as the student representative to the Dover board of education for the 2022-2023 school year as stated in District by law zero one four three point two our Board of Education recognizes that experience gained by and input from students in the school district is a valued source for improving the operation of the school district and to this end and in accordance with New Jersey state Administrative Code I won't bother reading
004the numbers the board has authorized the appointment of one student selected by the student body to serve as a non-voting representative On The Board of Education the term for such a representative is one school year so this evening Mark's Miss Calderon Alvarez's last official board meeting of this term in her time as the student representative to the Board of Education Ms Calderon Alvarez has demonstrated true commitment to providing information and feedback to the Board of Education that is representative of the student perspective her efforts in this position have included Outreach to the student body and Cooperative work with the high school principal Mr Nunes on a host of issues that have impacted students Miss Calderon Alvarez has displayed a truly professional demeanor in our board meetings and has always been prepared with input that is
005both meaningful and important to the work of the board and the school district and for this we are extremely grateful and wished to recognize Ms Calderon Alvarez formally and before I provide her with the token of our esteem I know our board president wanted to add some thoughts thank you Dr McLaughlin Miss Calderon Alvarez I wish I had half of your courage when I was in high school you have shown every young girl and specifically young Latinas in our school district that they can run for office and win you have done what many of us on this board do not have the courage to do until we were well into adulthood you are intelligent you are a phenomenal public speaker you are fearless in expressing the concerns of your constituents the student body at the
006board meetings if you are a representation of what the future of elected leaders in Dover or the country for that matter will be then we'll be in good hands Miss Calderon Alvarez thank you for stepping up for the students thank you for stepping up for the community it has been a pleasure to serve with you and I look forward to bearing witness to all the great things you will continue to accomplish thank you Miss Calderon Alvarez [Applause] Dr McLaughlin I will hand it back over to you so one of the very great Pleasures that we have at this time of the year is to honor those who have served over over a long period of time and are now taking the next step in their Journey after their professional life as an educator so tonight
007we have a small token of our esteem we're going to ask each of the individuals to come forward and share a little bit about them as as they do and I will begin we'll come over to the table uh both myself Miss Mendez and Mr rigliano and we'll conduct this from here foreign Burnett [Applause] Maureen has been a library media specialist for the past 36 years the last 28 have been in Dover at Academy Street School Maureen has enjoyed teaching her students and sharing her love of reading with them she started a crochet club and will miss seeing her students progress through the next school years although Maureen will miss her students and colleagues she know it's the time to start the next chapter in her life Maureen is looking forward to spending extra time
008at home with her husband Bob and dog Molly and she will enjoy the opportunity to spend more time with her adult children Joe and Patrick and enjoy her many hobbies golf gardening reading crochet and travel congratulations Maureen a picture Mickey Davao well I'm going to tell you a little bit about magnetic anyway okay Miss migni Davao is a proud product of the Dover Community where she was raised right around the block from The Hope House she attended Dover Public Schools and graduated from Dover High School in 1981. she went on to graduate from Sacred Heart University with a ba degree in Psychology in 1985 then miss Davao graduated from Maywood University with a master's in social work in 1998. she applied for a position as a therapeutic social worker for Dover Public Schools transitions program
009also known as Blackwell Academy where she worked with 7th through 12th grade students at high risk of dropping out and helped them transition back to the middle and the high schools in 2012 Mr Val was transferred to the child study team where she worked as a school social worker case manager across all grade levels in the district and in 2017 she was assigned to middle and high schools where she continued to work collaboratively with both the middle and high school child study teams during a tenure in Dover she raised two children alongside her husband of 32 years Miss develle plans on taking a long vacation before deciding what she will get herself into in the future she hopes to continue to work in the community in some fun and Stressless capacity [Applause] Alvaro Hernandez [Applause]
010Alvaro Hernandez began teaching mathematics at Dover High School in September of 1997. he retired in December 2022 after 25 years of dedicated servants to the students of Dover prior to his arrival in Dover Mr Hernandez toured high school and college mathematics in his country of Colombia and after teaching at Dover High School for a few years Mr Hernandez continued to share his love of mathematics with college age students as an adjunct professor of mathematics at Kane University for the next 20 years a resident of Dover for the last 30 years he cherished the opportunities to give back to his community and in retirement he misses his students and co-workers but especially his students he's looking forward to taking time to his to visit the country of Colombia in the future congratulations [Applause] Roger Jones [Applause]
011Roger Jones is retiring from the Dover Public Schools after a 27-year career in teaching and an 18-year career in computer programming a graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana Roger started his first teaching career as a seventh grade mathematics teacher at the Dover Middle School on Myrtle Avenue at the same time he was the JV soccer coach at Dover High School it was during this time that he also formed the Dover Strikers the u-66 soccer team that competed in the New Jersey State Cup finals three of the next four years and traveled to Europe to compete in an international soccer tournament he also worked with Dover Recreation to help form the Dover Strikers Youth Soccer Club Roger left the Dover Schools to pursue what would turn out to be an 18-year career in computer programming
012and after several years of travel with his computer firm Roger decided to return to public education and finish his career Roger found his way back to Dover in 2016 to teach technology including computer programming Robotics and cyber security and in all Roger taught for nine years in Dover while at Dover High School Roger coached JV soccer in the fall into a track during the winter bought ball robotics in the spring and after assuming control of the robotics Club he invited the Picatinny Arsenal Administration to visit our robotics Club in the spring of 2016 which was the springboard for him agreeing to start our first robotics competition program at DHS this is for students particularly those who have an interest in engineering and starting the program during the covet year Roger was able to gather enough
013mentors and generate enough student interests to establish the team for future years even during the struggles of remote learning and I will just say I guess for the record that when our schools were supposed to be empty Roger was here and had to be told to leave so in his retirement Roger plans to travel with his wife for 40 years Jane and to help babysit their grandchildren he considers over a hidden treasure and will miss working with the students the staff and administration he also thanks the board for their support and the Cyber Tigers over the last seven years and looks forward to volunteering with his team in the future congratulations Roger Robin Corbin save [Applause] Robin has been a special education teacher in Dover for 35 years she started in March of 1988 after
014graduating from William Patterson College Robin was originally hired as a maternity leave teacher at Academy Street school but that changed overnight when she reported on her first day and was told she would be the teacher in an intermediate self-contained classroom Robin remained in the position until the new addition at North Dover was completed in 1999 and classes were transferred to that building Robin was the recipient of the Morris County teacher of the year award for northover elementary school for the 2000-2001 school year for the past 11 years Robin has been a resource room teacher at North Dover she Dover has always held a special place in her heart her mother grew up in Dover and was a 1952 graduate of Dover High School she spent a lot of time at her grandmother's house on Princeton
015Avenue and there is no other place she would rather have spent her career although Robin will miss her students and the people she works with she knows it's time to start the next chapter Robin lives in Landing New Jersey with her husband Edward and her sons Austin and Justin and she is proud to say that both of her sons will be music educators Austin recently graduated from Rowan University and Justin just completed his sophomore year at the same University congratulations Robin [Applause] Robert means [Applause] imagine enjoying an entire teaching career in Dover Public Schools from 1981 until 2023. in 1981 Dover Public Schools took a chance hiring a 22 year old from Western Pennsylvania to teach 7th grade math at the Myrtle Avenue Dover Middle School Roger said he was lucky to be hired in
016a time when so many were committed to stay so long in Dover the first year was great but at the end of the first year the District closed the Myrtle Avenue building and DMS moved to East over to the east over building where it is today this is when uh Rob met Laura who was teaching at East Dover directed school plays with her proposed to her on the 8th grade trip to Washington DC and five years later got married Rob and Laura were blessed with sons Jacob and Luke and since living and working in Dover was important to Rob Rob got to be the computer teacher for both Luke and for Jacob thank goodness that the district needed to close Myrtle Avenue School Rob's words not mine looking at the Dover Public School website there
017are at least 35 former students that Rob taught that are currently working in our school district or on are on the Dover Board of Education a testament to all of the students that he is guided throughout his teaching career it was always important to rob that he not only teach math or computers to his students but that he would also listen when they needed to talk attended their concerts and sporting events and could often tell them who they were related to or what their parents were like when they were in school in retirement Rob plans to work at paper mill Playhouse and will finally use his annual pass for Disney World and he and Laura will be in Alaska when the 23-24 school year starts enjoy your Sundays until the last Spoonful is done finally
018Rob would like to thank the entire Dover Community for allowing him to educate students for 41 and 5 12 years [Applause] Claire monarch thank you Miss Monarch has worked as a library media specialist for almost three decades with students from pre-k through 12th grade from the sunny shores of Mississippi to the Garden State Miss Monarch has been commended in her following roles as the title one family literacy nice coordinator the resource and Technology support member for students and the school Community the coordinator for multiple student reader and Center programs a former PTA secretary and volunteer and many school and District committees to enhance student education her time at northover Elementary media center home to the Stanley schumannocker library for the past 14 years has resulted in many program opportunities for students and staff she has
019worked with volunteers from High School honor organizations Elementary grade students and parents to provide the best books and resources to students and staff Miss Monarch is a dedicated staff member who is committed to the safety education and personal well-being of our students she had a multicultural experience and an attitude of Tolerance and acceptance throughout her educational career that she has sought to share with our educational community Miss Monarch has also had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout southeast Asia North America the United Kingdom with the United States Air Force both in service and in support a rich learning experience that she might continue in her retirement she looks forward to spending time with her family and friends and leaves many with fond memories and well wishes to the Dover School District Community her favorite quote
020comes from the good Dr Seuss the more that you read the more that you'll know the more that you learn the more Places You'll Go congratulations [Applause] Margaret Reagan [Applause] after graduating from Montclair State college with a degree in home economics education Miss Margaret Reagan began her teaching career at Secaucus High School where she taught important life skills and lessons to her students in the following classes culinary arts Child Development clothing construction interior design and independent living and after moving to Randolph and taking time off to raise her daughter she was happy to join the staff at Dover High School in 2002. she has enjoyed making a positive impact on our students in culinary arts Child Development and advanced child development in retirement Miss Reagan is looking forward to traveling with her husband John and
021visiting New York City restaurants with her daughter Katie we will miss seeing you carding all your groceries through the back door congratulations [Applause] okay Barbara wood [Applause] a proud product of the Dover Public School System Barbara wood is retiring from a 33-year teaching career all but one in the Dover system after graduating from Springfield College in 1990 she spent one year teaching at Our Lady of the Lake in Mount Arlington and then in 1991 she began her career in Dover she taught from 1991 to 1993 at Eastover in fourth grade and from 93 to 2006 she taught at Academy Street in both the fourth and the sixth grades she then moved to East Dover again from 2006 to 2010 teaching sixth grade and from 2010 to 2023 Barbara returned to Academy Street and to sixth
022grade she is incredibly thankful that she has had the opportunity to come back to her her hometown to both live and to teach while teaching in Dover Barbara received her masters of arts in education from Nova Southeastern University in 2003 and she also earned her certificate in supervision from Marcus University several years later she is a past Academy Street School teacher of the year gaining nomination multiple times in her career Robert has also coached multiple Sports in the Dover Schools she was a JV girls basketball coach for three years assistant coach for girls soccer for three years Middle School girls and boys soccer coach for a year and she was girls assistant track coach for two years and currently she is completing her fourth year as the girls head coach Barbara looks forward to spending
023time with family traveling and enjoying herself congratulations [Applause] Diane's or Carol [Applause] Diane has had the pleasure of serving as Dover High School's library media specialist since 1995. she has had over three decades of experience in the education field 28 of these years were joyfully spent at Dover High School Diane's background is in the environmental and biological sciences her passion for understanding the world around us and her love of research directed her career towards the library sciences and over the past 16 years she has worked to not only make our library a resource hub for the entire Dover High School Community but also an inclusive and safe atmosphere for students and staff to unwind and to collaborate our library is available to students whether you need to escape with a good book have a relaxed
024environment or to knock out a few assignments or just to have a safe place to share ideas and seek advice Diane is married to Mike for 41 years and is the mother of two sons Michael a New York a New Jersey Transit Transportation terminal manager and Matthew a Foreign Service Officer assigns work in Tanzania in her spare time she enjoys a good crime mystery novel and she also loves to be outside in nature gardening and has a passion to train dogs using hand signals congratulations [Applause] um not with us tonight Lydia Orleans just want to make sure just checking and um also Donna Schaefer I think they are both out of state but certainly wanted to acknowledge them for their years of service and that completes our presentations for this evening just checking didn't leave
025anyone out correct good all right that's always my fear on a night like this uh we wanted our whole group to assemble here so we could get some photos of of everyone together and celebrate these great years of combined service here in Dover and all the contributions that have been made to our students [Applause] from thank you [Applause] don't leave yet don't leave okay at this time I'd like to ask Mr Dixon to come up to the podium Mr Dixon's going to talk to us about this year's Dover women's softball team and we have some certificates for for the group I like to follow directions good evening well I'm Mr Dixon I am the athletic director for the Dover School District I wasn't given a specific length of time to speak so I have a
026lot to say first I'd like to congratulate all the retirees I recognize some of your faces and if I don't recognize you that's okay I did want to say I plan on retiring too in about 40 years if I could give you if I could give you any piece of advice I'd say keep living keep laughing keep loving and most importantly stay connected congratulations [Applause] I'm here to congratulate the 2022-2023 softball team congratulations if you're here please stand up and if you're not here we're thinking of you this year's team has or had 11 wins and nine losses they are the co-champions of the inject for the softball independence league I want to talk quickly about a coach's job and then the players Coach Amanda Cummins is here please give her a round of applause
027[Applause] I thought the funniest part of my day was when Amanda would come past the office not come in and know that her Aura just all about I have a game I have a game I'm nervous I have a game I have a game I'm nervous I'm nervous I'm nervous it's hilarious to see and I also want to say for the team at the end of the year toward the end of the year they went on a winning streak that earned them a spot to qualify for states in addition to that it also led to them winning the inject and sharing that code title or title as a co-champion for the inject independence league congratulations girls [Applause] with us here today we have four of our Varsity starters a xiaomara Garcia she is one of
028our seniors who will unfortunately be leaving us this year we have Jocelyn KU who is our pitcher she did very well this year as well Brianna otara our first year Rookie of the Year okay Jocelyn was also our MVP and we have Shirley Ruiz with us today representing the softball team so we thank you all very much we had a great season these guys were a lot of fun to coach and those of us that were missing we missed them greatly but they were awesome and it was just a great year so thank you so much we appreciate the board and everybody for you know recognizing us and our accomplishments this year thank you [Applause] the board doesn't object we're going to take a brief recess so we can enjoy some cake and all that
029good stuff yeah no objections okay so we're on a break 38 pm um we are currently on the first public comment section on agenda items only so 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 utterly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments limited to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the 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
030comments 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 with that this first public comment portion is now open is there any member of the public wishing to speak good evening my name is Nicole Zamora I just wanted to introduce myself to you guys because I see that I'm on the agenda for tonight on under personnel
031number five appointments and I just wanted to say that I look forward to working for Dover Public Schools [Music] I mean looking at today tonight's um congratulations congratulations to the retirees it's just you can see um the fact that each one has been working for so many years speaks volumes about this public school district and I'm just really happy and honored that I could be able to work for Dover Public Schools and I just wanted to introduce to all of you tonight thank you so much thank you is there any other member of the public wishing to speak uh Susan shower 346 West Clinton Street in Dover first I just wanted to say I was thrilled tonight to be able to be here with all of the retirees I have such a connection with so
032many of them and uh they brought me to a little bit of tears and it was just fabulous to be able to be here tonight to see this happen um something that is not so fabulous that is on the agenda for this evening under uh Personnel is a resignation by The District's fourth ba slash board secretary in four years actually less than four years probably 3.5 years this is the fourth this is extremely concerning it's concerning for a number of reasons the uh it seems to be happening more and more the Bas come they work for about a year and then they leave or even less than a year we go through the same routine then of having to have a forensic audit to make sure that everything is okay that costs money Replacements cost
033money in terms cost money on top of salaries already being paid and it breaks confidence with the community to see the lack of consistency in our business operating office it literally breaks the bond between the community our resources and the connection here with the board this board asked for a referendum a public referendum that the ba would have paid a played a huge part in and now he's gone now he resigned that in itself is scary where would we have been if the referendum had passed I also saw under policy a new job title which I'm assuming will be followed by a body by an employee for director of curriculum and professional development this seems to be a new trend in the district that we hire administrators we pay them a substantial salary we quickly
034give them increases in their salary for additional duties that they did not realize that they had to perform and then we hire assistants to help them in their duties this professional development curriculum writing director the duties would seem to be those that are also of the superintendent and of the assistant superintendent unless of course there has been a tremendous change in the job descriptions of the superintendent and assistant superintendent I don't know how much this District can shoulder with all of these administrative positions that make so much money I don't know how we can keep doing it I don't know how the taxpayers can keep taking on the burden of increases um but it's a concern your time is up so please finish up thank you Mr crude it's a concern and it's a growing
035concern because it it's happening more and more um this this is just it's a concern thank you thank you Miss shower is there any other member of the public wishing to speak hello Rob Maines nine North elk Avenue Dover I want to thank the board of education for recognizing us tonight and you know keep paying the respect for the teachers because it has been a pleasure to be here and I know everyone here who taught everyone except for one that's pretty good um and I still want to stay involved in fact at the recommendation of many people in the community I did apply just minutes before I got here for the citizens advisory committee so if you need an extra body I still want to stay involved in the community thank you thank you so
036much is there any other member of the public wishing to speak good evening John Coniglio 24 Taylor Town Road Montville so I would also like to address the items under policy and the agenda tonight number 17. well it's policy is number 17 but it's actually number five and number six which michauer referenced earlier and additionally there's some other items in that that I would like to discuss as well so first on their number five we have a few job descriptions that are up for approval tonight one of them is paraprofessional Aid the other is special education paraprofessional Aid and then we have the director of curriculum instruction and professional development my questions are for the first two for paraprofessional lead and for special ed power professional lead we currently have a extremely difficult time finding
037paraprofessionals that's no secret to anybody from what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong the updated job description will include a test that powers must pass in order to be a part of the Dover Public Schools so my question is is this test going to be a part of the job description number one is this test a requirement for employment in New Jersey or is this just an extra thing that we want to put on Powers that we want to hire for the district because I have concerns about that we're already short and now we're adding another additional obstacle so I would just like a little more information if that is actually the case or not the second thing is for the director of curriculum instruction at PD and it kind of ties together
038with the supervisor pre-k6 and professional development as you know I am an elementary school teacher so this uh affects me personally because we had a great relationship with our supervisor of pre-k through six a professional development and she's no longer with the district because she resigned and I feel and my elementary peers feel that she did a fantastic job here and it is a shame that we want to abolish that position because we relied on her for a lot and now she's going somewhere else and now we have nobody according to this we can't do this we have to think of something else it's an important position please do not abolish it thank you thank you Mr Coniglio is there any other member of the public wishing to speak to 17 Baker Street I'm a
039little new to this so some of my comment was a little bit related to the agenda so I'll bring that up right now um I would also like to add the information from the agenda as far as the eight full-time secretary positions that are being reassigned for this upcoming year which are only for the Belmont location and these are all I believe administrative positions on that site we all know from the past referendum that was pushed so hard with the main reason being that the student capacity in our district was overpopulated over capacity and in one of the most recent meetings highlighting that classrooms especially our bilingual classrooms were also over capacity it is a fact that many of our immigrant students come to the U.S after finishing their school year in their home countries
040many of them coming around February or March last board meeting there was a comment from our Administration indicating how can they post a position so late in the year if this is something that's already known a known fact why not post it in budget 4 ahead of time our students need more direct help coming from classrooms teachers and aides unless administrative positions not dealing with our students on a day-to-day basis the website my ad no longer shows the data for classroom sizes which was initially showing misleading numbers and there are many technology staff being reappointed this year perhaps this can be assigned as a priority since our community has been continuing asking for such information and I also wanted to point out that the rate of the substitutes teachers are being lowered and I know
041it was hardly pushed after the pandemic for 250 a day and 200 a day and this is now being lowered how will that affect the substitute which are also on a day-to-day working with our students thank you is there any other member of the public wishing to speak seeing no other member of the public wishing to speak this section of public comment is now closed um Dr McLaughlin um I'm curious to know there was a comment made about the para job descriptions and a testing requirement for those positions can you expand on that and offer some clarity yeah sure uh we are a title one District all of our schools are Title One schools so we are subject to the regulations for paraprofessional requirements set by the state for Title One schools uh that can
042be a degree requirement a credit requirement or the option of a test so the the test actually provides us with an additional option if the individuals don't have that degree or credit requirement it's not required that they have all three it's one of those we did actually multiple times ask for clarification from the state of New Jersey uh that if we didn't use title funds to pay our power professionals do we have to still meet those title one requirements because they are over and above if you're a non-title one school and you're not using Title One money uh those would not be the same requirements but basically our responses from the state were that it's a tough question that they really don't have anyone who can answer that definitively and we're just better off applying
043the title one criteria so adding the test allows people who don't have the credit or the degree option to be an aide it's actually meant to be to throw a broader net rather than a narrower one thank you Dr McLaughlin um one of the other comments referenced some information that was uh listed on the website that is no longer there can you provide some clarity on that sure we had um it was actually I think at one of our recent Community forums some feedback about the dashboard that had been placed on the website and that it was hard to follow uh it wasn't clear enough might be misleading so we are reconstructing that dashboard uh to provide clearer data in regard to what our enrollment is overall as a district the some of the other
044pieces of information that the public asked for such as not only how many students are enrolled on a monthly basis but how many disenroll on a monthly basis and so we are redesigning that that also requires some different types of reporting from Genesis which we are doing so I would imagine certainly before September but most likely during the summer we'll see that dashboard reappear but it will have a different look to it thank you Dr McLaughlin um we're going to move along absolutely thank you um I wanted to ask for a clarification um when it comes to the rates of the substitutes I believe we had a special rate for a special time and since we're seeing that on the agenda I'm assuming it's because that special time has ended can you elaborate a little
045on that uh please yes so over the last two years we have been able to use Esser funds that's American Rescue plan funds to uh supplement our substitute rate that's always been described as a covet rate and so that's been approved for the last two years using the Esser funds two hundred dollars for a daily rate 250 for a a long-term substitute someone who comes in regularly three or four times a week unfortunately Esser funds are just about depleted so we won't be able to continue to supplement that however you will see that these rates are substantially higher than our pre-covet rates so we have raised the rate I believe our last standard rate both for long term or for uh day-to-day Subs was 125. so this is a significant increase for for the standard
046rate that we had previously had and how do you see this impacting our district our teachers the support our students well the district is traditionally pre-covet rate had a really hard time getting Subs we we have attracted because certainly we have stood out from other districts with the higher covet sub-rate and we have recruited many many more subs our hope is that the subs who have been here and who have had a positive experience and we've got a lot of positive feedback we'll choose to remain here uh both because of their familiarity and uh their life of being in the schools but also because this rate is still among the highest that's being provided among David districts thank you Miss casales are there any other questions from the board okay so we're going to move
047along to the approval of minutes is there a motion to approve the mid it's just informational I'm gonna need clarity as to why okay so um just some informational items go ahead expand on that just as a point of information uh the the minutes from the last couple of meetings are not ready to be approved tonight and so they will be on the agenda and for approval at the next board meeting we're moving on to Communications the whole board Communications I am aware of are from Mr Jaime on 523 inviting the board to the DMS induction ceremony Miss Matarazzo on 531 sharing a thank you from students Miss Anastasio on 625 in reference to the music program are there others that I missed no okay so we are moving along to miss Calderon Alvarez will
048you share your report with the board good evening I want to start off by sharing a couple activities that took place or involved students at Dover High school during the last month of the 2022-2023 school year on Monday June 12th and Tuesday June 13th Miss Carol was in charge of organizing Dover Middle School's field day with this Juniors and seniors from Dover High school were invited to participate and help out with this event students and teachers were assigned groups that were labeled by colors where they competed in different activities in an attempt to accumulate as many points as possible to reach the top three places this was a very fun activity that only that not only middle schoolers enjoyed but also the high school students during that same week the last spare week of the
049year was held at Dover High School since it was the last full week of school Monday was Tiger day Tuesday was country or city day Wednesday was Adam Sandler day Thursday was sports day and Friday was soccer mom or cookout that day it was a very creative and interactive week a new activity that was held at the high school this year was Choice day for grades 9 through 11. Choice day was scheduled for Tuesday June 20th since it was the it was a half day a week prior to the event a survey was sent out to the student body in order to choose the activities they would like to participate in throughout the whole day this day was broken up into four periods where the students attended the four activities that they had chosen for
050that day activities included crochet Field Day activities tie-dye stations showroom among others this was a new activity for freshmen sophomores and juniors seniors were not able to apply [Music] to participate since they had graduation practice another activity that was this that was new this year was taping Mr Nunez to the wall Mr Nunez has stated that the class that had the best attendance for the fourth marking period would have the opportunity to tape him to the wall The Freshman Class The Freshman Class of 2026 won the competition therefore had the opportunity of taping Mr Nunez to the walk the greatest event that took place this month was the graduation ceremony for the class of 2023. in this ceremony the class of 2023 was recognized recognized for their academic achievements and determinations I would just like
051to congratulate the class of 2023 wishing them the best of luck in their future endeavors and letting them letting them know that they will be missed to conclude my report today I would like to thank each and every one of you board members for everything being the student representative of Dover High School was a very enjoyable experience because I was able to reach out to the student body and present to you concerns they had at first I was very nervous about presenting myself before you but every one of you made me feel comfortable and welcome you are all great people and again thank you for making this experience unique I also want to thank the student body for this opportunity for allowing me to represent over high school as a whole I want to let
052you know all that I fulfilled my tasks as best as I could I hope that I was a positive impact on our community and like I stated in my introduction one of my goals is to bring pride and satisfaction to Dover High school thank you thank you Miss Calderon Alvarez um you accomplished that goal absolutely and I will say that I um I'm always on Instagram and I've seen the pictures and videos from Mr Nunes getting tied um taped up it was hilarious um thank you are there any comments or questions based on Miss Calderon Alvarez's report no seeing none I am moving along to the board president's report I am happy to report since our last board meeting the administration Mr Miller and I along with the full support of the board have successfully
053advocated for the introduction of Bill s-3937 to the states no 3947 I'm sorry s3947 to the state senate for approval Bill s3947 directs the commissioner of Education to establish criteria and make recommendations on designation of school districts as SDA districts if approved this bill will give Dover an on-ramp to becoming an SDA District which will provide a critical Lifeline to Dover taxpayers and potentially drastically improve the learning environment of our students moving along I'd like to remind everyone that the deadline for submitting a petition to run for a seat on the Dover board of education is coming up the end of July it is my hope if you choose to run you do so in the hopes to work together with the full board to positively impact student achievement and not use your seat on
054this board as a political chess piece let me be clear if your intentions are the latter I will personally call you out and hold you accountable I will now take a moment to speak directly to our community we hear your concerns what's going on with my mic that's good okay we hear your concerns over the number of resignations our district has faced over the past few years these matters are confidential and cannot be discussed in public but please rest assured that this board does not take these resignations lightly we are asking the tough questions and finally as Miss Calderon Alvarez already mentioned last week our board had the opportunity to confer diplomas to the Dover High School class of 2023. and celebrate the 8th graders moving up to high school again on behalf of the
055Dover Board of Education congratulations and that concludes my report we are moving along to administrative reports Dr McLaughlin thank you good evening each year Administrative Code requires me to report on the HIV scores submitted to the Department of Education the harassment intimidation and bullying scores it is important to note that this is always one year removed so the scores that I am sharing are reflective of the 2021-2022 school year the overall assessment for our district with a maximum score of 78 was 69. our scores ranged from 67 through 73 among our schools included in the overall score are core elements core element one is in regard to HIV programs approaches or other initiatives there's a maximum score of 15 in this area our scores ranged among our schools from 12 to 14 and had a
056district mean up 12.6 within this I'd like to make the following comments all of our anti-bullying specialist Specialists differentiate presentations for all of our grade levels at each School classes receive appropriate instruction and information on HIV policies and procedures that support an overall positive School climate and ways to get help or help others when it comes to conduct that is in violation of HIV student assemblies that focus on HIV are also included in this area a multitude of programs ran through our various schools such as the Rutgers behavioral health program character counts committee cybersmart assemblies the lgbtq plus presentations grad Ribbon Week events week of respect Spirit Week gender and violence workshop for juniors minding your mind presentations to seniors mental health awareness week activities and responsive classroom programs at various grade levels at the
057elementary schools varied assessments were administered during and after presentations and an HIV assessment was given to all sixth grade students and fourth grade students at the fourth grade level social spoil groups were also administered pre and post assessments also included in the overall scores core element 2 which is training on the board of education approved HIV policy and procedures the maximum score for this area is a nine our scores ranged among our schools from eight to nine we had a district mean of 8.2 instruction included Diversity Awareness staff to student training making schools safe and inclusion for for transgender students HIV policy 5512 is often referenced in trainings that reinforces discrimination of any type and that will not be tolerated in our district school announcements addressing the topic of diversity and inclusion support a positive
058School climate for all students the usage of goggle and securely provide notification to our Administration so possible cases of HIV can be addressed immediately another core element core element 3 regards other staff instruction and training programs there's a maximum score in this area of 15. our scores ranged among our schools from 12 through 14 with a district mean of 12.6 programs that fit this criteria include a wide range of training including bullying reorganization and response making schools safe and inclusion for transgender students Diversity Awareness staff to student and family partners and talking to teens about suicide this core element was the district's lowest score and was addressed this past year in the current year that with more trainings and meetings with the entire ABS staff core element number four curriculum and instruction on HIV related
059information and skills there's a maximum score of six within this category our scores range from five to six with a district mean of 5.8 within this category HIV presentations are geared towards grade level appropriate content that are focused not just on HIV school policies but also on preventions and ways to be enough standard character education presentations as well as well as SEL displays reinforce instruction and an overall positive climate spirit days in conjunction with the week of respect and school violence awareness week also support positive skills being taught in core element number five HIV personnel the maximum score for this area is a nine our scores range from seven to nine with a district mean of 7.4 the district has contact information on our abs's on the website those are our anti-bullying Specialists and each
060school safety and climate team meets at least twice ABS meetings with the anti-bullying coordinator did not take place the minimum amount of times although I want to note that the expectation has been exceeded for the year that we just completed and so we'll see a higher score in that area one of the reasons we we look at this and go through the grading process is to get feedback on our overall compliance and so we use this to identify areas that we need to bolster in the next year core element number six School level HIV incidents reporting procedures that had a maximum score of six our scores our district schools all had a score of six so there was a district mean of six and here we particularly utilize the stop it app which is posted
061on the website that allows for anonymous reporting by parents and students student interview and statement forms allow for expression of a student's version of an incident staff members also have forms to express themselves as part of an investigation and HIV instructions for an investigation are clearly listed in the hip procedures shared at staff meetings core element 7 deals with HIV investigation procedures there's a maximum score of 12 in this area our scores range from 11 to 12 there was a district mean of 11.6 and the comments in this area is that all of our procedures follow a strict timeline with the necessary documentation of each step in the process core element number eight HIV reporting there's a maximum score of six in this area our scores ranged among our schools from a five to a
062six with the district mean of 5.2 staff members are trained in reporting procedures and are made aware of instructions for HIV investigations as well as the timeline the HIV assessment grades are posted on the website I do want to apologize to the board that I think I provided a truncated part of this report in what I shared prior to the meeting I'll provide the full document and also this document will be pasted on the website for anybody who would like to refer to it our scores are already there but the this document will contain some of the backup information that I've mentioned I would also like to congratulate the class of 2023 on their successful graduation from Dover High school as well as our eighth grade class on their promotion to ninth grade as has
063already been comment on both ceremonies were held at Hamilton field the weather was beautiful for both and the ceremonies were truly impressive and I would like to thank all who were involved in the successful events that includes our school administration our custodians uh RIT Personnel our faculty who helped out the support of the board and the presence of the board and the involvement of the board in those ceremonies and really I think the Joy on our kids faces was apparent to everybody who attended and their families summer programming is set to begin on July 3rd and each of our schools will have robust learning programs for students in addition to Summer learning our school district will provide the summer meal program once again at every school as well as our public library and the Town
064recreation program also the Dover Schools will be providing indoor space for the town's Recreation program in the case of inclement weather staff recruitment and hiring for the upcoming school year is fully underway as exemplified by the number of new hires on tonight's agenda candidates for positions in our school district undergo a rigorous process which includes a paper review interview demo lessons and phone references I'd like to thank our leadership team for their diligence in seeking the best candidates to fill dover's open positions for the 2023-2024 school year as it's already been commented on I would like to highlight an agenda item tonight and that is for the creation of the director of curriculum instruction and professional development position you will see that there is a uh a rescission of the current uh Elementary supervisor position
065uh which would be replaced and I would call upgraded to this director position this director position would most likely result in an increase of about twenty thousand dollars in remuneration plus additional responsibilities the importance of this position is to both oversee but most importantly support the varied instructional programs that are happening in the district over the past four years our instructional programs and initiatives have increased drastically as has the number of teachers that have been appointed in the district so we have more Personnel we have more programs our programs just to give examples that have been put in place in the last four years reading and writing Workshop foundations the CTE program at the high school our new partnership classes with WP EU and also with CCM the uh graphic arts program in its full
066design the use of technology which also is integrated with instruction we are we have as you may know we opened Google Classroom four years ago which was a big step forward we are taking that additional step by providing a much more comprehensive program in Con in canvas for our teachers and students for 7th through 12th grades we're looking forward to that initiative but all of these initiatives require support it's it's not enough to launch a program teachers and administrators need the support of individuals who can show how these programs can be properly implemented and coordinate activities that are designed to support the programs the elementary supervisor position was initiated because of the amount of Elementary programs in the district and this position will certainly incorporate that but it will it will also Encompass more uh
067by switching out the positions we're doing a couple of things one uh the position is already budgeted for in large part by the position that we are eliminating uh additionally we had budgeted for a full-time theater teacher we only have the need for a halftime theater teacher so the monies are there in the salary lines that are budgeted so there's no extra expense by moving forward with this position in addition to what I've mentioned this position also provides a path for our administrators especially our new administrators at the lowest levels who are looking for a progression as has been mentioned we have lost three administrators three happy administrators and over this year because districts have given them a range of twenty to thousand dollars twenty to thirty thousand dollars more than their salaries here in
068Dover we are in a competitive market people have need uh to meet their own family needs their own personal needs and they're going to Aspire to districts that need them there's a neighboring District right now that has this exact title and they're advertising for it and one of the things we don't want is for a happy administrator to leave Dover because their only opportunity is in a district that provides a path that we don't so this is part of part of the issue it's it isn't the primary issue but it's also a very important issue so I do want to stress how important this position is how important the programs that we're providing are how much we understand uh the support that's needed when staff are asked to implement complicated and new programs that certainly
069has been made clear in our many meetings with our deact committee through our skip committees and other forums with our staff as they have expressed some of the challenges in implementing good programs but program amps that that put a lot on their plate and certainly we want to provide that level of support so uh with that that closes my report for this evening thank you Dr McLaughlin um are there any comments or questions based on his report Dr saner um thank you Dr McLaughlin um a request I think your explanation of the HIV data would have been greatly enhanced by numbers on that beautiful board behind you a simple just to it's very hard to hear lists of numbers and kind of process them so a no big deal no giant presentation but just some
070graphics would have been very useful thank you um I I just wanted to ask specifically uh Mr Coniglio came up and I was happy to hear uh had value uh valued um the k-6 supervisor um and I just I think I heard it in your explanation but I just want to clarify that the proposed director of curriculum and instruction and professional development would meet would carry out the same functions that Mr Coniglio alluded to and do more but the that person when hired will perform the functions that Mr Coniglio expressed the need for absolutely it's an expanded position that encompasses what that individual was doing and more thank you thank you Dr saner um any other comments or questions from the board nope serigliano your report please I'd like to start my report by extending
071some thank and acknowledgments I'd like to commend our DHS and DMS staff for the two outstanding graduation ceremonies that were held last Tuesday and Wednesday evening moments such as graduations are such a highlight for families and for our town as a whole graduation reinforces our true Mission here which is our students to you Dover graduates for the class of 2023 we welcome you to reach back out say hello we are here and please let us know how you're doing we are so proud of you and want to know all about your successes good luck to our teaching and support staff at this time of year we applaud you you have maintained a consistently high level of commitment to our students throughout the school year no one will argue that your jobs have changed when I
072left the classroom in the fall of 2014 sgos were just coming in line and so was the shift to the Common Core well since that time we've moved to online standardized testing as a norm teaching in a zoom window for a year or more and new heavier responsibilities which focus on the social emotional learning and student health and safety within the school buildings and within your classrooms all of which were probably not covered in teacher preparation courses for your continued support of our students we thank you please take the summer to rest truly rejuvenate and come back to the very reason why you entered teaching find that purpose again and use it to motivate yourself for the 23-24 school year which will be here before you know it to our administrative staff it's been quite
073a year your continued support of our teachers is is sincerely appreciated and is one of the many remarkable qualities within our administrative team we thank you for your leadership your continued support of us as your leaders and the time ever and dedication you bring each and every day to Dover thank you lastly I want to mention one event that our student representative Miss Alvarez also mentioned it occurred on Tuesday June 20th where 894 students in grades 9 through 11 at Dover High School participated in Choice day Choice day was initiated due to collaboration between the high school administration and staff members to provide students with an opportunity for social emotional learning at the end of the school year in March the High School faculty were asked for suggestions of activities for students to select over
07420 activities were suggested including yoga tiger tie-dye and crochet all day students were provided with this list and were able to suggest other activities that they would like to see offer offered student suggestions included Mario Kart natural nature walks and a soccer tournament there were 34 choices for students when the two lists were combined student and selected four activities and two alternates but over 95 percent of students participated in all of their requested activities the feedback from the staff and students was extremely positive and students have requested that we have additional Choice days at the high school in the future I'd like to thank the DHS Administration and faculty to cut for coming together and for their work on this activity and this concludes my official report I did want to highlight uh underneath the
075Personnel section A few of the resignations we have we're receiving tonight a resignation from Miss Fullerton who has been working as the DMS slash ede School liaison her commitment to Dover families does not go unnoticed and so I wanted to acknowledge her service in The District in that position another resignation we have Miss Gina heinemann our supervisor of Science in 21st century skills again very much a a thoughtful and contributive member of our administrative team that that will be missed uh and Miss Jessica Nathan our elementary supervisor who also did the professional development piece again uh two supervisors that absolutely will be missed on our administrative team and we wish them all the best and hopefully worlds and education tend to run small hopefully we we will see them again so good luck to miss
076Fullerton miss heinemann and miss Nathan thank you mrigliano um are there any questions or comments based on her report no seeing none we are moving along to the Boe reports um Mr Miller is in Disney right now um so I will um provide an update from the Morris County Education Services Commission they met on June 14th for reorganization um and I'm happy to report that Mr Miller was elected to their board as a voting member um and he when he sent me the message he said again so um and it seems there are no other items of interest to report um and we're moving along to the legislative report as you can see Mrs Phillips is not present but she has indicated that she will provide a full report at our next meeting so we'll
077move along to miss nutting the Morris County njsba report to report at this time thank you Miss nutting um we'll move along to miss grisales the Mine Hill ad hoc report thank you mine Hill ad hoc committee last met on March 28th and continues to wait for both Mine Hill and over legal representation to agree on further negotiation aspects and then they um Mr croup would more likely update the full board under executive session thank you Miss Chris Alice um so we're going to move along to administrative approval is there a motion to approve items a through J including the hand carry items K and L so move we have a motion by Miss nutting do we have a second second we have a motion by my studying a second by Miss grisales uh is
078there any discussion Dr saner thank you I have a question um regarding item J um how many students uh will this apply to and do they also any of these students also have attendance issues which that may be also prohibiting them from meeting the graduation requirements uh the students there are 26 students who met the state requirement did not meet the entire local requirement so those that's the num the overall number none of those students had C time the C time was not involved in that we had a program this year to recover see time on Saturdays and and that was very successful thank you very much um I wanted to acknowledge uh that our district is showing commitment to increasing the diversity of our staff by working with CJ pride and I wanted to
079ask if you would please explain how our participation in this group benefits our district and our students yeah CJ pride is a shared service among a number of and a growing number of school districts throughout the state who concentrate focused energy on hiring diverse staff one of one of the ways that that occurs is through joint Recruitment and through a recruitment Fair actually one of the people on our agenda tonight was someone who was identified through through that recruitment Fair the uh I I believe especially as we re-establish in-person recruitment times and events uh CJ Pride will be increasing the number of activities they have uh I think in joining is part of a common commitment helps us rather than feeling that we're competing against each other's districts we're working together uh to to find
080people who meet the needs of our students thank you um I did not present this uh question ahead of time um but it may be just as simple yes or no um answer um in item K we are resolving to approve uh the agreement with school accounting services I'm curious if you can um tell us if this is part of the plan in response to the resignation of the business yes later yes are there any other um is there any other discussion from the board seeing no further discussion we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss Visalus to approve items under administrative um approval items a through J including the hand carry items k l Mr crew may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes Ms Downs yes Miss
081Chrysalis yes Ms nutting yes Dr saner yes Ms Mendez yes motion carries we are moving along to Personnel Miss nutty like to make a motion upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the borderproof the following Personnel resolutions a 1 through 43 would hand carry changes to four or five and the addition of 44 45 and 46. we have a motion by Miss nutting is there a second second we have a second by miss grisalis any discussion yes um did you have something I believe yes I wanted um to ask if you could again I didn't we sent this one um it might be a simple answer though if you can clarify a little bit about number two under person a two um meaning that what does this mean to us in regards to um you
082hi us giving you that um Personnel access okay so the district has uh over the past few years uh routinely passed this resolution what this means is that when for example as of tomorrow uh if I interview a candidate who meets the criteria of of a teacher in the district um the district extends an offer typically the person is told to wait until the next board meeting to know that they are approved the board is authorized this resolution in the past so that an immediate offer can be made that would allow the person upon acceptance to Tender their resignation knowing they would be hired um it's particularly sensitive during the summer months because anyone who works for a school district has to provide 60 days notice so if we wait until July 25th for example
083for someone who we see tomorrow on the 28th of June that takes all those days away that could have been provided to the other district with notice same thing with August and obviously it makes it even more significant there because you're well into the school year a school district in the in in the long time past when there are lots of candidates a district might have waived their 60-day requirement but nobody's waiving the 60-day requirement now we we wouldn't if we had a teacher who who resigned on on August 15th we'd have to keep them for the 60 days because we'd need all of that 60 days to replace them so this really allows the district to move forward with its Staffing this is as you can tell this agenda and the subsequent agendas in
084in July hopefully not as much in August but certainly July we'll also have a lot of personnel on them and one last question or more common actually on item um under Mr slam's resignation given the common uh from the public I was wondering if it's possible to share with us um and obviously you tell us at what time is appropriate that you're prepared what what our plan is as a district to cover this resignation I know that you answered yes to the other question and more details would be helpful for our community to see that you have this covered yes so we uh we are moving ahead on a temporary basis with a retired business administrator who's it was actually a company we were already prepared to engage with because they're assisting us with payroll
085with some of our recent payroll issues in the district so um Dana Sullivan would be the individual who would be acting as our interim uh ba until such time as we could find a more permanent solution it's nothing just to be um open with the public I did send a question asking about the new director of curriculum position and their benefit to our students and explaining what the role entails um thank you for giving that explanation and answering my question prior to so everyone knows that I did ask that question thank you miss them any other discussion from the board seeing no further discussion we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss grisalis to approve the items under Personnel including the hand carry items um Mr crew may we have a roll
086call vote please Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chris Alice yes Miss nutty yes Dr saner yes Ms Mendez yes motions carry Miss Rodriguez I just want to say welcome as our new board secretary um we are moving along to negotiations Miss netting so for negotiations we have a meeting with the DEA on Thursday and we hope to schedule a meeting with the administrators soon thank you Miss Nadine oh let me catch up here myself okay we are moving along to governance Mr Robles is not present the one detail that I do know because uh we I believe the minutes um were shared at the last minute but I know that the committee met on June first so I'm wondering if yeah Miss Downs I think you're the only Committee Member here do you
087have any is there anything of note that you think um you'd like to share if not it's okay not at this time thank you so is there a motion to approve item one under governance second we have a motion by Miss nutting and a second by Miss grisales is there any discussion um Miss Mendes this may not be a question that you can answer but I'm hoping that through you we can answer it um the one of the requirements in the policy states that all board members will receive a training in HIV I don't know if everyone noticed that and I'm curious to see if maybe Miss Dallas can Enlighten us what was covered if at all when it comes to if we pass this policy I know this is the first reading when would
088we be all expected to do it there isn't a time frame and do we have any um contact or communicate or information on when that is offered by NJ SBA thank you Miss Chrysalis um I am unaware of the conversations that have been taking place in governance Miss Downs is there anything you can um Dr McLaughlin don't you attend those meetings I do oh you can help us out here so that um the HIV component was not uh well we don't have any information from school boards about when they're going to provide this certainly if if it was permitted we we could provide HIV but that's not usually the way that school boards does things they usually want to provide it themselves so uh this is a tight timeline though for for new board members
089to get trained yeah and and that's a little of my concern having it such a permanent way and a policy when we don't have that um flexibility or that availability maybe that would make me a little nervous and not I I'm all for the HIV training I just don't want us to set ourselves up for something that we may not it would be out of our control to comply with yeah so this is one of those instances where whether we put it in policy or not you have to do it because it's in code because it's what in code it's legislative change yeah so it's not like we really have an option of putting it or not Dr McLaughlin just just a quick question uh I'm just not familiar with that you know I have
090the resolution in front of you but not the policy does it specifically stay Stayed in the policy that it has to be school boards Association that provides it no I I don't think so I just know that that's the way it is yeah I think it does I can read it for you if you want yeah it says within one year after being newly elected or appointed or being re-elected or reappointed to the Boe a board member shall complete a training program on harassment intimidation and bullying in schools including the school district responsibility under such and such number a board member shall be required to complete a program only once and training on harassment intimidation and bullying in school shall be provided by the njsba in consultation with recognized experts in school bullying from a
091cross-section of Academia child advocacy non-profit professional and government agencies that was covered it's been but I believe it was as if our new members are attending governance one then they are receiving the njsba HIV training there was a whole section on that um that's a question I I I have another issue with this policy I know that um the current um form of this policy mandates that the training has to be done within one year but from my understanding the State Board just passed um a new 90-day mandate for training so um in its current state we can't approve this policy the first reading too it's important though for us to notice before our final Miss Mendes I have another proposed change to the policy yes doctor um the policy states quote each new board
092member will be invited and it is encouraged to meet and discuss the responsibilities and authority of a board member board functions and board policies and procedures with the board president parentheses if available the superintendent and the school business administrator board secretary our board has a proud tradition over the last four years at least and through three different president VP teams for providing training for new board members additionally I think that training is critical for the success of new and old board members some of whom have never even attended a board meeting prior to their first actual board meeting I think this training should be mandatory um additionally mentoring new members is a critical responsibility of all board members but primarily the board President and Vice President so that I request that the parentheses if available
093phrase be removed and VP added I'm sorry could you go back again just so I know exactly where you're sure so it says if we go back to end board policies and procedures with the board president if available is in parentheses I would like if available do you need me to go each new board member will be invited and is encouraged to meet and discuss did you find the paragraph yeah okay so I would propose that we remove if available and add procedures with the board President and Vice President so we're adding in and vice president and leaving the rest as it is yeah I think that's reasonable if if everyone's in agreement you don't you can just make that change without doing a motion to amend it it seems like but there are a
094couple of things we have to change so what do you recommend is the best route then well that's that's for that part um what else is there that you I mean I know there's some issue about whether there's 90 days that's something that could be picked up oh it's in there Miss Mendes if I may make a suggestion that we address each right if everyone's okay with that proposed and we can kind of move on to the other ones and not love them together it might be quicker that's fine um well apparently the 90 day is in there when I read it it wasn't so I don't know what I was reading but same Dr saner yeah I think the file that's in perhaps in our board packet is it's different yes sorry so so
095that portion of it then is fine so the only other issue then is the HIV and when would we be able to do that training right if if it's on governance once then we're covered um yes Miss Acevedo and Miss Downs who most recently took the training was it in governance one it was okay so so it's I think it's a non-issue because that has to happen within 90 days anyway yeah um so the only other part which I think we're all in agreement about is changing the if available and switching that out for vice president everything else is the same after that um so everyone is okay with that um do we need to amend the motion everyone's in agreement then then it's fine it's a it's by consent okay so we have a
096motion by Miss nutting we have a second by Miss grisales um to approve item one under governance Mr crew may we have a roll call please Ms Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Ms Chris Alice yes Ms nutting yes Dr saner yes Ms Mendez yes motion carries thank you Mr crew we are moving along to student achievement and curriculum Dr saner thank you we met on June 12 2023 and we had special guests Mr Nunez the high school principal and Mr Jaime the Middle School principal and uh at our meeting we discussed changes to the grading at both schools that will happen in the fall as well as some proposals for a meeting the needs of students who arrive mid-year and helping them stay on track for graduation we also discussed the student codes of conduct
097and the handbooks for all of our schools elementary through high school we discussed the CBI project award which will help us meet the needs of our development developmentally disabled students and this will involve help a kind of a partnership with Rutgers and a full year of training before the program launches in 2024-25 we discussed um a clinical partnership with William Patterson to provide clinical externships with their speech and hearing clinic and finally we discussed the director of curriculum instruction and professional development position that is on the agenda tonight um with that I would move that the board approves resolutions 1 through 13 including the hand carry number 14. we have a motion by Dr saner is there a second second we have a motion by Dr saner a second by Miss Acevedo is there any
098discussion seeing no discussion um we have a motion by Dr saner a second by Miss nutting to approve the items on their student achievement and curriculum including the hand carry item Mr crew may we have a roll call vote please Ms Acevedo yes Ms Downs yes Miss grisalis yes Miss Nuttin yes an esteem firm number 13. Dr saner yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries Miss Phillips is not presents but miss Acevedo has volunteered to provide the community relations report Miss Acevedo the community relations committee did not meet during the month of June but we were excited to attend the various ends of the Year events the deadline to submit applications to the citizens advisory committee is this Friday June 30th thank you to those of those who have already applied the community relations committee will
099meet in early July to review the applications in our in our July meeting we will make a recommendation to the full board as to the proposed members of the citizens advisory committee we look forward to starting meetings with the advisory committee in late August early September thank you Miss Acevedo moving along to policy Ms stones policy committee 23 a regular session was approximately one hour and went into executive for about 15 minutes um Deborah Acevedo Diana Rosales and Danielle Daniella Mendez and myself for president Dr McLaughlin and miss cyrigliano were also present Mr Freddie Nunez was present as well as well as one member of the public um Mr Nunez did a presentation um is offered in advance of policy regulation changes that will be considered by the committee in September Mr Nunez stated there
100are two changes to the attendance policy being tardy to class and Mr Ms towns I'm so sorry to interrupt you I think some members of the public are having a hard time hearing can you just um maybe pull them out closer is what I'm hearing yeah sorry that's okay and tardy to school option two is also discussed which allows students to obtain credit for learning experience outside of the traditional classroom environment the following job descriptions are on the agenda the paraprofessional Aid the special education paraprofessional Aid director of curriculum instruction and professional development proposing an exchange the elementary supervisor position is being eliminated policy 2520 for instructional supplies procedures as written are being done in the district there's equitable distribution to students excuse me this is on the agenda for first approval policy 6112 reimbursement
101of federal and other Grant expenditures the only difference is changing the name of the act from Carl D Perkins Career and Technical education Improvement Act of 2006 to strengthening Career and Technical education for the 21st century act this is on the agenda for first approval policy 6115.04 federal funds duplication of benefits this is a new policy from stress s may it clearly describes that it will be the role of the school business administrator to ensure that there is no duplication of benefits with federal funds this is on the agenda for first approval policy 6311 contracts for goods or services funded by federal grants and ofac audit indicated a school district needed a policy guide requiring vendor suspension and disbarment checks completed by the school district for the purchase of goods or services funded by a
102Federal grant the policy guide should indicate these checks are applicable applicable applicable for Content tracks or purchase orders over twenty five thousand dollars unless the district chooses a lower threshold this is on the agenda for first approval regulation 2520 instructional supplies this regular regulation gets into the minutiae of Supply ordering regulation 6115.01 Federal Awards funds internal control allowability of costs and ofac audit indicated the school district should have a procedure regulation to include among other things a description of the process used in the district for Grant and budget development through the closeout of a grant in addition ofac recommended the district's regulation should include a required training tool and guide for employees to to be developed locally by the district stress as May developed a new regulation guide to 6115.01 that provides a basic process
103a school district may use for federally funded programs and grants this is on the agenda for first approval policies for second reading are p7440 School District security p5305 Health Services Personnel no regulation to policy P 5308 Health Services records and p310 health health services I make a mission to approve items one through six thank you Miss Townes we have a motion by Miss towns is there a second second we have a motion by Ms Donalds a second by Miss visales is there any discussion since there's no discussion I will make a statement and then we will have a roll call vote there are votes cast by elected officials that are harder than others and this next vote is one of them we were elected to this board by our community to make the tough decisions
104on their behalf and during our training we are taught to make decisions in the best interest of every student we are trained to trust and support our chief School administrators recommendations while still holding them accountable tonight I am having a hard time reconciling what may or may not be best for our students and what our most vocal community members want and expect from our vote tonight I am not entirely convinced the position director of curriculum instruction and professional development will add value to the education of our students I can say with certainty the folks that elected us to this position have no appetite for this position or any more director positions for that matter I can say with certainty the folks that elected us to this board would prefer the salary for this position in
105question instead be allocated to increasing the salaries of the teachers I can say with certainty regardless of how the vote turns out for this position going forward the expectation is that we will not be put in this position again until we see meaningful progress and results in High student achievement with that Mr crew may we have a roll call vote please Ms Acevedo no to item number three under five notice number six yes to all others give me one second I just want to make sure I understand sure so no to the third item on number five correct and did you also say no to number six not to number six okay Miss Downs yes Miss Chrysalis yes Miss nutting yes Dr saner I answer to the students of Dover and will make the decision
106that's best for them which is yes Ms Mendez no on um line three item five no on item six yes to everything else thank you the Motions carry we are hold on let me get my bearings here we go along to now we are moving along to uh finance and Facilities uh Mr Miller the chair I mean yeah he's the chair of that committee um it's not here but I the committee did not meet in June and will not meet again until September so with that is there a motion to approve items 1 through 36 including hand carry items 37 through 40. so moved we have a motion by um Dr saner is there a second second we have a motion by Dr saner a second by Miss nutting is there any discussion yes Dr
107Steiner and the Mesquite Salas um thank you could you pre sorry could you please briefly describe what Lincoln will provide for our district and how this will help improve student achievement absolutely uh so link it is everything I wish I had as a teacher but didn't link it is a dashboard that is created for administrators staff members even parents to basically house all of the standardized testing results or in District Benchmark results that our our teachers can give to the students so for example our access scores our njsla scores our NJ GPA our SAT PSAT Dr McLaughlin what else am I missing I ready um have actually already been gathered and sent to link it as we're working with them and starting our work to initiate the the dashboard but what it'll will allow teachers
108to do is a they will have a bank of Assessments that they can choose to work with their supervisor to incorporate into their instruction they can then provide Administration those results we then send it to link it they upload it and now we continue to have this data dashboard for the students to look at their achievement we are uploading not just this year's data but going back as far as we can trying to stay post covered using that kind of as our brake line to to have the data from that period of time into link it this will assist teachers with sgos this will assist teachers um I'm sorry administrators with their msgps this will allow for the conversations at the PD table and at the faculty meeting and in the lunchroom if teachers allow
109us to come in to focus on okay here's what you're seeing for student a how are we changing instruction or everything seems to be good for student a how are we going to tackle student B's areas of of weakness districts across the state of New Jersey have been using link it for years I was in districts that could never afford link it and now we're able to bring it to Dover and I said at the beginning I wish I had it as a teacher because I was in the classroom when we literally were on the floor with all of the score reports trying to create our own linket essentially with you know the materials and the resources that we had at that time this will bring our district forward in a in a big way
110for next year is is it possible that a teacher Mr Coniglio is not here but a sixth grade teacher who has a Class A Class roster could walk in on the first day of school and know that student a is going to need to look a little extra help in math while student B is going to need a little extra help in language arts for example yes and no there's there is a timeline that the district's working on to release link it in a very intentional way so we're not just you know putting in 400 teachers and to link it so we are working to develop a pilot program that will start in the fall get teachers to become those teacher leaders of linkit people have come to Dover with experience in Lincoln so we
111really want to capture that and then as we're going through the school year the training will follow the implementation so we don't want to just release it and have people you know clicking and pointing and figuring it out on their own it will be systematic systematically released with training but eventually teachers will walk into their classroom on day one and have some idea of where students will have challenges and how to meet them right right and this you know potentially opens up the door for common assessments at the high school because if we all have this pool of Assessments that that might be an option that we want to look at is everybody kind of using that same assessment we're not quite there yet we're going to focus on just the implementation getting people in
112getting them comfortable and and expanding at the same time their abilities to have conversations about the data that they're looking at making sure we understand the context how does that score relate to my instructional practice those are all conversations we've been having but now we can actually sit around the table and all be looking at the same data on that student or that classroom or that particular Benchmark okay thank you I have one more question the cash report shows negative balances could you explain how this is possible and why yes uh there are negative balances when there's uh Federal reimbursement uh that's involved so for example if someone's being paid through a title account uh or you're doing an expenditure expenditure through a title account you expend it and then you you apply you do
113a drawdown to get the reimbursement uh also uh because you reference to two accounts in the question that you sent to me uh in some cases it can also be because of a delay in terms of when the town transmits its tax burden uh to to us thank you and I also wanted to acknowledge um the road to awesome leadership training that you are that we have will be hopefully approving is highlighting facilitation of groups for consensus building and decision making meaningful celebrations and recognitions and then I thought it was really relevant uh climate and culture right it's just part of our ongoing attempt to improve the climate and culture of our schools for staff and students alike so thank you for that could I just bring up one related item next to number 11
114if the minutes could reflect that that is being funded through cceis from idea so it's an idea funded Ida is your individuals with disabilities Education Act there has to be set aside funds for general-led intervention so that's being funded there I'm sorry what what were the the initials before IDE I think you could just say that it's funded through idea I know we're supposed to have that in a resolution I'm sorry I didn't catch it is there any other discussion yes I just have a few comments I wanted to share my love my appreciation to Home Depot for their gift cards um to United Way for the snack packs and of course for the contributor Marin Community Foundation for their amount for our scholarships I also wanted to ask my fellow board members to take
115a close look as I see no one else has questions specifically on nine and ten these are very important items um before you take a vote and wanted to just highlight that for us and for our community foreign er um Ms griselas thank you for acknowledging the uh donations that we've received you did however miss one and so I'm tag teaming on your back um there were lab equipment and office supplies donated by Dr kumaru to Curry thank you I did have a heart around it in my agenda I just missed it missed it is there any other discussion Miss Acevedo I was wondering if um you can explain what it means that that service requirements from Victory Gardens I want to address that Mr crude what what I'm sorry it's on page 32 32
116items item nine so this this item is the annual approval of the tax levy between the the um the merged apologize not the business administrator so I'm going to do the best I can the the Dover and Victory Gardens were merged uh the Victory Gardens no longer has its own school district and they're merged into the Dover School District approximately a dozen years ago and as part of that there's a formula that the state put into place then which is still operating under which sets the relative proportions of the tax levy between the two towns as far as the the know the the allocation is concerned I forget what the exact percentages are the Dover by far uh pays the bulk of it and so there's there's two aspects to the levy there's there's sort
117of the um the regular tax levy share and then there's a separate item related to to to Debt Service which is debt that the the district has and there's a formula for what the relative percentages of Debt Service are between the two districts and there's actually there's actually a dispute going on right now uh between the districts as to the the um I think there's an approval of a settlement on tonight that solves the non-debt service portion of the issue but there's an ongoing dispute over the their responsibility for certain Debt Service that may have existed uh prior to the uh merger of the of the towns and if I could add to that that service is is funding from the last bonding that was done for the last successful referendum uh so it's it's
118you know those continue to be paid as part of debt service so that's the referendum that expires right yeah the one that's that's coming due soon but it still has some time left on it um can you can you corrective action plan is obviously I was not on the board um when that was done so I I was wondering if you can elaborate on that sure anytime you have a finding uh in the in an audit uh you have to have a corrective action plan basically that says how that's going to be uh remediated so uh that's uh that's what that refers to so it's like rectifying something on the in the budget correct we had we had one finding uh in this year's uh audit um I haven't done this yet but I'm going
119to put you on the spot Louisa since I know that you're very familiar with this you want to talk a little bit about what that finding was and how we're remediating it and it's not budget though that way good evening the audit finding was related to your fixed assets so when the order came in and reviewed reviewed your Capital assets and your picks asset listing the asset uh listing was not did not include everything that they're looking for tags they look for the assets to be in the right location so this has been an ongoing finding in the Dover audit and I know with the business administrator we are looking to hire an appraisal company to come in and do an overall review of the assets and hopefully this will be taken care of and
120the upcoming audit thank you you're welcome is there any other discussion seeing no further discussion uh we have a we have a motion by Dr Stayner second by Miss nutting Mr Coupe may we have a roll call vote please sure Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chris Alice yes Miss nutting Dr saner yes Ms Mendez yes motions carried thank you Mr crew um some informational items the um next few Boe meetings July 25th August 22nd September 26th um some use of facility approvals what are these activities the graduation for the Women's Center and the Fourth of July fireworks celebration yay um any old business no any new business I have an item for new business um we should probably at this point in time have a discussion about I mean we're missing a bunch
121of board members but I was hoping to have a discussion about picking a date um in August for a board retreat so that we can um Retreat right and come up with some goals for the upcoming um school year so I don't know we want to all look at our calendars for a second I have not yet completed the self-evaluation where we'll be doing that prior to the retreat so that we can go over those results as well right so um the board self-evaluation is not a requirement but it is best practice so that is the decision that we can make tonight together we can choose a date and decide if we're going to do the self-board evaluation in between now and then um Miss Mendes if I can present a date would the 29th
122work for everyone and the district and the space and all of that and maybe we can pick two dates and see if that especially for our fellow board members are not here in cf2 dates are pencil it in so the only thing I'll mention is that we have our uh Leadership Retreat the week of the 21st so typically we uh take the goals that the board has developed and we ask our leadership team to form District goals around them okay so it'd be great if we could have it before the 21st makes sense how about the 15th we have a board meeting that night right or no no the 22nd I don't know why my calendar so often that sorry okay so perhaps if anyone else has other suggestions can I propose the eighth I'm
123potentially not available on the 15th perhaps a doodle poll or does the eighth seem to work yes Miss Acevedo yes Miss grisales Miss towns is that okay with the administration okay so does someone want to make a motion sure I present the motion that we have our annual board retreat with our self-port evaluation um for the 8th of August at 5 30. second we have a motion by Miss Chrysalis um and a second by Dr saner is there any discussion can I can I just ask I think I'm sorry I didn't catch the time I think there was a time included 5 30. thank you thank you thank you 4 30 for you seeing no um discussion we have a motion by Miss lisalis a second by Dr saner on the motion of a board
124retreat on August 8th at 5 30 pm and that includes uh the board self-evaluation that we will work on between now and August 8th Mr crew may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes yes with the condition that if our other board members can't make it or that we revisit this if needed Miss nutty yes Mr sander yes Ms Mendez yes motion carries um any other new business okay so we're gonna move on absolutely not really so much new business but I it's a nice time to just point out and thank Our IT team uh this past week as you may know from all the alerts that went out we've been upgrading our servers which is really really important to the continued efficient running of our technology in the district but even
125though that's still happening and there's no internet in the district they were able to come up with a rescue plan to make sure that we have a live feed tonight and so I just wanted to thank them for for you know you know coming through and allowing our means to happen as they usually do I think that deserves a round of applause this meant this I I also have something to say absolutely I just want to commend um our District's translator um this is uh Munoz for her translation of Dr McLachlan's um speech that was just totally awesome she was on point and I was very very impressed yeah I I actually second that because it's it's not often when you are interpreting or translating where like you embody the emotion of the moment as
126well and Miss Munoz Rose to the occasion so a round of applause for her as well did not do anything for you that day so this Podium shouldn't do anything either and might I say Dr McLaughlin it was just a great sketch so I was gonna say [Music] so we are moving on 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 utterly 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
127was posted on the district website at 6 30 PM remote comments will be read by a member of the Board of Education the Board of Education will alternate between 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 us opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all my throat is so dry 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
128students or employees please be advised that you are commenting at your own risks any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to Legal liability for defamation public comment is now open is there any member of the public wishing to speak thank you Mary savera 217 Baker Street I would like to express my thanks to all teachers School staff administrators and Board of Education members for a great 2022-2023 school year as a northover Elementary School parent I can say we had a safe and successful school year and while there are many areas that may need Improvement I really truly hope for a more proactive and future school year the Year flies by and there are many times that coming from back to school night to parent-teacher conferences there I
129believe they're so late into the school year for any Improvement or you know resolution or anything that may need attention from our students and I asked for um you know there are many times during the school year where kids are at a particular level in their school year where they may be graduating or they've come during the school year at a later time and not many opportunities are being addressed at the right time as for the disciplinary issues which were brought up by a in a public comment a couple months ago may I add that I had the chance to volunteer on my child's school during their field day in June 5th and when checking in at the main office I did personally still witnessed a child eating his lunch and being supervised by the
130secretary which was the particular point that was brought up at the meeting this was this was not changed right away but hopefully all these concerns and comments and questions that we bring up during this board of education meetings and also at the public forums we all know that they don't necessarily have to be addressed but perhaps they're being considered and discussed and if needed change for the upcoming school year thank you again to everyone that made such a great year it was kind of like the first year that felt back to normal we had so many activities in all our local schools and hopefully cover this past our times as well thank you is there any online comments um this comment is from Juan P Fernandez um he asked is there any progress in the
131approval of preschool Aid contracts with our community providers such as Head Start a member of the public in person wishing to speak good evening again Susan shower 346 West Clinton Street in Dover I did want to mention that I did see the video online of both the eighth grade moving up ceremony and the high school graduation and I was so happy to see that the weather Gods cooperated and that the graduation looked like it went off without a hitch and that it was beautiful beautiful so congratulations to all and congratulations to the graduates and congratulations to our student representative who stuck it out all year and you you really did a fantastic job I'm very impressed I said that earlier tonight to one of the parents I'm very impressed um what and with that vein
132in mind of students I don't think that there's a person in this room right now viewing at home in this building in this District that isn't concerned with our students and don't make comment don't participate don't show up don't sit here for hours on a week night so that they can participate in this action of a school board meeting I don't think there's one of us who is not doing any of this with all of the students in mind so I think comments like that are unnecessary by board members it brings you down a notch uh I loved the passion that the superintendent gave in his advocating for the position of direct director of curriculum and professional development I miss that passion sometimes in discussion on items that seem to just slip through for example
133items that become a surprise at the table to board members that they never heard about I brought up the item of the 1.7 million dollars for transportation for a small portion of our community 400 Pre-K students three and four years old who get free Transportation while 3 100 students do not and the parents have to find their way to get their students to school and the taxpayer this year felt the squeeze of having to budget that additional money that is not there for pre-k Transportation another item that has for some reason it has really stuck with me because there was such minimal to practically no discussion about it at all but you mentioned it tonight your great I.T crew your staff is fabulous the Dover school district has had a ballooning I.T Department we went
134from miniature to now a full-fledged Department that's fantastic but we also the Dover School District as I still understand it and I would love to have further discussion about this at some point because I have never heard it we contract with the Delaware Valley Regional School District to their I.T department for services I believe such as live streaming we need to have further questions by board members about that because board members are stepping up and they are doing their ethic ethnic ethical uh diligence by abstaining and excuse me your time is up so please finish up thank you you can take another minute if you like Michelle thank you they are recusing themselves when there's a conflict of interest with their employers uh you have a board member who abstains because her employer provides trash
135service for the the district but there's never any question about administrators that might have a conflict of interest with vendors or contractors in the district and that needs to be discussed with that same um adamant pressure thank you good night thank you Miss shower are there any other online comments no no is there any other member of the public wishing to speak good evening again John Coniglio 24 Taylor Town Road Montville um you know I I've as you know I've come to basically every board meeting and I speak at almost every board meeting and I've never felt so disappointed than I have tonight and we ask for staff input we say that we're listening to our staff but I am here and I was here last month telling you that reach out to us and
136we will help you with what Mr vegra mentioned about discipline we will help you with issues that are going on in the school departmentalizing the GNT issue that came up a couple months ago dual language was implemented all these things and I feel like we're mentioning things I'm mentioning things and some of us are just not listening this new position states director of curriculum instruction and professional development it is missing the elementary piece and I understand what Dr McLaughlin is saying about that it's going to include the same duties and responsibilities but this to me looks like a district-wide position director of curriculum instruction and professional development for the entire District we had a specific Elementary person for us we finally felt supported by Jessica and she's gone and she went to Montville to make
137more money because we didn't offer her more money and now we're not going to have anybody in the last two years we've had a new writing program in the elementary schools a new reading program a new math program a new science program and a new social studies program all within the last two years and now we finally felt supported by Jessica and our supervisor and now we have it this district-wide position and it's extremely disappointing and I never speak like this but this hits home for me and the staff at the elementary school level and I'm really disappointed and I've never walked out of a board meeting before ever and I just could not believe that nobody had any comments or questions and I and I thank you for voting it down but we have
138to ask our staff questions a few years ago Dr saner Mr Gonzalez you came to the North Dover library and I'm not sure if there was with you I don't recall you asked us what's going on in Dover what do we need to fix and we told you what happened that's all thank you Mr coniglia is there any other member of the public wishing to speak seeing no other member of the public wishing to speak there are no more online comments on this section of public comment is now Kohl's um Dr McLaughlin I do I do want to just comment on that last piece I think it's really unfortunate unfortunately this is not the first time that this has occurred we have regular meetings with the DEA leadership where we discuss topics of concern the
139whole idea of having that monthly meaning is to be proactive to share information to try to resolve issues that might be present this particular job description that was referred to in the last public comment is not new news it was discussed at the public policy meeting which the president of the DEA attended so he was well aware of what the recommendation was we've met since then there was no concern shared at that meeting I'm disappointed to be surprised at a board meeting and I don't think that's the kind of dialogue that's going to help us move forward and I just have to express that because it is our desire to work with our teachers with our staff with our leadership team to come together as a community we put aside the time to do that
140we put Frank issues on the table and we want to continue but that's got to be productive it's not going to be productive to have those meanings and then have the issue brought up when there's a vote and to hear at the last minute uh I am going to reiterate however that this is not in any way an abandonment of our elementary teachers we're committed to that as a matter of fact I think what we've heard uh in some respects is that we've been paying a lot more attention to Elementary than secondary and we don't want to pay attention to any War segment of the population of our staff population or student population uh than another We Are One District we need to support our staff this position is designed to support staff it's not
141designed to take anything away and and as mentioned yes we are losing administrators to other districts that are paying twenty to thirty thousand dollars more satisfied satisfied staff members so that's an area that we are trying to address we're trying to give people the uh optimism that there's a place for them to move to in the district that's a piece of this as well so I did I did want to respond to that and I also wanted to indicate that again our preschool program is really a critical one for Readiness we talk about scores and achievement I know Miss Mendes indicated in a statement that we are looking for results and we want results for our kids that is definitely the goal and it starts at the three and four year old level and the
142bulk of that program a very successful program which we are nearly touching our universe uh as identified by the state of 400 students we're close to that where those students are coming and spending uh two years of education getting ready for school and being primed for achievement and I don't think that that is replaceable and yes there is a piece that state funding doesn't cover but I think it's also important to indicate that the whole rest of the program every piece of it is covered through pea and pea also is able to address various aspects of people's jobs who would work here otherwise for example it can pay for a piece of my job that's dedicated to preschool it can pay for a piece of Mr rigliano's job that's dedicated to preschool so that offsets
143the transportation to continue to come back and say that we are misusing taxpayer money or misspending taxpayer money I think it's it's unjustified and and the preschool is just to me it's a diamond that we have here and I want to celebrate it I don't want to beat it down so those are my reactions trying to be passionate uh and and and you know share where we are as the district thank you Dr McLaughlin um I'm I'm wondering if you can elaborate a little bit about this contract that was brought up during public comment with the Delaware Valley Regional School District I think I got that correct if there's any um Clarity you can offer on that to the public and the board sure we've had a contract which the board is well aware of
144and has been well informed of and which there is no conflict of interest in any way ethically uh it is with another school district for shared services with a number of people in their technology department that technology department has helped us as we have come together as an independent technology District it's helped us when we put together the infrastructure in this district four years ago kids had to be tested with a daisy chain of Apple home devices because that was the only way that internet was available to them we launched a infrastructure program where internet uh fully capable internet was available for teachers where their linkages weren't going to go out of them out on them in the middle of a lesson we have launched a district now where everyone has a premium Apple device
145and I do want to emphasize that in a state where kids are working on Chromebooks which you know I'm just going to say that are nearly of the quality that our students have our kids have iPads they have Mac laptops they have quality devices as do our teachers with a plan for those to be replenished not a one-time issue where those come and get old but a long-term plan and we worked primarily with Del Val as we were putting together our program who had the expertise and the history of that type of program and they helped us to get there they helped us to identify the people we needed to hire what we needed to do in terms of strategies they helped us with e-rate funding which in the district four years ago was not
146used for category two and e-rate funding has made a huge contribution to what we've been able to do so they've made great contributions I want to emphasize that contract is with the school district there is no personal remuneration to anyone and that contract may have lived its life because as we've gone through the years we have relied less and less to the point this year well I will say we have probably spent less than five thousand dollars on that that particular service but this particular project that we've been working on for the last year a very complex project with our indoor cameras with our with our door system with the uh with the sensors that we put in the bathrooms all to address discipline and security a large part of that has been shepherded by
147Del Val because they have had the experience with it and what you avoid are mistakes you avoid misspending and you have someone who can lead you through the process so uh it was never a conflict it's been a great contribution and it is not on the agenda for the next school year because at this point we have a very capable I.T team who has done their work and come to a point where they can really provide the services that we need but I really would like to thank Del Val for helping us get there thank you Dr McLaughlin are there any other comments or questions from board Miss Chrysalis yes yes thank you um I some I can't remember who was here who was not when we started this shared contract agreement and I just
148wanted to you know to share that I I conflict of interest was very much discussed and very much I felt very informed as a board member in regards to that concern that came up to us um in I believe at some point under personnel and obviously some things can't be discussed in public but I felt very informed and I don't know if others know or feel the same way but I I experienced that and yes we had concerns and I'm glad that the board members at that time asked the questions that needed to be asked and I I experienced transparency and honesty and legal advice as well for that specific topic thank you I wanted to see if could we address in talking about contracts the question that I missed the gentleman I I think
149it was Juan but I missed his last name Fernandez thank you Mr Fernandez question about updates on contracts and I think he specifically Head Start um do we have anything in that regard so we approved tonight uh the bulk of our preschool contracts Head Starts Now among them we're still working with them on a contract they have been a partner since we've started and we anticipate that they will continue to be but we're still working through some items with them well the rest of our present providers were all on tonight's agenda anything else uh yes one more thing um I'm concerned about the child supervised by secretary as it was something that the parents have brought up in not only miss avedra but I've heard it in other places is that something that's on the
150radar um for the administration I don't think it's a common practice however whatever we hear concerned like this we revisit it and so we will thank you I don't think that make them shower and I think she's actually asking or making a commentary on something that's very legitimate and people the public are asking these things so I I just want to say that I don't think that she's asked saying that we're wasting money on Transportation thank you Mr Acevedo are there any other comments from board members or questions I make a motion to enter executive session is there a second second would you like to State the reason personnel I'm sorry I missed you the second one miss nutty uh Mr slam I mean all in favor say aye any opposed okay um I will
151now entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second we have a motion by Dr saner a second by Miss nutting um all in favor say aye aye opposed meeting adjourned good night everyone