001no oh you are yeah oh they said yeah that's fine they said no uh presentations that's okay okay glasses yeah now oh apparently yeah uh oh oh that's right my god uh okay i'm going to turn the camera on momentarily oh oh i'm sorry uh i'd like to call this meeting to order the mission of the freehold township school district is to honor and support every learner every day on the journey to become curious and engaged members of a diverse global community a notice listing the time date and place of this meeting was posted on the public bulletin board of all freehold township schools on the entrance door to the administrative offices of the board of education on the district website at the office of the freehold township clerk published in the asbury park press
002on january 7th 2022 and sent to the news transcript on january 5th 2022 i'd like to invite you all in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the lack of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay welcome ms costanza mrs casolino here mr gargiulo here here we have a quorum i'd like a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes from may 10 2022. so all in favor say aye hi all right i'd like a motion to approve the executive session meeting minutes from may 10 2022. all in favor say aye aye motion carries no problem um for president's remarks this evening i'm going to move right into the administrative report um we will observe a moment
003of silence so i will pass this over to mr dickstein good evening a few hours ago the news media reported a school shooting in texas with 14 students and one teacher killed the gunman was an 18 year old who lived in the neighborhood and was killed by responding police officers uh we in freyo township are lucky that we work closely with the freyo township police department and we have school safety officers that rotate through our schools and just like many of us think it can't happen here i'm sure in texas in that school rob elementary school i'm sure they said the same thing it can't happen here we're only as good and safe as we all are implementing our safety protocols and practices and this is another reminder that school violence is real and unfortunately
004prevalent in the united states at this time and we need to be diligent in implementing the procedures that we have in place and enforcing them and chief bauman did proactively text us and let us know that he plans to have extra officers at our schools at arrival and dismissal tomorrow so at this time i would like to offer a moment of silence for in memory of the students and staff member that were killed in texas thank you going into the rest of the administrative report a few months ago i shared with the board and subsequently with the district community a potential modification to school times for the 22-23 school year since that communication there has been no improvement with the bus driver shortage nationwide and in our district and the continued impact on our st
005our transportation our ability to transport our students has not improved we continue to experience significant transportation delays on a daily basis and we pull three out of our four transportation office staff members out every day to drive buses parents call and there's just not enough people to answer the phones and don't get a response in transportation it's simply not safe and we can't effectively fulfill our obligation to get students to and from school safely and in a timely manner next school year therefore the school times will be modified as previously shared in an effort to alleviate traffic the middle schools will continue to be ready to receive and supervise students beginning at 7 00 a.m and donovan will be ready to receive and supervise students beginning at 8 40 a.m even though their school officially
006opens at nine o'clock a follow-up letter will be sent to staff and parents tomorrow we begin planning for the days in which staff return in september the activities and professional development necessary to include those days exceed the two days we currently have on our calendar therefore there's a modification to the 2223 school calendar on tonight's agenda for approval this modification increases the number of staff days before students return from two to three which will be september first second and sixth the first day of for students will move forward one day and be wednesday september 7th and the entire district will now be closed on monday october 10th rather than being a professional development day the last day of school which includes three built-in snow days will be pushed forward one day to thursday june 22nd
007and for the hip report we have had four reports of harassment intimidation and bullying since the last board meeting and three of those are confirmed incidents and one was unfounded that's all that i have okay spring data turn it over to becky to do this bring data sure are we pulling the screen down yep okay right okay thank you good evening um i'm gonna try to do this without losing my breath if i'm out of breath i apologize and i thank you for your patience tonight i'm looking forward to sharing with you my first official report on student assessment data for our spring testing um just as a reminder to the board and the public we use two different assessments um in our k to eight grade levels to determine student achievement and student progress
008we use the map test in grade two through eight for math and in grades three through eight for reading and then we use the i ready diagnostic assessment in grades k through 2 for reading um so one thing i want to tell you about this evening is not just how we use this data but that that the data that we use and that we look at regularly tells us a story and the story that i want to share with you um this evening is a story of diligence and perseverance on the part of our administration our staff and our students the data that i'm going to share with you illustrates a story that our district has successfully and emphatically moved away from the narrative of the coveted learning loss and strongly targeted strongly targeted student
009needs have ensured improvement for all of our students across the year is there room to grow there's always room to grow absolutely but this data does provide for me in this new role a roadmap for myself and my team to start to build a goal and a vision for the work that we're going to do moving forward into next year more importantly it tells the story of the fact that there's no there's no problem in data that we can't tackle for our students and i'm really proud to share this information with you tonight i included this this is not data this is our the norming charts for the map tests we may refer back and forth to this so this i included this slide in the presentation if we need to look back at it
010as we start to look at at student writ scores in grades two through eight we're going to start with our k in one i ready reading assessment oh it's awfully yellow in this i'm sorry it should be a little it should be a little greener because i was going to share with you just like when you're stopped at the traffic light green is green is good red is bad um our kindergarten assessment data is really impressive in that regard we have our kindergarten students take this assessment twice a year once in the winter and then once in the spring you can see on what looks greenish yellow is mostly green for our students and that really indicates that our students are either meeting or exceeding grade level expectations in as readers what's important to note
011is on the far column and what isn't in the in the circle graphs and that is the color red we do not have a single kindergarten student reading book two or more years below grade level in the district and so that's pretty impressive in my regard this is a similar graph for our first grade readers again looking at strong scores across first grade and seeing that none of our students in first grade are falling in that two or more years below grade level we do have more students in the one level below area than in first grade than in kindergarten but again this is an opportunity for growth i say and a place for us to focus as these first graders move into second grade all right now we're going to look at second graders
012two different looking graphs because our second graders take i ready for reading and then map for math um you'll see oh the colors are terrible really it's so much it's so much nicer on mine i'm sorry um the the green again is um at or above grade level the the yellow for our students that looks sort of like earthy brown on there is our students who are one level below and the red are our students who are reading two or more levels below um again you know i think what's important to note solidly fifty percent of our readers across second grade and more and how a higher percentage in other places are solidly reading at or above grade level and that is something really impressive especially thinking of these second graders who started school during
013the pandemic all right moving into map these are math scores for our second graders um i i included this particular visual because it um it paints a nice picture gives a nice visual for where our kids were performing our second graders were performing last year and then this year so it allows us to compare how our kids were doing um you know sort of mid pandemic and then this year as things are as as close to back to normal as we could hope for um some things to note in the columns in the center um that positive growth and negative or zero growth if you'll notice from the bottom bar which was the 2020 2021 school year that positive growth percentage has gone up from an 89 percent to a 98 um and that and
014uh you know conversely or at the same time that negative growth is decreasing so we are we are experiencing more students having more positive growth the three columns on the right hand side map takes student scores from the fall and allows us to identify where based on where students perform whether they would be in the low performing typical for forming or higher than expected performing uh quadrant of you know on on on tests and again you see a significant improvement from the 2020 21 line to the 2021 22 line where we have fewer percentage of students in that low growth area and more students in the typical and the high group on the high growth area so our kids are all moving in the right direction this is that same data from the previous slide
015only broken down a little bit more granularly across the four performance levels in terms of exceeding standards meeting standards approaching standards and not meeting standards the green yellow orange and red down the left hand side again i the thing that i like to focus on or look for are those green numbers that fall to spring growth that happens in the writ scores all of them are green which which you know again paints a great picture of our kids making great progress in the area of math or second graders even our lowest performing students in that low growth column are all making positive growth um this slide and and subsequent ones that look like this break down our student performance by demographic so looking at students by race by gender and by program so our students
016with disabilities are socio economically disadvantaged students our english language learners the left-hand columns are grayed out because it indicates the number of students in each of those subgroups and some of those numbers are so low that it would be identifying for some of our students so we don't share those publicly some things to note on this chart is that the the numbers that aren't black or red as opposed to green in the previous slides this tells me a story of where we need to be focusing some energy in terms of equity diversity focusing of interventions on our subgroup of subgroups of students so that their performance levels can be comparable to other groups of students all right and we're going to look at third and fifth grade so this is a similar report to the
017second grade this is third fourth and fifth grade math again looking at last year's data compared to this year's data the bottom bottom bar compared to the top bar again looking at our positive growth um to our negative growth we are increasing the number of or the percentage and the number of students who are demonstrating positive growth and decreasing the number of students who are demonstrating negative or zero growth um which again tells a great story this is for language arts and again that trend of increased positive growth while it is not as market as it is in math it certainly is growth in the right direction and and will be an area of focus for us for next year so that we can see if we can get those language arts numbers to look
018as as good as the math ones lexile is the measure of student reading level map measures student lexile level and the this chart shows us what what our average lexile level was for students in grades three four and five in the fall and then again in the spring that difference or that growth from fall to spring and again bottom bar last year compared to this year our lexile levels our average lexile levels are all solidly within the average range for each grade level and again demonstrating improvement in the percentage of kids demonstrating positive growth from last year to this year um this is a new piece of information that we have not shared with the board in the past this is a comparison across elementary schools um this looks at the average writ score um
019from fall to spring and that and the difference between those those average scores between each of the five elementary schools um language arts at the top math at the bottom again you can see in the in the fs column that positive difference between the fall scores and the spring scores and this is helpful information from a comparative standpoint to look at where we have pockets of students performing really well where we are seeing some some you know strong writ growth and um what's happening in those places so that we can look to replicate it in other places okay um this is the lincoln growth profile it compares the amount of change or growth um that a student's spring score has demonstrated relative to a peer cohort from those from that norming uh information so based
020on on scores students are placed in either that low growth typical growth or high growth um sort of cohort and then we can determine whether that we they made students made the anticipated growth based on where they you know what what group growth group they fell in again this looks at grades three four and five for language arts and across the performance levels for standards exceeding meeting approaching partially meeting or not meeting standards again from looking in that sort of left-hand column where we have growth fs that's the growth fall to spring those numbers are all green that means that across all of the performance levels in the standards our students are demonstrating growth you may notice that the numbers at the higher ends are lower that's because there's less room to grow when you're
021at the higher level of the standards one thing that this piece of data does tell me is that our group of low performing students that low growth column i see more red numbers there than green numbers so that is certainly an area of focus that we will need to be talking about from a language arts perspective what are we um what are we doing for those for those students who are demonstrating low growth so that we can turn those numbers from red to green this is the same visual from a math perspective these are our language arts proficiency by demographics again that uh left hand column is grayed out because um the numbers would be identifying for students um the blank columns in the center are where average writ scores typically are displayed in this
022particular report it doesn't aggregate the data across the district but i can break it down by grade level for any board members that want to look at it across the grade level but link it doesn't aggregate it for the the group of grade levels three four and five together again um you know i i look to the far right column which is um the percentage growth that we are noticing in each of those subgroups and you know as i mentioned from the second grade slide this is certainly an area of growth for us and this is the same thing for math on to middle school this is the ritz score summary i've um put both middle schools on the same slide so we can look at at them comparatively the top two bars are eisenhower
023the um from 2020 2021 to 2122 right above it and then the bottom two bars are barclo again same time period last year to this year just like in in our third through fifth grade data we want to look at the positive growth column and notice that from one year to the next we are seeing a market improvement in the in the positive growth column for our students and a decrease in that negative or zero growth column this is the same visual but from the language arts perspective again um the volume of positive growth in language arts is not the same as it is in math um but again that tells us uh where we need to be focusing our energy and this is the lexile summary for our middle schools again growth in lexile
024levels from from in both middle schools from last year to this year lexile scores our spring lexile scores are solidly in that lexile average range for each of the grade levels and this is that more granular data by breaking um the each of the language arts and and then the next slide will be math looking at um at the data at each of the performance levels exceeding standards meeting standards approaching partially meeting and not meeting again i look to that column that growth column to determine how our kids are performing and demonstrating growth and where our areas of need are um and you know it again similar to our third through fifth grade students we need to be focusing some attention on our um on our students our lower growth students and the um how
025we can improve that progress that they need to make this is for eisenhower again the um or excuse me for barcelo eisenhower and barclays data is is very comparable sure sorry that was eisenhower that was eisenhower that one's barclay and then we have the same profiles for math from a middle school demographic perspective i know this one's kind of hard to see i apologize um again the numbers of students in each of those subgroups is blacked out but the the center group of data is for eisenhower the right-hand set of data is for barcelo and then the two different columns within each school is the anticipated uh growth versus um the actual measured growth and so we're looking at that um far right column in each of the schools to look at you know what
026the percentage of growth was from fall to spring and to see where what particular areas or what particular subgroups we need to spend time focusing on in terms of targeted instruction is the same demographic data for math performance yes please um they they um it's based on the norm so based on the on the students same students same age level you know that have taken the test nationally and correct and how they perform so they look at if you know if mary performed this way on her fall map test we can predict that she will perform similarly to you know however many thousands of students performed that same way on their fall test so we can predict mary's spring test will be this yeah sure um so as i started i i think that this
027tells a really really positive story about the work that our teachers our administrators have done with students to um counteract that learning loss narrative right like there there is no data that i shared with you that shows marked dropping of students between last year and this year and that is really positive and i think it speaks to all of the all of the efforts that we've made as a district to ensure that that learning loss isn't a reality for our kids that being said from a summary perspective there's some really really positive data in the area of mathematics that i'm awfully proud of and i would like to replicate some of that work in language arts moving forward but two summary is that too some too much of summary okay okay yeah again i don't
028want to dismiss the fact that all of them have gone up and gone up in a very impressive way um but the difference between math and language arts is is noted and i i feel like it would be irresponsible of me to not to not note it um and i do feel like we're you know i will work with my team to put together a plan for next year so that this time next year it'll look different is there a theory i i i'm not i don't have i can't do that just yet maybe debbie can't love him but i must say i am impressed even though i'm not impressed probably some other people because i've worked with you for 15 years so i know how well you've covered things but i really do appreciate
029that showing what we did well but also where we know yeah i mean again i think overall this data tells a really positive story um but it would be um naive of us to and and out of character for this district to not always be looking for ways we can continue to grow the kids that we've identified um within the lower the negative growth yes i know you don't have a total plan yet but i mean those kids are identified identifiable to you guys yes absolutely absolutely and that's one of the benefits of map not only does it help us identify who those kids are but it identifies it we can break down the area of language arts and the area of math by domains i can tell you you know very granularly that this
030student who's sitting right here in third grade needs work in language arts in the area of informational text or in the area of phonics and phonemic awareness um and so that will allow us to target instruction for those kids and another question i had was regarding so up there you know the special ed population you know you had 504 you had ell you had special ideogenic from a specialized perspective are these children who do not like for instance you know i always go back tomorrow right you're right right he's not a um like a new jersey sla taker right right are we counting those especially so this this is representative of every student who takes map in our district yeah so there are some idp absolutely yes lots of them yeah there are a lot
031we have lots of students with um that have special education needs who take the map test and this is a great way for both their uh general education teachers but also their special education teachers to really again narrow down where their areas of learning needs are and do you think you know i as a parent i had to request you know is do you think do you find that as a tool that could possibly be used with more of our special education students if it's able to break down i think it's very specific to student i wouldn't answer that broadly because i think it ha it's very specific to specific students yeah yeah it it may be the right decision for your child i can't say broadly that is for everyone you know i was
032just wondering if the way that it breaks down for you as it would be and easier yeah again for for for our general education students and for many of our students with with disabilities it it is helpful but for others it it is an exercise in futility and i wouldn't recommend that for some kids when our especially our kids who are classified i know there's less positive growth for students that are exceeding grade level standards on on many levels so what measure do we look at because they're already exceeding grade level standards but does that mean that they are performing to the absolute best that they can can we be doing more we'll be doing more through the question so in the same way that we can use map assessment to identify areas of need
033for kids who need targeted instruction in low areas we can do the same for our kids who are exceeding our standards right we can see which areas in those levels of exceeding they're doing well in and which areas we can continue to challenge them further okay yeah does math let you go like above like for instance like to just figure out back up what michelle's saying so if you're if you have let's say a third grader right who is exceeding third grade standards but could actually you know beat fifth grade standards is that something it would be able will it go that far to tell you it it no because they're measure or they're they're normed against their chronological peers yeah yeah if the test isn't designed to do that we have other measures in
034the district that we can do that but math isn't designed to do that mary did you have another question sorry i thought i saw you out of the corner now that we're talking about the higher achieving students and middle school sports and i know a lot of other districts that's going to throw this out there now have included a geometry program in their in their middle school curriculum i know you're going to be looking at the whole yes yeah and that that that will be put yes that will be part of the conversation um and miss honchil and i have had have engaged in conversations in starting that discussion in that process um we um are balancing that piece of the conversation with the equity piece right so there's a lot of research that says
035the um the more you design higher and higher tracks the less equitable we will broadly be able to meet the needs of our students so we're looking at both both pieces all of that research in all of those areas and we'll you know we'll consider that as we look to review and revise our ecg process through the next year yeah that'll be part of it because i was surprised by the number yeah and i i don't even know because i've never looked at another district's number if that distribution is true in every district but it just seems like a small number it's a yeah it's a very it's a yeah it's a very narrow cohort and the middle school kids i noticed and i you know mary and i talked about this briefly yesterday the
036middle school students that we don't have many exceeding we don't have any exceeding in math is that because then they're in algebra it's because they're in algebra yes yes if you go back to look at it or eighth grade the the number of eighth grade students at the exceeding level is is markedly low because they're all mostly included in the algebra bar at the bottom yep that's what we thought yeah yeah all right as always data lives in my office if you have questions please don't hesitate to reach out and thank you for your time thank you impressive all that dad just cray-cray thank you very much becky awesome awesome yep um so we are good now right bring data okay this would be our first opportunity for public participation as you know this board
037does two uh opportunities for public participation this first one is for agenda items only if anyone wishes to address the board please write your name and address on the sign-in sheet state your name for the record statements are limited to three minutes should not be abusive obscene or defamatory in nature and again this is for agenda items only hello am i on okay okay so i want to thank you for uh this opportunity to speak my name is renata brand and i was just looking at the mission statement so i assume that's part of the opening information and my concern was with the last two words of the mission statement global community why aren't we talking about local or american community i think that new jersey is an important part of our community of our
038society and that we should mention being new jersey first america is second i'm not really sure that global applies at the grade school level shouldn't we be teaching things to our students about our american heritage about our american strengths and beauty and diversity i think america should be mentioned more in the mission statement it's not mentioned at all it's not being mentioned at all excuse me i'm getting over allergies so and the proof of that america is so great is that we have an inordinate amount of people always coming to look to come to america and uh to live here thank you and god bless america thank you what what time i just wanna i just wanna add to that um just briefly that that mission statement was devised by um the community through the
039strategic planning process correct neil yes and there were hundreds of people in the room i wanted to add that in section 3 we pledge our allegiance to the united states of america well i think i was trying to find um quickly there was some literature on that and i think it's the use of the word uh global um which we don't have to uh you know address now but yes you're right correct the whole we i think it was meant to be a more as a whole an inclusive whole not globally versus america or new jersey understood but i was at another school board meeting and they had it in their mission statement and i thought it was very nice touch because if anything america should lead the global community so the strategic planning uh
040people maybe weren't aware the importance of america you know maybe no one was prompting them to say well maybe we needed to include it i just want to share the process so the process for strategic planning is open to the entire community it was sent out multiple ways and the way that a mission statement is generated is very organic it is starts with people anybody who's there stating what they believe is part of a school district it doesn't everybody has their ability to contribute to the statement at the end and then everybody agrees upon that statement so that is something that's done with all stakeholders it can be business owners that were present parents board members staff members we had middle school students that attended and that mission statement was a result of that meeting
041that was put together as part of the strategic planning process would anybody else like to address the board okay then we'll move right into personnel ms truman is absent tonight so ms ben ditoli thank you uh the personnel committee did meet briefly tonight in attendance with dr brett bauer mrs lambert and myself with a cameo by mr dickstein um i'm going we really just discussed the agenda items um as they were listed i will move them now uh number three resignation as listed number four new employment i'm gonna do my best with the names i apologize uh brianna banagas jeffrey brown amy cerullo juliana demiola and katie morrow welcome to the district welcome amy uh number five leave of absence as listed number six change of assignment and salary adjustment as listed oh glory bell
042oh yes floor belle welcome congratulations number seven temporary change of assignment salary adjusted adjustment as listed number eight long-term substitute teacher as listed number nine unpaid days as listed number 10 pto honoraria as listed number 11 district pbs coaches as listed number 12 pbs building based committees as listed number 13 an esy staff update as listed number 14 esy volunteers as listed number 15 summer computer technicians as listed number 16 summer iep meetings as listed number 17 elementary task teams as listed number 18 consultant update as listed number 19 certified substitutes as listed number 20 non-certified substitutes as listed that's all from me okay um we just want to point out thought that there was a late uh change to the agenda that was not on the printed copy you may have received tonight and
043that is in um item number four line three salary should read 1969. 96 900 and before we take any questions uh we'd like to congratulate laura bell and neil would like to make say a few words yeah i typically again uh sitting up here i'm the superintendent but at this point i do want to put on my parent hat and just say uh it's bittersweet that i made the recommendation for professora to move to ldtc being a parent at west freehold both of my children have been lucky enough to um matthew all six years and madison is just short one year of being with with her her entire um elementary career being somebody who really appreciates war language spanish was my minor it seems that my children are following the path of appreciating it but
044it's a testament to her number one that my son is in spanish one and we argue that he needs to study but without studying he he retained what he learned through the years with his middle school teachers as well and the most telling is that we after two years we went on a cruise and it stopped in the dominican republic and my daughter only question was do you think professor is there [Laughter] no i don't and if she is i don't think she's waiting by the boat to see us but i just want to say again typically not something i do i do try to recognize their teachers when they retire when we have that but um she's had such an impact on both of my children that i felt remiss if i did not
045um did not say something to me congratulations correct yes um any questions on the personnel portion okay so then can i have a second and a roll call miss costanza yeah mrs casolino yeah so these are all they're 16 16 56 60 22 and 30. yeah okay mr coach ruler that's it mr o'sullivan yes mrs benitoli i'm saying yes okay go with the right mr amoroso yeah miss lambert yes motion carries who cares okay um curriculum and policy mary carsolino you're going to move that okay we did not meet tonight um but i'm going to move number two reading of policies and regulations number 1648-15 number 2415-04 number 2417 number 3161 number 41 61 number 74 10 number 8420 number 93 9320 regulations number 7410.01 and number 9320 and then the abolishment number three of
046policy number 1648-i'm sorry.14 and number four which is the student teacher practicum observation placements as listed number five home instruction as listed wait did i forget at six oh and number six the revised school calendar okay does anybody have any questions regarding anything or any of the policies can i have a second second all in favor say aye aye aye any abstentions one two one no two dot one no okay anything else no all right guys okay okay finance appointments and signatories so let's move on to the finance section who's moving that column ms o'sullivan seems like we have two sections right now this and then the other yes all right so um the legal uh depositories as solicited listed i'd like to know the signatories number two is listing number three the retirement savings
047program as listed number four annual appointments as listed number five uniform minimum chart accounts listed number six board attorney that's listed number seven labor attorney as listed number eight special education attorney that's listed number nine the architect of record as listed number 10 the auditor as listed number 11 continuing disclosure agreement that's listed number 12 tax payment schedule that's listed 13 extraordinary unidentified services that's the pcnl insurance profile first renewal as listed 14 the extraordinary unidentified services health insurance program first screenable as listed i'd like to point out that in number four annual appointments number four the superintendent recommends approval of the appointment of courtney colford school counselor as the student assistance coordinator the agenda has it blank okay so we should vote on this section first or just keep okay all right can i
048have a second on those neil this is first time around so this is different on this agenda because prior takes about 10 years ago when we used to actually vote on the school budget and we would vote for the board members at the same time in april we would reorganize in may so when we had our original reorganization meeting now in january just for a few things and now because all the rest of this stuff is tied to personnel and people on the fiscal calendar and not the regular so that's why this appears here it's a little different so i forgot to put that in my update this weekend so i just want to explain what this was and why it appeared today and not at some other point in time yep yep okay all
049in favor say aye aye any abstentions or no's okay uh ms o'sullivan the rest of them um today number two building claims thank you for doing the golden planes this first time i believe in recovery for 1252 492.41 number three travel and related expenses as listed number four travel related expenses update as listed number five transfers as listed number six disposals as listed number seven state contract numbers as listed number eight health insurance rates 2022-2023 as listed facilities as listed number 10 renewal of a bid of garbage collection for 2022 2023 as listed renewal a bid for recycling collection services 1922 2023 is listed renewal of bid for school vehicle maintenance 2022 2023 and coasted routine restoration and multiple foods that's lifted hvac at the western hill school as lifted nursing services as listed homebound
050instruction services as listed special specialized evaluations and services as listed honoraria team barbara middle school as listed tuition contract will receive students as listed and approve contracts with motorola solutions incorporated 2122 as listed okay does anybody have any questions on all of that what everybody's experiencing now in that or did that come across like an outlier no ever not everything's going up that high but i mean even with food services with a commodity cost increase we went up like a seven one um it's just the inflation numbers were eight eight point two in that range so my fear was we could either renew it the at the number that they gave us or if we go back at the bid our lowest bid then could be 10 so i i don't know how many contracts
051are aware of that number but some of them are so they're probably saying well you know if this is open i know i'm at least going to bid a seven and a half so yeah that's it's their it's their cost of doing business right now so next year i think this was the last year of renewal so next year we'll go back out for bid anyway hopefully inflation's down again at least a little bit more reasonable yes yep absolutely bob once you once we i just want to make sure because i know different but once we sign this gas could go up to eight dollars um i'd also like to give a shout out to barcelo pto and thank them for the honorary donation uh that's on the agenda tonight for um the various clubs
052that you see can i ask a follow-up on that on the middle schools i know we even we did this as a district at one point what what clubs do we pay for out of out of the district but i'd have to look back to be sure but it's in the contract all athletics are are at our cost and then from there the clubs i know we maintained funding for specific clubs so there was some equity between athletics and academic clubs i don't remember off the top of my head which of those clubs are funded through us and which are funded through the pto i'd have to take a look at the contract any other questions okay um all in favor say aye okay um old business uh new business i really didn't give up
053president's report earlier but i wanted to shout out a congratulations to all the little artists that uh took part in the erickson art show i was very sorry to miss the art show but uh i couldn't make it but i know miss ventitoli was there so if you want to say a few words about it yes um i think the kids were very excited because we have kindergarten first and second graders who had never had an art show before so you had half your school that didn't had never participated um you know it the kids i i every the vibe in the school was wonderful yeah um our teacher did an amazing job too uh but the vibe was wonderful uh she turned the art room into a cave um the back room in the
054art room was a cave where i think the second graders had done some like prehistoric drawings um it it was that the portraits were back you know i'd never been to an erickson art show before i was used to the ones at applegate it reminded me it was very similar um the kids were so happy to show up their work the pto was there giving refreshments ms parella was there um welcoming everybody and the kids were just so happy to be there with their parents yeah very positive i'm sorry to have missed it um so nice to see activity back in the buildings that the happy activity the the buzz of what what is most important which is what we do every day on every level from you know for the students from arts to
055music to academics and um it was nice the concerts yep the band concerts the performances at the place [Music] how was that it's good crazy yeah and the bar glow eighth grade trip is in two days i think on thursday the kids are i mean it's just everyone's happy to be back to doing some activities that they didn't get to do it's important the socialization aspect of those activities brings a very important developmental milestone for these kids before we send them off to high school so happy to see it um and anything else in any buildings that i've missed wow no are you good okay um a reminder his evaluation did how are you guys doing a target for that now why didn't get did you finish your selfie vote he i didn't get an
056email that we could do your evaluation i must be lost it must be lost email me okay i'm sorry when okay so when when neil finds his evaluation we'll get an email we have to complete his evaluation so yeah bob's right it's already the end of may it has to be completed before the end of june he's finding it um so i have to have i have to take the time to do that remember the district goals just for you tonight the district goals are reported upon already in there but each standard i have to link to a google doc with evidence so that's the delay right so when he's done with that i'm going to ask you all as soon as you get the email to try to turn it around in a day
057because it has to go back to school boards to be processed and it takes them about two weeks to do that and send it back to us and um we have a new person at school boards doing that now so i'm not sure if there's any kind of learning curve there or if there's any backlog but um for cusack it has to be done before june 30th so the keep your eyes out in june for the evaluation can i also uh just remind everyone we have three meetings in june and the next one is you have three meetings some of us have three meetings who will be present in june um june 7th is a non-business meeting no action will be taken and we are honoring all of our retirees and teachers and support staff
058members of the year for the last couple of years we have a lot of pictures we have to uh we have plaques to make and pictures to take um and then the next business meeting will be on june 14th right and then the next one after that is after school is out yes on june 28th i might be the only one here but yeah i'll be there just a reminder june 7th is that west frasier school it's a special meeting to honor retirees seven o'clock seven times you're out um so um before we move on to public participation this board like to say a very happy birthday to diane whose birthday was last week and to mr dickstein whose birthday is tonight thank you happy birthday um hello am i on yes again my name
059is renata brand and i'm here to speak about a certain issue with uh like that was available on facebook i'd like to start off by saying that america was founded on a judeo-christian values the pilgrims came from england in order to practice that faith freely and without government interference those rights are enshrined in the united states and jersey constitution and today we're seeing increase in state interference in those rights the states were developed to protect those rights not to step on them so i'd like to go on on may 20th in 2022 i emailed the board members a link to the garwood school board resolution in which they resolved to not adopt the inappropriate 2020 learning standards issued by the new jersey state department of education a letter dated april 14th and written by angelica
060allen mcmillan the education department acting commissioner was sent to principals assistant superintendent and at all i'm sure you all have a copy of it in it she states generally speaking and i quote the state does not mandate curriculum all locally adopted instructional materials should be aligned to the district curriculum and the new jersey state learning standards and be medically accurate developmentally and age appropriate end quote this the garwood school board stead stated i quote whereas should we allow the proposed state curriculum to move forward the impact it would have in classrooms would allow the school districts to demonstrate topics of sexual activities such as oral sex anal sex masturbation and gender to be discussed with children at various grade levels to comply with the curriculum standards and quote they went on to say whereas the
061standards set forth are extreme and age inappropriate the proof that more regulation is harmful is in the level of mental care that children need today every year we add more counselors more mental health professionals more medications we don't need that we need kids to be kids we need them to read write math learn civics and science to do normal school work we don't need sex in the classrooms i ask you respectfully to vote not to accept these horrible levels of teachings as did our counterparts at garwood union county its benefits for the children and for the society as a whole thank you my name is alex glovich i know at least a few of the board members are aware of the nature there were accusations made against me approximately a month ago due to my
062parent volunteer involvement at joseph j katina school i was told that i should ask the board first if you wanted this to be discussed in public session or in the closed executive session and did not want to get into any of the accusations unless it was with the board's permission as far as i know he was not requesting anything he advised that i should reach out to you just to let you know that i wanted to come in tonight to address the board and that then the board would decide whether it should be addressed publicly or an executive he didn't indicate to me that he was going to be reaching out to the board at all he told me to reach out to the board which is why i left the message and then spoke
063to your assistant that day like i said he never gave me any indication he was reaching out to you he just advised that i should reach out to you and then should be here tonight to address the board um absolutely board but then it looks like hd when we're here yeah i'm trying to keep my eye on the focus and like change the focus every so often that's why i didn't want to zoom in on the presentation thank you so far thank you is this is a little bit like just just over here i'm i'm conservative we'll go back into all right sorry for the detour we're going to go back into regular session would anybody else like to address the board on any topic okay seeing none i'd like emotion to go into executive
064session whereas pursuant to njsa 10412b the board of education may exclude the public from that portion of a public meeting at which the board discusses any of the matters described at njsa 1012 412 b items one through nine now therefore be it resolved that in accordance with the provisions of the open public meeting act the board of education shall conduct a closed session pursuant to the personnel and legal exceptions prescribed by njsa 10 412 for the purpose of discussing personnel non-affiliated 22-23 salaries 2223 salaries of central office administration and pending or anticipated contract negotiations with the twu and the ftea it is anticipated that the length of time of this executive session will be 60 minutes and that action will not be taken in public after the executive session be it further resolved that said
065discussion may be disclosed to the public when reasons for discussing and acting upon it in closed session no longer exist so can i have a motion to go into executive session second second okay so at the conclusion of our executive session we'll resume our public session um anybody's welcome to stay for that but no action will be taken and for those of you that are leaving at this point i'd like to thank you for your attendance and participation in our meeting uh all right