Dover Public Schools BOE Meeting - 9-21-2021

001out over there my in hello oh so oh i hey so okay what's the difference they're uniform oh it's like it is can you guys hear me yes all right now you can we'll be starting just a few of minutes all right why we have to so are we that's fine yes he's right there and it has take one foreign just waiting for um john crew oh he's here all right so um we're going to get started right you have everyone miss notting will not be here today and uh mr crew will be our business administrator for tonight and our attorney okay right i'm going to call to order our meeting for tonight the meeting which is hereby call to order at 6 42 p.m is in compliance with the notice requirements of the law

002public notice was posted in the office of the board of education and communicated to the municipal court and the delhi record on may 26 2021 may we please stand for a flag salute i pledge allegiance thank you mr crew can we have attendance roll call please ms catano preston mr miller here ms mullen here ms nutting mr robles president ms ruiz here dr saner present ms viveros present ms grizales present i want to remind all of us that we are here with our mission and our vision in mind working together as a community our mission is to welcome all and provide opportunities for all our students in a safe and accepting learning environment to become creative empathetic resilient and who choose to make an impact i am going to move forward with the public hearing

003for the superintendent contract and the assistant superintendent contract i would like mr crude to make an announcement in regards to the board's role at this time and then i'm going to ask miss eldest chair of negotiations to make an announcement thank you as is typical for uh public comment sessions that the boards have that the board has um this public hearing will give it an opportunity for the public to make comments about the superintendent or assistant and assistant superintendent contract but please be aware that the the subject of the hearing is still a personnel matter and there's rights of privacy involved so um the board will not be making comments or responding to comments from the public or discussing the issue in public other than the statements that the board is going to give at

004the outset of the uh of the hearing perfect this um yes do you want any sorry do you want any interpretation of what we're doing uh no she had mentioned that if anyone needs interpretation to come to her for the interpretation thank you miss mullen so much ms odess as chair of negotiations may you please state make your statement and then the other members ms nutting is not here but miss ruiz will also be making a statement as a member of negotiations thank you miss gorsales the negotiations committee met on july 28 august 5th and august 12th to discuss the shift school administrators contract also known as the csa or the superintendent's contract we met as directed by the full board in response to recent changes in the law regarding superintendents compensation to explore provisions

005in the current contract regarding merit pay all members of the board of the dover board of education receive a copy of the superintendent's current contract to review all board members participated in the superintendent's evaluations in june of this year and reviewed the superintendent's performance report for all members of the board receive a shard comparing the compensation of superintendents in similar districts in morris county as well as similar districts in northern new jersey to the proposed compensation for our superintendent this chart can be found as an attachment to tonight's agenda the existing superintendent's contract includes a provision permitting the superintendent to negotiate a salary each year and to reno renegotiate the salary is when when the salary cap of superintendents is removed the superintendent did not request nor did our board negotiate a salary increase in

006the past two years the controversial 191 584 dollars cap on superintendent salaries was removed in july 2019 with the passing of a new law previously this salary cap resulted in exodus of superintendents from north northern new jersey into neighboring state where they could receive higher salaries and led to the institution of marypay to get around the salary cap boards of education offered additional financial compensation on top of the base salary if the superintendent met certain goals this is mary pay in 2019 and in 2020 our superintendent did not request nor did the board negotiate a new salary despite the removal of the cap now the new law bars the state's department of education from setting maximum salaries for superintendents and set guidelines to limit or standardize bonuses and other fringe with the removal of the

007cap most districts are also removing mary pay from superintendent contract please take a moment to locate the chart comparing chief school administrators compensations in the back of tonight's agenda packet this chart shows victories similar in size demographics and other factors the information on this chart was provided by both the board attorney and the new jersey school board association as you can see dover superintendent has a doctorate degree with a proposed base salary of 052 dollars while other superintendents may hold a master's degree yet receive a higher base salary of 248 this new proposed base salary is not an increase in total compensation instead it includes the current base salary and the current merit pay after through review of the merit pay practice the superintendent's performance the increase in opportunities for our students to improve their

008level of achievement with new programs implemented by the superintendent our budget and the current contract the negotiations committee recommends the termination of the merit pay practice based on the negotiations committee's analysis folding in the merit pay plus the current base salary into annual base salary without merit pay results in a salary that allows the district to retain a superintendent who has met and even exceeded expectations this new base salary is comparable to that of superintendents in similar districts with the same educational credential or district to continue the work of ensuring all students are provided with the tools to reach their highest level of achievement not only for this year but for the first of all future a five-year contract provides the dictators and the board with stability allows more flexibility to negotiate within the contract

009and avoid the need to renegotiate a contract in three years the negotiations committee recommends a five-year term for this new contract the negotiations committee explore every way to issue a fair salary proposal at the lowest possible financial cost including switching to a phone provided by the district instead of continuing to provide a statement for the telephone use we determined that social change could cost the district more not less as smartphones are costly most superintendents do have either a stipend or a district provided smartphone in their contracts so we recommend continuing the practice of a small statement for telephone use a two percent cost of living salary increase in year two through four of the contract will help the board save time and effort by avoiding the need to negotiate salary increases each year most superintendents

010have salary increases in their contract or negotiate for a salary increase each year this salary increase is comparable to that of other superintendents a salary increase of three percent in the fifth year would help us retain the superintendent as he did not receive an increase in the first two years of employment under the current contract nor would he receive an increase in the first year of the proposed new contract does that conclude your statement that concludes my statement ms ruiz thank you miss grasales in just two years our superintendent has led efforts to implement new programs secure grants and ensure that our students needs are met during a pandemic no less when our students needs are met their level of achievement increases and that is our main goal under dr mclaughlin's leadership and with the

011leadership support of mr igliano we have initiated audits to best identify the needs of our district notably the audit of our special education program and the demographic report which is now available on our website under the important links section of our main page as well as under the families and community tab we brought the new york the nyu metropolitan center for research on equity and transformation of schools to our district a partnership that provides consultation as well as professional development on culturally responsive educational practice with a mindset set on educational justice we brought a dual language program to the district implemented a breakfast after the bell through grants at no additional cost to the district implemented universal preschool through grants at no additional cost to the district increased professional development opportunities for all staff including

012partnerships with local universities to increase the number of much needed bilingual educators created an interpreter translation position and a community liaison position that it improves our communication and relationship with members of our school community created a human resource department created a staff recruitment system automated the substitute teacher system improved our website including the addition of all district policies and even policies under consideration the improved website improves communication and increases transparency upgraded the communication between the school and students families by switching from honeywell instant alert to school messenger which allows for tailored communication to specific groups as needed improve technology overall in our district we upgraded our phone system so that every educator has a phone we have automated voicemails and a new clock system every educator has a brand new macbook pro dr mclaughlin intruder

013ensured our entire district was rewired increasing the internet capacity our cyber security was upgraded with the installation of the palo alto firewall and we upgraded the it help desk management system from schooldude to zendesk most importantly during this pandemic we now have a true one-to-one device system where every student has a device we purchased the belmont avenue building freeing up 11 additional classrooms this was a bold and well negotiated purchase that allowed our district to address the overpopulated bilingual classes that previously saw up to 40 students in one room special education classes were also developed as a result of this purchase dr mclaughlin oversaw safety enhancements including security upgrades and the addition of lockdown buttons with regards to transportation we added bus drivers increasing local capacity and kept costs down by switching providers dr mclaughlin

014and mr sirigliano has led our our district staff to secure grants we previously did not apply for improving our special education program our counseling services and our literacy instruction a counselor position was added so all schools have at least one full-time counselor our district now also enjoys the benefits of rutgers behavioral health clinicians for the middle school and for elementary students we significantly increased the number of special education child study team staff members related service therapists and teachers dr mclaughlin was rated exceptional in many of his evaluation categories by the members of the board and no evaluation category rated below expected performance these are just a few of the reasons that support the negotiations committee recommendation to the full board today regarding the superintendent's contract and the assistant superintendent's contracts thank you at this time

015i'm going to open the floor for public comments the board recognizes the value of public comment at this time the board invites comments on the proposed amendments to the superintendent and assistant superintendent's contracts only to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement should be held to the time period of three minutes and shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of myself please understand that the public common portions of our gender are not structured as questions and answers but rather they're offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be

016abusive 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 if you are um interested in making a comment about the superintendent and assistant superintendent contracts please step up to the podium seeing no one okay good timing hi i just want to understand again this is my first board meeting my kids are starting kindergarten so i'm trying to get involved and understand structure great no no problem may you please state your name for our record just your first name and last name sure evil

017ease crespo elise ivelisse eva leaf crespo do you need spelling thank you i just want to understand so i unders i have the chart and based off of the other towns and i understand that he has a doctrine as well which is great but how is the salary assessed or comped compared to other schools that pay a lot more or at least districts that pay a lot more taxes in the town dover is a small town so the fact is that we are paying i say the superintendent in dover comparable to all the other best performing schools as well in the town how is that assessed so i just want to kind of throw that out there in addition to that the compo ratio as well or the amount that's dedicated to the students in

018dover is the lowest in the town districts in morris county so how is that being considered as well when other towns are giving more to their students but yet when it comes to the salary i see that we're actually comparing to the other performing schools so i just want to understand how that's also addressed and weighed perfect let's listen to all the comments and we'll see what we can answer i appreciate your time yes please come back anytime any other comments or questions or comments actually we may not be able to answer all the questions at this time okay do any board members have comments or questions regarding this specific topic and john would you direct us in regards to answering the ladies um questions uh are we closing public comments i'm waiting to see

019ms ruiz and then we will um then i will close them public comment at this time i really appreciate miss crespo's questions those were some of the same questions that we had in the negotiations committee that is why in the chart you will see our neighbors in randolph as well as our further away neighbors in union city or east orange so while we are comparing our the cost of our superintendent for our taxpayers to our neighbors we are also comparing to communities that have similar socioeconomic factors as we do so while the socioeconomic factors of dover compare more to union city than they do to randolph you'll see that union city spends almost three hundred thousand dollars on their superintendent when you add up all those figures their total compensation while ours is about 227

020so there's a big difference union city taxpayers are paying way more for their superintendent um who does not have a doctorate um and who and and our tax levy meaning how much taxes we pay locally is more comparable and and i'll let um i i don't want to go into tax levy stuff but i think it's helpful to understand it if if the board president wishes to have someone explain that board is anyone opposed to that and see the need at this time for tax by the explanation okay mr crew do you have any to add um in responses to the comments no i i really don't think so i think mr maria pointed out that you know we the committee tried to consider uh not only morris county districts but also other districts that

021are in a similar district factor group or socioeconomic condition with no further comments from the board then we will move to our second public comment section which is inclusive of all comments on agenda items only the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments limited to items on this agenda should be entertained for approximately the next 30 minutes upon discretion of this presiding officer please understand that the public comments portion of our agenda are not structured a question answered but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts to the board the board may

022or may not respond to public comments however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed 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 specific employees please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk and any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to legal liability for defamation public is there any one that is interested in making comments regarding agenda items at this time good evening dolores diaz neighbor plane mine hill new jersey i i just have a question um i have read over your

023goals and i was wondering why or if there's any plan to do any construction or purchase any buildings because it's not one of the goals and that's the only question i have thank you miss diaz any others i will close the portion of public comment at this time and move forward with approval of minutes is there a motion to approve august 17th minutes for both executive session and regular session so moved ms mullen is there a second second and just want to make note was the change made the the comment that i had sent in about the change did you everyone hear what mr um miller said he asked a question about whether a change was made i had also asked for changes to be made were those incorporated to the minutes where the changes

024incorporated is the question where the changes i i know there were uh comments by the board in regards to some of the minutes being adopted i believe that our business secretary did make the changes thank you is there any further questions or comments okay mr croup may we roll call for uh the minutes please yes uh madam president if i could just ask did you recognize mr miller as the second on that or uh yes mr miller was the second yes okay miss catano yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes ms nutting oh sorry she's not here mr robles yes ms ruiz yes dr cena yes ms riveros yes ms grazalis yes motion carries perfect in regards to communications the board did receive an email for the entire board and was responded i received several

025emails i apologize could anyone recall the one that was forwarded to the full board please mrs senor thank you it was from the kearney family thank you very much so it was a kearney family in regards to concerns of opening and safety and that was something that was addressed by our administrators as well as some of our board members yes ms ruiz we received a second full board communication from ms mendez ms daniela mendez oh yes yes that was a while back thank you so much for that may you summarize it but um i think i don't have it in front of me i think ms mendez was asking about services for our lgbtqia plus community yes and that was forwarded to administration in regards i believe it had some curriculum questions about it as

026well do you remember that yes i do okay thank you and professional development as well and professional development as well for lgbtq specific professional development thank you there's been a lot going on and those two emails um i have not ready i apologize for that thank you team for helping out is there any communications from the administration that you would like to share with the full board not at this time perfect all right so we move forward with administrative reports okay thank you good evening our first month in school has certainly been a positive one many members of our staff have remarked on just how good it is to once again be teaching in person and our students appear equally happy and engaged i'm pleased to share that students have been extremely cooperative in regard

027to consistently wearing their masks and adjusting to new lunch routines that have been designed to promote distancing and greater safety at this time we have received a district total of 13 positive student or staff cases of covid since the time that school commenced on september the first we have reintroduced the covet dashboard on our website to allow our school community to remain up-to-date on the prevalence of new cases in our schools and i do want to comment that we will be adding a um a category to the covet dashboard because right now it's identified by school but we do have other categories of employees who are not assigned to a school so there'll be an other another line added this week the dashboard is updated each friday and it can be found on the main

028news section of the website i'd also like to highlight the testing the cova testing program for students and staff which occurs each thursday testing for that program requires registration and the link for the registration can be found on the left side menu of important links on our website students with a positive result for covit or identified closed contacts will quarantine for 10 days that's based on the current covert transmission rates for a geographic area in some instances the quarantine can be shortened if there is a negative covet test result after the fifth day of quarantine in which case the quarantine is shortened to seven days students who are close contacts but who are vaccinated are not required to quarantine during quarantine students will receive virtual instruction and this can occur in one of two ways

029ideally the student will receive separate after hours class time virtually via a google meet and in the event an after hours teacher is not available teachers will invite the student online simultaneously into class during regular instruction that would be the second option this second option has been introduced due to a shortage of after hours teachers however it will remain the first choice if teachers are available each year hispanic heritage month is observed in the state of new jersey this year the month is observed from september 15th to october 15th it's important to emphasize that our district is firmly committed to embedding the achievements the knowledge and the ongoing contribution of latinx population in all that we do in our curriculum our instruction and our day-to-day inclusive awareness in stating this our observers our observance of

030hispanic heritage month should not be mistaken for a one-time or a limited time event with a beginning and an end date with that being understood occurrences will take place in all our schools in keeping with this month of recognition and examples from around our district and each school will be shared with the board and with the public at our october meeting we are very pleased to share that the new jersey inclusive educational technical assistance project the nji eta has accepted our district applications and that we will receive the utilizing differentiation differentiation to support inclusive educational technical assistance package that's a mouthful at north dover elementary and east dover elementary through leadership development targeted technical assistance and systemic change facilitation the nji eta team will work with our school-based teams to improve positive outcomes for all

031of our students additionally we are pleased that the dover public school has been accepted for the pre-k andover middle school systemic change facilitation offering details regarding components of technical assistance will be forthcoming from the nji eta and will be shared at that time participation in this project is part of the district's commitment to special education and effective inclusive practices for the benefits of all of our students and i do want to comment this is the second year that our applications have been approved by the nji eta which is a competitive process so we're very pleased that they have accepted our applications and we look forward to working with them i am looking forward to hosting our first community forum of the year these are opportunities for our parents and guardians and community members to have

032a discussion uh with me in a small group to share ideas to ask questions to share reflections on the district and it's certainly a way that we can hear our community's voice and act on our community's voice we are seeking a location for our first forum in the victory gardens community and it would occur from 6 to 7 30 on october the 7th details will be posted on our website once all the arrangements have been confirmed finally i'm happy to share that the district's preschool program has enrolled 259 students and continues to increase with new registrations the district is approaching a total of three thousand five hundred active students presently there are three thousand four hundred and thirty four students on roll as of late last week we thank parents and guardians for their patience

033as we attempt to register many new arrivals to the district as quickly as possible and as always we thank our parents and guardians for the trust that they place in the dover schools by allowing us to work with their children and that concludes my report thank you mr rigliano good evening i'd like to begin by highlighting a few items on the agenda to begin you will see a number of curriculum revisions for your approval tonight this will be the norm for the next year as we work to meet the deadline of the new standards that were put forward by the department of ed i'd like to thank our supervisors our curriculum writers for their dedication to making their curriculums robust and thorough within our new atlas program you will also see the approval of a

034variety of professional development contracts for our literacy consultants apple professional development and the ann rabinowitz center for training in fundations which is our phonics program the approval of these contracts will be the first step in showing your continued support for professional learning with our staff as the training commences i will report out at the next board meeting in addition the approval for a number of grants for robotics mr jones has been very busy as he usually is in securing funding for his robust robotics program tonight you are asked to approve the acceptance of several grants and also to approve mr jones to apply for more grants to support robotics a huge thank you goes out to our partners at picatinny arsenal the bayer fund the department of defense and first robotics for their continued support

035of mr jones mr hill miss brooks and our student competitors it is with programs like robotics that our students can learn outside of the typical classroom environment and apply their knowledge of technology math critical thinking and collaboration in an effort to achieve a common goal this month began our endeavor into dual language with that commencing we also began hosting dr willem and her team in classroom visits and observations dr willam visited every kindergarten classroom ensuring fidelity to the target language of each classroom was the main goal for this month's visit other classroom practices that were observed showed an evidence of a transfer of theory into practice within these classrooms dr willem completed dr willam will be completing visits to our kindergarten classrooms every month and we look forward to seeing her again in october in

036addition to dr willem we also have begun our work with our literacy consultants melanie brown visited the district on september 3rd for a training session on fontes and pinella reading assessments ms brown worked with 12 teachers from our bsi and special education staff who will use this data point to identify students in need of additional support and services teachers were trained in the coding and scoring of the assessments miss brown and her partner kimberly fox will return to the district soon to begin our work with our elementary staff regarding writing workshop training for these areas will occur throughout the year lastly i want to take a minute to thank our administrators and our staff for their continued dedication and persistence in our opening days covid has impacted some areas for us namely technology some curriculum

037materials with delays in the supply chain thus resulting in delays for those arrival for those materials to arrive in the teachers rooms i want to acknowledge the efforts of staff both administrative and teaching and support staff in working together through these issues i appreciate your continued dedication to our students and that concludes my report thank you mr igliano we moved from miss visca rosales yes i just have a question i know this was based on uh miss sorono's report i just wanted to know how the kindergarten students react to especially those that are english speaking and those that are spanish-speaking that did not know either language oh you can't hear me here you're clear yeah i just i just wanted to know how did they enjoy do they have fun trying to learn things in

038two different languages well if you don't mind i've i've had the occasion to visit um the classes several times certainly the students as i mentioned all of our students but even our dual language students included appear engaged comfortable certainly one of the things that we promised the board is that we will be delivering a presentation during the course of this year on how we have moved into dual education and inviting our teachers to come and share some reflections to provide you with a little bit more data as we as we move forward but i mean that's good i i just wanted to know what the initial reaction was because it's very exciting all right thank you thank you any other board member regarding the administrative reports all right we'll move forward then to the um

039board of education reports uh mr miller and with the morris county education services commission yes i i attended a meeting on september 8th it was a normal business meeting and there was nothing uh new to reports of this board okay thank you ms ruiz i know that you have an extensive report of legislative report so please let us know what's going on in the government thank you miss grasales our governor announced an ongoing commitment to universal pre-k education allocating 17 million more to the program thanks to our current administration finally applying for and receiving the universal pre-k grants our community can benefit from university universal high quality preschool education um 267 million covet 19 testing program dollars um were allocated for students and staff at our new jersey's k-12 schools and i'm just wondering if

040our district is eligible for this funding if so whether we will be applying i know there's so much information about covid i'm not sure if that was already said um we may also be eligible for the recently announced 8 million school security grants the department of education is reopening the school security grants portion of the securing our children's future bond act it will allow schools to install the panic alarms required under alyssa's law and if there is funding left over after that or if you already have those then the district can secure cameras secure vestibules shatter resistant glass so it's an exciting opportunity and again i'm wondering if our uh district is explored it will explore it and if we'll apply the deadline is october 13. our county was designated uh for fema individual assistance

041and of course many of us saw firsthand the effects of the flooding in our community so just to make sure that everyone is aware that you can first if you're if you have homeowners or renters insurance filing that claim and um because fema can't duplicate the claims but if not you can file for assistance through the website disasterassistance.gov through the apple app store or google play store fema app or just call 1-800-621-3362 i think this information has also been shared with our families through the district finally the governor recently established the wealth disparity task force which consists of working groups on the economy housing criminal justice education and health it will create comprehensive strategies and solutions to achieve a fairer distribution of wealth in new jersey i'm excited that our former morris county superintendent dr

042angelica alan mcmillan is now the acting commissioner of new jersey department of education and so she sits on this task force and given the wealth disparity between our dover school community and that of school communities in our surrounding area i wonder if our administration and our board would consider reaching out to the wealth disparity task force to request that our community be included in their studies and that concludes my legislative update thank you at this time we have no morris county nj sbf report on us ms nutting is not here and we move uh with the ad hoc mine hill report dr mclaughlin thank you i'm happy to share that during the course of the summer months the dover ad hoc committee reviewed proposed changes to the send received contract with the mine hill school

043district and provided feedback to the mine hill board of education mine hill board of education has considered that feedback and has offered some revisions which we are in the process of scheduling a meeting to discuss so that that particular move our contract uh is quite dated uh with mine hill and we are optimistic that we will be able to revise uh the contract in a collaborative fashion that's acceptable to both districts thank you any questions comments from the board regarding the boe reports okay we can move on to administrative approvals at this time is there a motion on the table to approve the fire and safety drills from agenda items from a to d which include our board goals and our district goals mr miller moved the motion is there a second miss rivera second

044are there questions comments from the board ms grasalis if i may yes dr sayner um i had a question for dr mclaughlin or mr igliano regarding um uh board goal d district i'm sorry thank you district gold these are labeled board goals in my copy of the agenda so that should be correct so are these oh i'm wrong so c i'm so i apologize c is board goals d are district goals thank you d so my question finally is i see that we are implementing district-wide math and reading diagnostic assessments to promote data-driven instruction this is we have discussed this in curriculum and other places as being very needed to make sure that we are delivering the appropriate instruction at the appropriate time i did want to ask uh with the large amount of state

045mandated testing what is the additional amount of testing how often would we be administering these tests what is it is it a 15-minute test a 30-minute test or is this you know weeks long i can answer that for you um so kindergarten is three 20-minute sessions first grade is two 20 to 30 minute sessions grades two through five is two forty to fifty minute sessions grades six through eight is two forty five to fifty minute sessions and grades nine through twelve is two forty five to fifty minute sessions and how often would those is this once or is it quarterly or by semester so the window actually just opened this week so teachers have about two weeks to complete their assessments that will give the district a baseline and then using the program for specific

046students there will be additional assessments to document their growth again those would be students that are receiving bsi instruction or seeing a reading specialist along those lines the plan is then for assessments to be given on i'd say more of maybe like a january february timeline and then again it towards the end of the year thank you very much yes mr miller and then ms mullen so uh the community relations committee um where we discussed the board goals particularly number 1a and 1c so we had comments on both of those and maybe a recommendation for 1a [Music] we discussed the type of information that that should be reported from attending a dover board of aldermen meeting and we discussed the fact that we didn't think it should be a replay of all the discussion points

047of the meeting but only relevant information pertaining to our students and and parents in regard to services and critical announcements you know any information in regard to construction plans that can affect student populations within the district you know would be used internally so that we could plan for facilities and resources as necessary the second comment on that was reporting on the dover board of aldermen or victory gardens board meetings should not be seen as political just necessary information gathering to help the district better plan to provide services to our students so those were the two comments that we had if if there's any discussion on that mr miller i just want to clarify the comments that the committee is making it's making the suggestions to make did you make the changes in our draft and

048i think that we want to have open the discussion so that we can determine whether we're going to make not that we have to make changes but that we understand how we're going to do it got it i just wanted to clarify yeah thank you i see miss mulling and then ms ruiz mr miller were you going to address c yeah yeah i was going to do that i didn't know if they wanted to talk about this one first okay so you want to finish your comments before we go the next one is for 1c we discussed how we would host two community forums and so some suggestions we had was that we would use a back-to-school night for receiving feedback from parents uh suggesting that we have a table set up for each of

049the schools assigned board members to listen to comments and concerns and then report that back to the board the other was using special events for additional opportunities to hear parents and students you know it could be a concert or whatever and we discuss the fact that we are there to listen uh this could be an opportunity uh to direct parents to our district online information as well so that they know where to find things because that seems to be a people don't know where to look so those are the comments that we had uh suggestions for that particular piece okay any other board members ms ruiz mrs crossovs i have i had comments about this but i'd like to make a point of order for first um i i think open discussion is great i

050have no objection to that and and we should move forward i just i think it's also necessary that we make a point of order we had a special session for all board members to brainstorm discuss and agree on board goals after that special session we had a google doc where all board members were invited to review analyze and comment on the board goals and i don't recall the board ever tasking the community relations committee with having a separate review of the board goals so i just want to make sure that the next time we're clear on what our process is when we're discussing it and when we're not i think mr miller makes a good point that we should focus on what type of information should be shared and and maybe fine-tune what the community

051forms will look like so the suggestions aren't my issue but i just want to make sure that we follow our process and make the best use of our time when we allot time to something as important as our goals so if i could comment one second mr miller i understand your point of order ms ruiz i think the clarification from my end was exactly for that because if we are going to be making changes at this time then we will not be able to move with adopting formally the board goal so that is what um that's why the process was uh the way it was just to make sure that we would have our final draft here and so that's kind of my clarification that i asked mr miller that it's not that we're suggesting

052to make changes to the board goal is my understanding but that we all have an understanding of what the expectations are to implement these goals it's what i understood mr miller yeah exactly because we there there were versions of this that were being emailed and we had the the final well one final version and there were questions and so i addressed the questions to our board president which then suggested that we would bring it to community relations to continue discussing it because it wasn't clear how we would implement those goals and some of them that some of the final pieces that i saw i did not recall talking about some of those points and it could be i just don't remember that's why i had the questions and others did have questions when we did

053discuss it at community relations thank you for the second we want to make sure we are following the same process as everything else right i'm sure we are diligent and appropriate i do agree that i'm not sure i don't recall ever the community relations being tasked with reviewing it i do welcome that all board members review everything that we are deciding so it's clear and transparent i don't remember talking about the community relations specific speaking about the goals but does not mean that that is incorrect i would have to look back on my writing to you mr miller um it is important though for us to come to a consensus are we comfortable with how the goals are written right now so we can adopt them or are we going to table them um for

054the next time and i just want to clarify that my statement um to you was in the form of questions i didn't understand how we would implement some of those and that then you suggested that since we had community relations meeting we could discuss it there to see if there were any suggestions or clarification so not really asking to change it we're just trying to understand how we're going to do it got it okay any other comments or questions from board members regarding these items that we have at the table yes mr ruiz i just want to highlight the increase the board's financial literacy piece it doesn't say it here but i i the amount of investment we make in our students is important and understanding where that money comes from and how it's allocated

055is important and it's very difficult to understand the school funding formula i think even the drafters of the school funding formula don't didn't understand what the consequences were and miss crespo's comment again just like really hit home for me the investment in our students so it sounds like not only is our board um committed to that but our community is also asking about that so i'm looking forward to working on that goal and sharing it um with regard to both the board and the district goals i just would like to highlight that while there's three board goals um and is it is it two cut up into three cut up into several bullet points district goals we have a lot more than just those six goals um and and and you know again construction may

056be something that we have to explore just because it's not on the goals doesn't mean it's off the table and we can't touch it there are many many many many goals that i hope we do reach that aren't on this paper thank you and i really wanted to make that connection for the public comment um as we mentioned we may not be able to answer them right there and then i'm hoping that throughout the meeting those questions are answered if not we will address them again um so part if you uh community um specifically for those two comments of construction and the tax levy and that it is really part of our goals um to really make sure that we are inclusive and so when we were developing both board goals and district goals we

057work together for that right mission and vision that we have outlining our district so it is important to know that that we are taking into consideration what's going on in our town currently what's happening we mentioned about a demographic study and that really points out what's going to happen for us in the future so when it comes to these areas it is important for us and the public to know that this may be general um goals that we have but there's many little objectives and and steps that we need to take in order to get there okay so we have a motion and we have a second we have had a discussion uh are we ready to move for voting perfect uh mr crew miss catano item c i was not able to be present

058at the board goals meeting but i have reviewed them all and in agreement yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes mr robles yes ms ruiz yes dr saner yes ms riveros yes ms grazales yes motion carries miss mullen would you lead on personnel items i move upon the recommendations of the superintendent the board approves the following personnel resolution and that's a 1 through 45 and that it includes the hand carry that we had correct yes perfect is there um a second to miss mullins motion second dr cena are there questions comments from the board regarding all these agenda items ms grasalis yes dr seiner um i had a question this spans two categories uh so i'll ask it now and if administration would like to wait um we are approving um under your microphone sorry

059closer sorry we are approving under i believe uh curriculum uh professional development for mr igliano to attend the school safety specialist training and under this area under personnel we are approving mr mccauley as our school safety specialist and so i just wanted to ask in public has mr mccauley attended this training as well and what agenda item are you referring to this is referring to number 42 under personnel and number uh i believe number two under curriculum yes mr mccauley is already certified as the school safety specialist so he already attended that training previously he has done the necessary webinars to keep his certification valid so he does not need to attend that training thank you very much any other comments questions regarding all these items perfect i see no one mr crew please roll

060call miss catano yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes mr robis yes ms ruiz yes dr saner yes ms riveros yes ms grizales yes motion carries miss catano negotiations please thanks ms marsalis we are finalizing the moa and we just got update to meet with the dssa the first week of october that concludes my report perfect just to clarify moa is memorandum of understanding and dssa is what you have said yes and that stands for dover support staff association thank you very much curriculum and co-curricular may a member from that um committee please take the report um i can do that mr grasalis thank you um we met on uh september 14th uh the majority of the meeting was spent discussing i believe 17 curricula that were that had been rewritten um they span four

061different departments math art english and science um the supervisors were present the supervisors of those departments were present to answer our many questions um about the rewrites to those curricula there i believe there were a couple new curricula and uh we were also presented with a list of updated books for approval uh for english honors four and english um honors one since i know dr cena was not prepared and i threw under a bus like that is there any other administrator or member from the committee that would like to add anything to the report no that was the whole evening yes i i did want to comment or actually hold on here to make sure um do we have a motion no we do not yet okay is there a motion um i make a

062motion that we approve sorry items number one through 30. a second thank you mr miller and questions comments i had a couple questions i just wanted to understand um the apple consulting sessions you know what the process was uh for the teachers that would get them and is it for each grade level is it like multiple teachers attend a session i just wanted to understand how that was gonna work okay so one of the apple contracted services is actually for our principals uh we have contracted with apple to provide leadership in growth in integrating technology across a school so the principals have that piece um we ran last year as you remember our inaugural vanguard program with apple which was a group of about 20 teachers that were selected to participate in sessions with our

063professional learning specialist i did not want to stop that growth generally what districts do is they they nominate teachers to be a part of that vanguard program they provide the professional development and then that next school year another group is initiated so what we decided to do was ask those vanguard teachers that participated if they would like to participate again and and to give me an explanation as to why they would want to participate again and how they can use more time with our apple learning specialist to enhance their skills so they submitted a google form out of that form we will select a core group of the first vanguard program to continue working with hovon who is our professional learning specialist but then we also initiated a second cohort to have a second group

064of beginning vanguard teachers so that was a different google form filled out by staff kind of the same process tell me why you want to do this and why this would be a benefit for you and your students so those applications are in we're reviewing them now uh dates are being selected with hovon the the learning specialist and that will commence and go through all the school year so it's three different pd's for three different groups administrators and teachers well that's great i just had a couple more questions please make sure you speak to the microphone fleeting thank you sure i just have a couple more questions the fox education consulting this is a one day event no so um you have previously approved at the end of the last school year a contract with

065melanie brown for literacy services there was a reorganization that happened with the partner she had at that time and that has led to kind of a disbandment there in that partnership so now melanie is with kimberly fox who is our lower elementary coach and melanie is our upper elementary literacy coach so we needed to reapprove since it's now two different people all right so that makes sense and then the the next one was the words of advice literacy for staff development i just want to make sure i understand how it all links together yeah that's that's melanie so melanie is words of advice and fox is kimberly all right and then one last thing was the student handbook was updated and but i don't know what's different from last year to this year so generally

066the changes are i don't want to say formatting but it's it's updating people's names it's it's making sure that we have current information in there um in terms of of content there there was not a true like overhaul of the entire content so there might have been tweaks here or there there was additions in the technology section but there was not a giant change in the content of the handbook so all right that would be it thank you thank you it is important to acknowledge all the work of reviewing and editing and creating 17 curriculums i don't know if most of us know what that entails but it's a huge undertaking and i am very appreciative for all the staff that worked i imagine a lot of hours over the summer to do this and

067that volunteered um and their time um to do this so i'm very grateful um that our students are going to have a plan for next um time this curriculum is implemented for them so that's great mr sales yes ms mullen um the curriculums were wonderful and there was that the music ones just kind of really i mean there was just so many interesting things going on in that my question is to the english honors for the u2 college admissions career planning for that honors class when i went back in the other english curriculums i did not see that opportunity for those english classes english students and i was wondering how that's being addressed for all of our students do you mean the english like the english one honors the english any of them that all

068of our students would have right college admission opportunity you know so those cr those other curriculums are being rewritten now okay and would be inclusive of that the other way that students have that opportunity is through our title one program at the high school so over the summer there is um staff that work with students to create that college essay as part of our title one program so for our seniors now who are writing them will all of them have access to that support and that curriculum yes okay then my other question was with the apple um service contracts um costs for those uh they were they were on the contract i could not find it on the contracts i i looked and i looked and i just looked again but it's a lot of

069small print it was a couple pages but i tried to scan through it and i couldn't get a sense it had the hours the number of staff but i was unsure and then i went back to see if we already paid for it and then i couldn't so i couldn't figure that out either would we be able to provide ms mullen um the location of those contracts um once the financial person gets to that it is a lot of fine print yeah there's a lot of fun print and the fine print read this i just couldn't pick out any numbers at all so i was curious about that since we're going to approve it and um there was something else in curriculum is that something miss mullin that will uh you would need in order

070to make your vote fully and understand probably not but i i would like to have an idea how much i know apple has been very expensive over the years i just kind of wanted a ballpark and then i also had a question about the foundations um you know we're having that training it's exciting i love fun foundations i love that wilson curriculum and it's for the kindergarten kindergarten first grade which that is for first grade do we have any of those materials oh we have all those materials so you have all the materials the teachers can all bring to the trainings yes when they dip because yes we're still and that's why i mentioned at the beginning of the meeting the supply chain yes some of the materials for one of our school buildings have

071been delayed and when we contacted the company it was due to a pulp shortage so but all the other buildings have those kits we've been using that program so we are actually trying to catch up with the training okay so maybe some of those kids could be lent to some of the other and they can you know maybe share instead of leaving one piece pieces could be pieces could be but not all the pieces of the kit we would be able to transition over right that means yes because there's class sets yeah so yeah you know that's for one class not for two classes yeah but not everybody's going to get this you know i guess as much as that can be shared will be shared oh yeah absolutely okay thank you there any other

072questions miss mullen no just when we get the figures on so this apple yeah the total for the apple is seventy two thousand two hundred dollars for the three trainings the three contracts that's for those three contracts yes thank you perfect thank you mr riggliano and miss mullen we do up miss ruth and dr sanu thank you miss grasales i'm very grateful to the curriculum committee um and there's so much here i just uh want to specifically highlight some things i'm particularly grateful for and commend our staff for the commitment to ongoing learning that's so exciting and it sets an example for our students to be lifelong learners i'm really excited to see the legal and ethical leadership training the principalship the person the profession addressing integrating technology across disciplines i like to see equity

073as a topic of focus for our educators we have staff members in the addressing equity and career and technical education training as well as a training on harassment intimidation and bullying hiv or hip case law including topics topics such as racial discrimination and first amendment rights i'm super impressed yay english honors one and four programs for the novels um uh i don't want to make it long but i i was never in the english honors classes um but i can i always borrowed their books so i'm excited that our students now can read mary shelley's frankenstein and also these poignant works by zadie smith and daisy hernandez and amani alta and tootsie and these topics of the novels include justice and gender and and culture so i'm excited that our students can see their own

074lived experiences reflected in the literature they have in their hands um and if people don't already know this amani al-khattab is from new jersey so i'm going to again be borrowing english honor novels and reading muslim girl coming of age along with our students and i i certainly hope others will as well i'm thrilled to see the district professional plan with those four goals um i wanted i'd like to know how we're going to report and measure the progress on those goals and will the plan be posted on the website i didn't look for it so maybe well i guess it has to be approved first so i'd like to know that uh kudos for the robotics program and their grants and the nji eta inclusion grant which i've already forgotten what those words stand

075for but i know you our administrators both mentioned it and the holocaust grant it's it's just so many exciting opportunities so thank you curriculum staff and committee for all of that okay so hopefully i remember your questions the pdp plan for the district is not normally posted but i certainly can post that the i might have to look at the format if i think about the way it's formatted on the document in your folder there doesn't i don't know that there's a spot to report out on the the accomplishment of that so if that's not there we can work something out in the document itself or create another document that continually is updated as portions of that plan are achieved um what was your i'm sorry mr rose what was your other question i think

076that was it on the professional development plan how the progress is measured and reported okay thank you thank you dr zainer thank you i just had a question both of my questions are related to uh sort of equity in opportunities one of them is in regards to the new jersey science convention i saw that our supervisor is scheduled to attend and i just wanted to make sure that that opportunity i understand that not every science teacher in the district could be out on those two days but is that opportunity available to others as well absolutely there's um there's no limit to who we can send that was a request from that supervisor so i can ask her to pick a few staff members or put it out to her staff for them to also participate

077thank you and my second question is i know at one point and this may precede predate both of you so i just wanted clarity in again what our current policy is i know at some point we did not offer tuition reimbursement for administrative courses we would only offer tuition reimbursement for a science teacher to get a science you know to take science courses for example or education courses uh specifically to specific to their subject area and so i just wanted to clarify that that policy is no longer in place yeah we are we look at each application by application there's courses that are aimed towards administration are not necessarily uh not approved one of the things too that we are seeking to encourage as much as possible is our own staff who have aspirations to

078be educational leaders so to the extent that we can and we do look at each application in each course on its own merit we have been approving a number of people who are in administrative coursework thank you very much for your answer and also your commitment to professional development of all types in the district so we have a motion by uh dr senor in a second by mr miller i believe that's right mr crew please uh may we have roll call for voting sure miss katana yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes mr robles yes ms ruiz yes dr saner yes miss viveros yes ms grizzali yes definitely yes okay motion carries thank you community relations am i skipping something no community relations update mr miller please thank you the community relations committee met on

079september 7th we discussed the importance of reaching out to victory gardens i know there was previous attempts by some of our members of the community relations committee but could not you know produce a meeting to have any discussions dr mclaughlin and dr sainter will be attending victory gardens board meeting dr mclaughlin had sent uh some information to the mayor of victory gardens to let him know ahead of time what he would be coming to discuss we also discuss the fact that dr mclaughlin meets with our dover town administrator once a month we keep each other informed on what's going on on each board and always looking for opportunities for collaboration we already discussed that we passed how classes were going and dr mcglocknell reported that in his report we did discuss back to school night

080dates and schools that each board member is responsible for and that's coming up next week so i know that the list is on in google docs so people need to look at that so they know which schools that they're going to be going to [Music] we also discussed some of the negative social media feedback about the timing and distribution of school information prior to the school year i know that some parents wanted the information sooner we also discussed whether or not each school has a coordinated distribution of information and is there there might be a better way to standardize that to make sure it's consistent across the district so that was something that we discussed and we also discussed the need to help our community learn and find information on our school district website there's

081a lot of information there but people they they don't know that it's there or they have a hard time looking so that's something that we all have to help with as as board members the website does continue to get low usage uh one of the suggestions was to have a frequently asked questions section for uh for parents we were very excited for the start of the district community liaison which we understand will focus on connecting parents with necessary resources that are available and we also talked about the communications plan would be published by this person annually on the district website and we were all very happy for the return of the first football game which was great to see so many fans come out and it was just a great time for everybody one of

082the other things that i wanted to be able to mention was that uh well first community relations with mine hill we have a joint meeting scheduled with the dover and mine hill community relations committee it's set for october 5th which is our normal meeting we'll be at belmont street i attended the mine hill board of education meeting their board discussed many of the same issues that we discussed regarding substitute teachers and aids and salaries are very competitive amongst the districts mine hill is going to have a virtual back-to-school night and they also have a bond referendum of 5 million dollars that they're going to be publicizing to the public and they also discussed concerns about academic catch-up with students because of covet last year so that was what was in their discussion of their meeting

083but we also had brought to our attention that one of our dover graduates from 1996 ryan daltz was featured sergeant ryan doltz was featured in a documentary on newsmax that really spot gave a spotlight to his life and legacy as a mine hill soldier who was killed in action during the gulf war in and it was that there was an article and the daily record um and so it was it was great to be able to see that so if you have a chance to look at that you know please do the series is war heroes and uh they're hoping to publish uh information about other individuals that gave their life for their country that concludes my report perfect thank you just to um we could certainly revisit this an old business but i think

084would be a good wise time when you talk about um the whole board um assistant and making sure we're covering all our meetings right you mentioned about there are a few meetings that are still open so i have highlighted them in yellow please make sure that we are signing up or if someone cannot make those meetings um then if we can swap um and make sure that we are at least one of us is in every single one of those spots and i believe i saw like three that have not been covered thank you ms vivero's policy please if you may lead that thank you miss grasales policy committee met on september 14th in person i'll start with item number one one of two readings policy 2422 health and physical education this policy has six

085new statutes that must be included in the school district's curriculum as required by the njsls policy 2467 surrogate parents and resource family parents this policy has been revised to mainly focus on terminology updates including the replacement of foster parent with resource family parent policy 5116 education of homeless children this policy has been revised and now requires districts to annually report to the office of the homeless excuse me homelessness prevention in the department of community affairs and ensures districts are made aware of when students parents move district to district policy 6115.01 611 5.02 6115.03 these are all federal award funds internal controls these three policies are brand new and are all dealing with internal controls relative to purchasing and contracts policy 6311 contracts for goods or services funded by funded by federal grants this policy has

086been revised and is all aimed in accountability policy 7432 eye protection this policy has grammatically and detailed changes policy 8420 emergency and crisis situations this policy has been revised to align with updated language for school security drills and fire drills policy 8450 school nutrition programs this policy has been revised as a new statute states districts must satisfy the requirements of implementing breakfast after the bell item number two abolishment all items one two three and four will be abolished item number three one reading second reading waived item number three approves at the board of education suspend bylaw zero one three one that requires two readings to adopt a by-law or policy and adopt policies one six four eight point eleven and one six four eight point thirteen which excuse me with one reading to be in

087compliance with the new executive orders and state guidelines regarding covid19 these are all emergency covid related policies i move that we approve item one two and three is there a second for that motion second is there questions comments about policy mr miller okay just i just have two questions uh for the emergency and crisis situation policy the drills they're referring to a law enforcement officer shall be present for at least one school security drill so i guess the question is is that our school resource officer or do we have to pay for dover to bring an officer up i know that our sro class 3 officer would suffice for that okay but if if we did need a law enforcement officer we wouldn't have to pay for that we would just notify and and the

088police department may decide that they want to visit some of our drills okay great uh the second question is have we had any issues enforcing policy 1648.13 you know i guess the vaccination requirement for teachers you know is that going to be an issue uh we're prepared to send out advice to our teachers in regard to vaccination and how to demonstrate vaccination uh before the october 18th deadline and in lieu of vaccination we have the icat testing program so that teachers will be able to participate in that program which is a weekly program and meets the mandate of weekly testing or if teachers prefer to do that privately there's also guidance on how to do that okay thank you i do have two questions again for the policy 8420 the emergency crisis situation are all

089school staff instructed not to utilize terms such as active shooter bomb threat when not age appropriate instead of using terms like school security drill during the actual drills to ensure that there is mitigation for any unnecessary use or exposure of potential traumatic language so we use the standard response protocol and the standard response protocol uses common language uh it does not refer to school shooter does not refer to a bomb threat uh it's uh it's simple language like lockdown um and uh it's important that we do not change the language from a drill to an actual emergency because obviously that would um potentially change the reaction uh of of of the students so we've always uh been instructed to be consistent in the way that we conduct drills in the way that an actual crisis

090situation may occur but we adopted the standard response protocol about a year or more ago and our staff received the i love you guys training which talked about the standard response protocol and all of those charts are up in our classrooms in school buildings thank you and may you explain to the board the abolishment of those specific policies but also in general why would we abolish those policies the 1648 and 1649 policy all are previous versions of covet response in accordance with state guidance at that time so since we we have new executive orders and new policies with updated covet responses we're adopting those tonight we're asking the board to adopt them with one reading because of the timeliness and the need for that and those other previous policies are being abolished so that there's

091not contradictory guidance perfect thank you for the clarification i know that we have a motion by ms viveros in a second bye miss katana but is there a comment ms ruiz go ahead thank you ms grasales thank you so much policy committee for um 2422 comprehensive really means comprehensive i see that we're ensuring all physical and health education required by law including everything from cancer what awareness to bullying prevention to dating violence education to the history of disabled and lgbt persons to the infusion of african-american accomplishments restorative justice practices financial literacy and everything in between i wish i was in that phys ed and health class that sounds awesome i'm grateful for policy eight five four zero with the school nutrition program um on page one paragraph two of eight of policy five four zero

092the paragraph in bold the policy states that if 70 or more of the students enrolled in a school in the district are eligible for free or reduced meals the district shall which i read as must establish the breakfast after the bell program but the district may request a waiver why would we ever request a waiver can we edit the policy to state that our district will not request a waiver given that there is funding for this program and that that there is a clear need for it in our school community i don't see why our board would leave room for future students to be denied this opportunity in policy 2467 we replace the term homeless youth with unaccompanied youth and in policy 5116 we refer to homeless children are these terms defined somewhere else in

093our policy manual they may be interchangeable and confusing in the implementation process and can be mean different things in different law like immigration law versus family law a child referred to as homeless may consider their grandparents home their home but in fact be an unhoused child if their parent has unstable housing and the parent and child are maybe only temporarily staying with the grandparent so what if any term would define a child living in our school community in an authorized basement apartment or an unauthorized attic apartment or even just sharing a bedroom or sleeping on a couch in the living room what if any training is offered to our staff to help identify children in unstable housing situations and in need of support and what if any training is offered to our registrar's staff to

094prevent the unlawful and unfair exclusion of students with unstable housing okay now it's my turn to try to remember all the questions but i certainly don't have a problem recommending to the policy committee at its next meeting that we do away with the optional piece about the waiver because it's certainly not the district's intention to ever ask for a waiver from that 70 percent uh so we can look at that since this is a first reading i think it might be good in terms of the homeless and unaccompanied youth definitions typically our policy consultant provides definitions within policy for whatever reason that wasn't the case here so i can certainly reach out to strauss esme uh phil nacastro always likes hearing from me he says that we are the district with the most questions so

095uh i will reach out to him and see if if we can obtain uh definitional language in regard to the training for our district registrar mr cruz has attended all the mckinney-vento training he is our homeless liaison as well as being our registrar and as a matter of fact there's an upcoming training updated training from the department of education which we just made him aware of did i catch yes you got everything and if i may add um in other volunteer work i get constant complaints about registrars denying students access to education based on unstable housing this year for the first time in at least 10 years i received praise for the registrar while i continue to receive complaints about registrars in other districts so i'm really grateful to our registrar for being sensitive responsive

096and compliant with the law and ensuring that students who have a right to be in our district are welcomed and while we're asking mr necastro i wonder if we can ask for the unhoused unhoused as opposed to homeless again because what we consider a home and a house can be two different things and the terms can be stigmatizing so if if unhoused would cover it that that might be a more appropriate term thank you i'll try again we have a motion bye um now i forgot bye miss viveros and a second by miss katano perfect uh mr crew we are ready for one call okay miss katana yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes mr robles yes ms ruiz no on two four six seven no on eight five four zero yes on everything else

097okay dr sander yes miss riveros yes miss grazales yes motion carries miss mullen finance and facilities please the finance committee met on september 8th we met for an hour and 15 minutes went right into our community meeting a lot of facility project updates the high school roofing project has been delayed due to product delays as everything else so it looks like we're going to be doing the project in the spring when the weather is more conducive to doing the roofing the hvac phase 2 project at eastover is halfway completed and the other half of the units came twice and they were the wrong units so as soon as the right units come i don't know if anything has changed so uh not to interrupt your report but you asked the question uh mr o'brien uh

098went to lowe's since we second time from our provider were given the wrong units and he bought the units there we do have an account with lowe's so we kind of did it uh the old-fashioned way and um just went and got them ourselves so i i know that i believe they have all been installed but there might i know some were just acquired maybe as late as monday so there might be a few units that still have to go in and the air conditioning units at east over are only temporary until the hvac project is complete but they do need to shut down stairways and hallways to do that so it has to be done this summer and they're going to extend our warranty i'm sure okay for free and you'll see in our

099agenda the bids for the high school science class um we've received them and will be voting on them and then we were waiting on bids for the temporary classroom trailer at academy street we're still waiting on that uh that actually uh the architect has been out to academy street some additional details which we provided today and we're optimistic that that might come in before the due date wonderful then we spent some time with alan bakino our architect who has done some preliminary projections of where we might be expanding can expand we went over a lot of different options with him they're going to be reviewed and presented to the the community and the full board um when we have all the details and the questions answered and some of the other details we were looking

100for is that accurate okay and then we also had a fire code inspection so we're updating some of the things um that he has felt we should be doing um a little bit more detail a little bit more attention to numbering our exit signs and things like that that we're now in the process of doing um and we also have on our agenda proposal for an assistant ba to replace our present accountant who's legally leaving and so that's on tonight's agenda this will not this change well additional discussion with some accounting areas that still need review and analysis we're also requesting that to assist the district and meeting its fiduciary responsibilities especially in the area payroll pension i'm trying to get some of that smoothed over prior to the start of the new ba let's

101see landscaping concerns were brought up to the committee and that's being addressed at this time by some additional contracted services during this time of growth and weeds and bushes growing and getting all that trimming and that under control so the committee recommends that the assistant be a position and a consultant to review the finance department to help streamline and set up priorities for the new va and finance staff so our committee is recommending that we approve that on our agenda so i move that the board approves the following resolutions and that's one through eleven i believe and that again includes the hand carry yeah it should yes uh we have a motion by miss mullen is there a second second miss viveros second there are comments questions about these agenda items mr mullen and dr

102sayner in that order please okay my question that i had was the summit management group that we're using to do payroll processing services i guess the question i had is when we hire someone to do that along with benefits i don't know how much it costs with the summit group does that make sense to contract it out or does it make sense to hire in-house well i think that economically the the summit group is not going to cost us more than having an employee and in fact there's some some savings there however uh i think that we'll have to wait for mr slam to come his recommendation preliminary and he's not here yet to really make it formally is to move to having an assistant business administrator who can support payroll and he has some

103other plans that he'll be sharing with the finance committee the the summit group is really to ensure that we have continuity in the payroll office and with our payroll um i have not talked to them about a long-term arrangement uh about and i know some districts do utilize that um it could be possible but i also think we need to see how they perform in in their uh job this is uh they've been heavily recommended they're they're a well-known group uh but we have not have our own experience with them okay thank you i had a comment and then a question mr glano highlighted during her report some grants that teachers and the district in general had received and i also wanted to highlight items 7 and 10 where there were significant donations to our

104students from st thomas orthodox church as well as the parsippany chapter of the srlc usa so you know as we work towards building a community school having those community members feel that our children are worthy investments feels really good and it should be acknowledged my question was in regards to the food service budget the the balance in that category was very high and i know this has been a finding in the past when we've been audited i believe we approved some renovations to utilize that money have they just not taken place yet no there's been actually quite a lot that has been spent out of the cafeteria fund uh the latest for example we some communication pieces which the um cafeteria uh asked for to be added so i don't know if those have actually

105been charged yet to the account uh but we have uh we've upgraded quite a bit of our serving uh materials right here in in the high school but in other areas as well we're adding a walk-in freezer here uh i know that there's some um planning that has to go into where that freezer will best go so i don't think that has been installed that may not have been paid for yet but all the cafeteria funds um that we can utilize to upgrade our cafeteria services are being used we i guess have a positive problem that our cafeteria continues to generate good revenue thank you very much i have a question regarding the zoofall agreement i'm confused by two figures on page four there's a price of two thousand six thousand two thousand six hundred

106and sixty six with sixty seven cents per month for zoo fall services but then there's another figure under on number seven on page six for 2583.33 per month is there different services no i was told that was correct it was it was um the higher figure is the correct figure okay uh so actually when sioux fall uh when we we did their contract we looked back and we when we originally um approved new wall as our school position services we showed three years out and this is consistent with that original board resolution okay thank you thank you for making that correction is there anything yeah if i just missed when you brought up the zoo fall health services it's nice to see the the alliance that we've made for our students special exam fee drug

107alcohol testing and um just using them more and more yeah they have really been a great partner since we started with them i think that's a big improvement as the board might know uh previously we were using an emergency medical service that sometimes did not have a physician five days a week so it was difficult if we needed uh to access services since we moved to zoo fall they've been wonderful the athletic examinations are preschool screenings uh just a variety of activities as well as beginning of the year meetings with our nurses with the school physician for guidance especially with covet so they they've been great partners great news are we ready for a roll call at this time uh mr please miss catano mr miller yes ms mullen yes mr robles yes ms ruiz

108yes dr saner yes ms vaveros yes ms grisalis yes motion carries thank you for informational upcoming board of education meetings october 19th in person november 16th in person december 21st in person all starting at 6 30 p.m here uh in the cafeteria um dr mclaughlin would you like to update us on the next item yes we have one request for use of facilities which we have approved uh that is uh for the njea uh actually it's through the dssa association they'll be doing some professional development for their members it's on a saturday and we're making the dover high school cafeteria available for that perfect this room is used for a lot in regards to old business we um just to recap we have the community meeting sign up sheet that i encourage all board members

109to please review and make sure we're covering every single committee meeting that we have um agreed to attend um and that's it for um old business anyone else have old business mrs chris i'm not sure if this is under old or new but we've talked about it in the past about um looking at this year for climate survey for our community and our school and our staff and so you're inquiring about when we would start with the climate yes or whether we're going to use the njea or the other climate surveys that are out there to look at and pick one in one of the things that we were waiting on we have an articulation with nyu and we wanted to make sure that if we did some type of climate survey didn't step on

110some of the work that they're doing so as soon as we have that articulation i should be able to report out to the board on that i'll make sure that it's in our next administrative report thank you great any other old business from any other board member okay um moving on to new business i have a new business item building board leadership we have worked hard to share our board leadership during these past few years and i'm excited to the positive impact on our school community as we are heading towards an organization meeting in january of 2000 too oh my god i would like to offer my time to share the share tips and experiences with any board member that is interested in holding the role of a chair or vp or president this coming

111year i am no expert but i have certainly learned a lot from you from our community from our administration from our students and staff and would like to transfer as much as i can of that knowledge to you so if you're interested in that leadership role we are all leaders by just sitting here but taking on a little bit more responsibility would be an amazing task for our um district so um call me email me i'm accessible if i can help you in any way to make that move any other new business that you may have all right we move then with our second public comment section and i wanted to um once i opened it i wanted to make a um a a comment regarding all of our um community so the board recognizes

112the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves in school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments not restricted to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of this presiding officer please understand that public comment portions are our of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they're offered opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comment however please know that all comments are considered and are investigated and addressed appropriately please be courteous and mindful to the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive

113obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal 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 a legal liability for defamation i sure hope that our agenda answered some of the questions and concerns and if not this is your time to present them to the board super tall heels don't help good evening daniela mendez it's great to see you all again i sent an email to the entire board and administration last week i would like to thank miss ruiz miss grasales dr saner dr mclaughlin for responding district policy 5756 transgender students section students adopted april

11430th 2019 states the superintendent or designee should ensure training is provided to school staff members on sensitivity and respect towards transgender students the superintendent or designee shall ensure school counselors are knowledgeable regarding issues and concerns relevant to transgender students students facing other gender identity issues or students who may be transitioning the superintendent or designee will make available to school staff members a variety of resources regarding professional development opportunities as sourced by the new jersey department of education as well as developmentally appropriate information for students regarding lgbtq issues permit and support the formation of student clubs or programs regarding issues related to lgbtq youth and offer support in the creation of peer-led educational groups in the years that have followed the adoption of this policy what gender-specific training has been provided to school staff members how

115many school counselors are knowledgeable regarding issues and concerns relevant to transgender students students facing other gender identity issues or students who may be transitioning what lgbtq specific professional development opportunities have been made available to school staff members in what way has developmentally appropriate information regarding lgbtq issues been provided to students how have the students been empowered and supported in the formation of clubs programs and groups related to lgbtq youth lastly as a latinx woman i am proudly celebrating hispanic heritage month in what way are the schools shining a light on hispanics who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society specifically how is the district celebrating and supporting latinx students with english as a second language during hispanic heritage month thank you for listening and i look forward to a continued dialogue with the

116administration and the board on our important work of supporting students with english as a second language and lgbtq students thank you miss mendes can you hear me could you hear me not really just speak yeah not too great but get close please sorry about that you hear me no yes okay just project my name is maria i live in 82 east blackwell street dover new jersey i wanted to um share the sentiment of daniela mendez i was going to say exactly the same thing what kind of expertise or experience do the clinical staff in dover schools have to deal with lgbtq issues how confident are you that children are speaking up if they are bullied do they know what resources to to use or who to go to if this happens to them i wanted

117to share with you that sixty percent of transgender youth try to commit suicide because they don't have support so i mentioned it the last time but 60 is a big number and attempting to versus thinking about it is a big difference so the students in dover really need lgbtq resources support experienced staff and administration and on top of that they need education on how to be more accepting of people that are not like them i also wanted to share with you that novartis pharmaceuticals is having their art show once again dover has entered many years this year it would be virtual again it is going to be the same thing great prizes ipads laptops beats headphones the topic of this year it will be honoring [Music] lgbtq icons during hispanic heritage month so we as

118well as novartis know the importance of being inclusive in this diverse world i will also send this information to you in an email the contest starts october 14th the last day to submit is october 11th all kids from fifth to twelfth grade are um are allowed to enter and it's going to be virtual so they don't have to do it in person you don't have to add it to the curriculum you they do it on their own time over the weekend after school if there's i'm going to send you my information if there's any questions please ask all i ask from you is to give the kids opportunities to enter some kids don't have the money to buy these great prizes and they don't know how to some people are lgbtq or have family members

119that are so it would be great to be inclusive and provide this opportunity for the students to enter thank you so much thank you miss chakon hi eva elise crespo again um again i just wanted to stay um as a parent being new to the district with my kids going well you know they attended pre-k last year but clearly with the pandemic things were different so now that i'm experiencing the onboarding and orienting of parents into the education or at least into the school district i want a sentiment again around communication the website i understand on myself i'm a millennial i can go in it's hard for me to look for information to be able to understand what's coming out so the fact that i am first again my language in speaking is english and

120i know that there's other parents that i talk to that are hispanic it's one thing translating something in spanish and handing it out or posting it on the site i think that we should be doing a better job in orienting them in orientation prior to the school year teaching them how to fetch for information not having them just go out and look for themselves how to use again come to these board meetings or other forums it's one thing to kind of educate around the fun things that we do around the school but also bringing them into this forum to be able to understand the things that we're doing for our kids and also be able to have a dialogue to speak up in that aspect so yes around communication sorry i just want to look

121at my notes one thing also i did attend orientation for kindergarten so yes there was an orientation but i think orientation should happen for all levels not just kindergarten i don't know if that happens for first second or third not saying that you have to have 12 orientations but maybe in a way think about brainstorming ideas on how to structure those in addition to that attending and having someone translating those live english and spanish maybe there should be a way that there's a networking opportunity for parents to unders like be able to kind of attend and meet the other parents but then separate to be able to have full dedication to your spanish parents and english parents to give them more time when you're giving them information about the process governance and and things like

122that i think that we i think orientation is a bit much more high level and it needs to be more granular when it comes to i think parents at least for myself i still had a lot of questions when my kids started school in regards to the curriculum i know you guys spoke a lot about the curriculum i have the agenda here how is that shared with parents today maybe it's something that can also be shared with parents in the beginning as well as part of the packet but understanding that curriculum would be nice i don't know if it's on the site i missed it i don't know where it is again i have to fetch for it so if there's an opportunity to be able to give parents these links or quick links or

123things like that for in order for them to be able to understand what their kids are going to be learning in school and also builds transparency as well i also wanted to understand the dual language program the dual language program i know is new now for kindergarten i want to understand and i think i've already talked to a few people on the staff so thank you for that but um i know it's going to be reevaluated if it's going to be reevaluated what does that mean is there a commitment i'm sorry i just wanted to let you know that three minutes is up if you can finish your sentence yep i'll finish right now is the dual program going to be is there a commitment for it or is it a year by year case

124and how is the progress and metrics going to be shared with parents as well and i only say that because if it's going to be a year after year and there's no commitment to follow through um how do we then i feel like my kids that basically went through the year and kind of lost that um so i have a lot of other things i'll bring it up next time thank you we're always here every once a month thank you so much ms crespo all right john coniglio 24 taylor's on road mothville earlier in the meeting you had mentioned communications made to the full board but failed to mention that i contacted the full board on august the 19th about my topic tonight which is the overwhelming amount of resignations in our district of late

125i've been told that this is normal for this time of year yet in the last three board agendas in july we've had nine resignations in august we've had six and tonight in september's we have eight that is the highest amount of resignations on any agendas in the last four years in dover we've had 26 people resign from may 2021 to september 2021 alone 26. that does not include retirees or people that were not renewed these are all people that are voluntarily and willingly leaving our district and as their president and representative it pains me to see this we have lost amazing staff some of whom are bilingual to other districts i'm getting so tired of people asking me john who do i send my letter of resignation to john do you have a template you

126have a resignation template and there are more resignations coming next month that are on the next agenda we've lost in the last three months alone a preschool teacher a plumber four paras a psychology teacher an elementary teacher a school account two school secretaries a business administrator which will now be our fourth since november of 2019 a math teacher a nurse a supervisor of world languages a supervisor of k-6 an esl teacher a speech teacher a special ed supervisor and a human resources director all in the last three months as stated earlier by this board we have made many many advancements lately but as a board and as a community here in dover we need to self-reflect and ask ourselves why people are choosing to leave dover this is not normal having exit interviews is great

127but at that point it's too late the damage has already been done continuing to put extensions on our house without taking great care of the foundation will make it crumble to the ground we need to take care of our current staff and our foundation and put an end to this trend thank you mr coniglio any other comment from the public hi dolores diaz um actually i was the staff member who started the early childhood program in dover we can't hear you very well i was actually the supervisor who started the early childhood program in dover in 2001 and at that time we filled the classrooms with things that were necessary which i'm sure have been turned over by now however in the kindergarten they had full libraries full libraries i want to know if those

128kindergartens since they're now dual language have full libraries in spanish what are the reading and math books in spanish do the students use both books one week in english one week in spanish how does that work you know that dover has a very transient population when someone comes in and they only speak english let's say um how are they going to proceed in a class that's you know you know if kindergarten goes to first and first goes to second and now a first grader comes in and has no knowledge of spanish how are they going to be supported okay so they have telephones in every classroom but how about the books they need books um i've spent quite a lot of money this year buying spanish books to donate to my former colleagues i also

129had been a bilingual teacher and i've had kindergarteners come up and grab onto my leg and say to me in spanish i'm afraid how would you like to go to greece which i did where you don't know the language you can't read anything because different alphabet and have not one person that you can go to to say i'm afraid it's very difficult so now there's no more bilingual kindergarten so every other week they can be afraid i guess and that's it thank you thank you miss diaz any other um public comment with this i would close the public comment section at this time board members and administration would we um respond to any um and make any comments in regards to ourselves miss reese um i just so i i obviously speak for myself only

130miss graceless our board president speaks for the board um that said as as a resident i appreciate when elected officials actually respond to my communication and because that is what i want from election elected officials that's what i give if someone emails the full board and i'm obviously included on that i do respond i apologize for mr coniglio when it was asked who else emailed i forgot that he did but i did respond to mr coniglio in my capacity individually not speaking for the board um and it's part of of the reason um that miss linda mullen pointed out that we have been asking for a climate study i personally have been asking for a climate study since before i was a board member it is important to ensure that we have good tools to

131recruit teachers and all staff and good tools to retain teachers and all staff and um just like exit interviews are one tool to learn more about that process a climate study is another tool and we have plenty of tools of our at our disposal so i for one will say that the comments are are not unheard certainly not by me and um that i recognize that there is not just in dover but in many districts right districts resignations for retirement purposes certainly and also other reasons and i and i look forward to ensuring that this board drafts policies that encourage the recruitment of dedicated and exceptional staff members and the retainment of dedicated and exceptional staff members anyone else mr robles i just want to recognize the significance of the issue that was brought and

132raised by the mr coniglio today i think as a board we understand how important that is and i want to say personally that to me it is very important that we realize that we need to take some action and i think our board has decided to take some action and perhaps it hasn't been addressed here today but it will be addressed and as a parent in the community i am also concerned for my for the students who see this turnover and one year they have a teacher but the next year that teacher is gone and i know that can be also a traumatic experience for students because they they love their teachers and i think our teachers do an exceptional job so i'm looking forward to as a board to uh you know hold us

133accountable and hold the administration accountable for continuing to do an excellent job and whatever we could do to make things in our district better that that should be our goal and i i take that personally as a challenge for us to to take forward thank you mr robles and in general i just want to um make sure that even though the board of education members and ones that are sitting here were elected and tasked with the role of being a body of policy and not necessarily and specifically running the district right or or making decisions on personnel and matters of that sort our job is really to hold dr mclaughlin accountable to make sure that he's running the best district for our kids it is important that every single comment that you make it is

134valuable to us and we appreciate that because it really is what gives us the um the fuel to be able to make the best policy that we can for all of us not only our students but our administration our staff in general so i do want to um ask that you know the the your comments regarding um the curriculum and the training for lgbtq as well as um the communication the orientation the access to curriculums um for our parents um i know that the community we just i just signed contracts for our community liaisons in every single one of our schools so i know that that's coming that communication um and that connection with our community is coming more and i ask you to please continue to be attentive to that and continue to give

135us feedback to see if it's working or or if we should ask dr mclaughlin to do something different i also wanted to apologize mr coniglio again um i missed that you know you send it so early we forgot about it but we did respond to you and we do you know very much um appreciate um you coming and the resignations are concerning and please know that the board has made it very clear that it is concerning to us um again with ms diaz thank you for all the questions regarding the dual language program i know it's a new thing it's new territory for many of us and and i appreciate that um we have concerned community members holding us accountable as well as board members to make sure that those programs that we're trying and

136that we're bringing in are the best for our kids currently right now not kids who were you know for me when i was educated in dover those would not work right right now and for future kids is really what we have to plan for so thank you all um dr mclaughlin miss sirianna is there any that you want to include i just want to say that some of the um some of the questions that were posed in public comment you know require a thorough response and that certainly i think that is something that can be expected by the community as we continue to go forward so i've certainly heard a number of the questions that were posed tonight and the community can expect to hear feedback you know in continued board meetings in a thorough

137fashion thank you so stay tuned please with this i ask that we adjourn the meeting is there a motion to close the meeting at 8 54. so moved miss mullen moved is there a second second second miss rivera second all in favor any opposed any absentation everyone have a good night and thank you for being here