06-09-22 Watchung Borough BOE Meeting

001i'd like to call to order a regular meeting of the watchman girl board of education on june 9th 2022 at 7 pm may we please stand for the pledge of allegiance welcome to a meeting of the board of education of the borough of wachong please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that the advance notice required therein has been provided this is a regular meeting of the board of education of the borough of wachong at which formal action may be taken this meeting is being live streamed on the district website where recording of the meeting also will be posted the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda at points in the

002meeting provided for the public to address the board recording or photographing other than for private personal use requires the consent of parents slash guardians whose children may be included in the image can we have a roll call please mr barbara here mr buccarelli is not here mrs harvey here mr ingrassia here mr kraft here mr mcdonald here mrs murad is not here this is bonnie here and mrs scharf here here we have seven board members present okay can i have a motion to go into executive session so is there a second second any discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed mr pepe can you please read the reason for us going into executive session well as the open public meetings act njsa 10.4-11 permits the board of education to meet in closed session

003to discuss certain matters now therefore be it resolved the board of education adjourns to close session to discuss a matter of rendered confidential by federal or state law student matters and specific prospective or current employees unless all who could be adversely affected request an open session which they did not okay we're going to try and keep it to maybe about a half an hour [Music] again hopefully less we'll try our best can i have a motion to come out of executive session that was uh rich that was amber [Music] second um a second second any discussion all in favor say aye aye any okay we're gonna move on to board member comments are there any comments from board members yeah just a couple real quick dory um so i just let the board know i

004recently purchased a house in a neighboring warren and i'll be moving next friday so unfortunately that means i need to resign so i'm going to resign effective next friday but i just want to say it's been an absolute honor and a privilege to work with this board and this administration get to watch firsthand the passion and dedication they all have for the children and i look forward to watching mr alexis and the sport continue down the path that aligns with the vision that i truly believe is perfect for this generation and i encourage anyone here at home that's ever considered joining the board or running for board to absolutely do it it has been one of the most rewarding times of my life what we do here is extremely important and i i think you

005would you would agree so i highly encourage everyone to do it thanks thank you appreciate all your effort thank you i just wanted to thank you adam for your service uh unfortunately you're resigning and uh those are gonna be some big shoes to fill so thank you i wanted to second that thank you adam for everything especially in the curriculum committee that i've had the pleasure of watching you so thank you again are there any other comments from board members okay then we're going to move to the superintendent's remarks let me also begin by thanking mr kraft uh it's been an absolute pleasure working with you adam uh you've been so incredibly supportive and dedicated to this position and we appreciate that and we can still make room for you to possibly wear the baby

006bear custom in the future all right good evening everyone uh this evening as you see on the agenda we have several celebratory announcements we have distinguished guests from the wachow historical commission we have our end-of-year presentation on our progress toward district goals and several administrative reports to share with you but first i do want to remark on school security i've gotten a few emails just just a handful from the community and i want to make sure everyone understands that this remains our our top priority and to share just some of the steps we've taken to ensure we're on the right track to making sure our campuses are as safe as possible and since the horrific tragedy in uvalde on may 24th we've met as an administrative leadership team several times we've considered feedback from staff

007and families and we've consulted regularly with our police department i also have met with the regional superintendents in an effort to strengthen communication uh among districts and share security measures and ideas unfortunately of course cannot share specific details uh because of the con confidential nature of the security process but the safety of our students and staff members remains our top priority and we will continue to assess and evaluate our protocols as we move forward now uh we have some special guests here and uh we have time for a little celebration uh so first we want to recognize our retiring staff member uh mr riley uh we the teachers and miss hankowski put together this wonderful proclamation chris and i'm going to read it into the record here this evening the following proclamation was prepared by

008the valley view teachers to be read into the record by mr alexis superintendent honoring mr christopher riley for his 16 years of service as a middle school science teacher in the wachonboro school district at the board of education meeting on june 9 2022 whereas christopher reilly was hired on september 1 2006 as a middle school science teacher in valley view school and whereas christopher riley touched the lives of countless students over 16 years sharing his love of science with all of its students and encouraging them in their dreams and whereas christopher riley was instrumental in aligning the science curriculum with the new jersey core curriculum content standards for science in wachonboro school district and whereas christopher riley was the assistant director for the valley view musicals over the years providing much needed and valuable help

009to make the annual performances so successful and whereas christopher riley previously served as the district's webmaster and power school administrator making sure information was updated quickly and regularly and whereas christopher reilly was an active member of the 8th grade commencement committee for many years helping to make the event a rewarding and memorable one for the school community and whereas christopher reilly worked deliberately and collaboratively with the faculty and administration at valley view school and whereas christopher riley's boundless energy experience creativity sense of responsibility and passion for learning but most of all his friendship and good-natured humor will be greatly missed by his colleagues in the wachonboro school district now be it resolved that the watching borough board of education and the entire school community extend their gratitude for christopher reilly's leadership and service to valley

010view school and wish him continued health and happiness in retirement yes [Laughter] at the beginning of the year the teachers all introduce ourselves to our students one of the things happy birthday to students so since i need a proxy oh [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] how did that not make it into the proclamation [Music] okay uh next we want to recognize uh jen dersi jen couldn't be here tonight because of a family commitment but she received a special award and was honored earlier this spring by the new jersey association for gifted children with the nj agc teacher of the year award for 2022. the organization recognized jen's dedication to developing exemplary gifted programming and adaptations for watchung's high ability students throughout her career the award is our way of thanking her for what she

011has accomplished they indicated jen unfortunately again couldn't be here tonight um but she was able to participate in a virtual ceremony held by nj agc at the end of april so congratulations to jen jackie myers also had a family commitment unfortunately just that time of the year when you have school age kids and was not able to be here but i want to note that she was selected as the bayberry teacher of the year for her outstanding work inspiring her young learners to be curious and creative in addition to her steadfast focus on student achievement she is committed to her student's social emotional growth and well-being but she's not only an excellent teacher but she's also a role model and mentor for her colleagues and tonight we honor and congratulate jack [Applause] kimberly clark is

012here kimberly clark is our bayberry education support professional of the year a dedicated paraprofessional she works with and cares for our most vulnerable learners she's a team player in every respect and an invaluable member of our community i've seen firsthand the good work that she does in the classroom and i'm honored to recognize her this evening kimberly i'm gonna bring you a certificate okay i'm going to go out of order here uh because uh julie saszewski nurse julie from valley view uh could not be here also because of a commitment um she is our valley view educational services professional of the year um we are honored to have julie as our nurse i'm not sure if we could have made it through the pandemic without julie szyszewski she was such an incredible help she did

013so much for us on medical and administration straight of levels actively talking with the um the health commissioner on probably a daily basis keeping detailed records talking with parents hearing a lot of complaints from parents and just dealing with uh some really exceptional circumstances but through it all she always remained calm and composed and she always kept and mr toda can affirm this because we've seen her work with kids in her office she's always remained her focus on the kids and making sure that they're safe and well and again not always just on a medical level but sometimes as she says they just want to talk and she's always there for the kids and always there to make them feel better um and just to keep everyone aware of what's going on so uh we're

014very we're indebted to julie saschevsky and i would say for the last two years at a minimum for her work but really for her entire career here so thank you to julie okay we also have morgan pistorius now morgan you recognize but she's done presentations uh at board meetings before morgan has been the driving force behind our stem instructional program along with her partner diana the cash and she's been a highly dedicated member of our teaching staff she's full of innovative ideas and you'll see some of those ideas uh in the presentation this evening not that we're making you give that presentation you're off the hook tonight um but but she's full of innovative ideas and seems to be involved in every available activity around the school in some way she leads the new coding

015and robotics club she's the school photographer she runs our soar program she's involved in the fife serve enrichment project and she's regularly present at all student performances for all these reasons and more she is our valley view teacher of the year and again a highly respected and valuable member of our community okay next we have guests from the watching historical commission uh gentlemen you want to come forward chris vanderfleet and steve pope did you would you like an overview of the projects and the or anything for us to go over i think i think a brief would be good right a brief overview okay um my name is chris vanderfleet this is steve pote we're both members of the uh watching historical committee um and we are here tonight um just to present um the

016legend of watch on mural the historical committee has been for a long time looking for a home for this mural that has been in town for uh well it was in sears for over 52 years um and it was removed in 2017 and we've you know gone through as a committee several years of fundraising and have been looking for a home for this mural so we are here tonight to um to ask the board of education if they would be willing to accept the mural as a potential location right here in the auditorium at valley view school it meets many of the criteria valley view school and this location specifically meets many of the criteria that the watchon historical committee has been looking for including belonging in wachong a place uh for gathering um a

017place where it's safe um a place where it's under surveillance and where the public um can um also see it so we've been you know it's been many of years since we've been trying to move this along we found that this year was the best time that where we could move forward and ask and start to get feedback from the community we strongly believe valley view school is the best location for this mural at this time and yeah we have some pictures up there as well and as i mentioned for those who are not familiar with this mural it is 16 feet long by 10 feet high painted by garfield hunter jones and was located above the staircase at the sears building that was located at the corner of route 22 and terrell road um

018and in 2017 when the building was demolished the historical committee ramped up efforts to quickly save it and then ultimately have fundraising efforts to have it ultimately restored and we've been in touch with an art conserver i'm down in cape may new jersey over the past year or two and he is ready to have this mural installed it's in a position where it is ready to be installed and you know in the matter of weeks once a decision is made as to where this mural can be placed and as i mentioned before one of the recommendations from the historical committee and what we believe to be the best location is right here in this room um on the wall right behind me at valley view school so we're open to any questions anybody may have

019about the mural um we'd be happy to answer it and any other additional information that you may need on this we will be happy to be here and spend the time with you to answer them i just have a quick question for you um has anyone contacted the look the lenny leno tribe their opinions yes yep we have contacted them yep we have contacted them can you share some of the conversation are they comfortable with the depiction and the story that it represents they they have been comfortable with it really okay interesting because i know you know just recently a couple years ago the high school changed their mascot and they appreciated that right because it was perpetuating racist and inaccurate legend similar to what the story seems to be doing so i would be

020really concerned with doing that inside of our schools where we're trying to promote a culturally diverse and inclusive atmosphere so before i would feel comfortable voting on anything i'd like to hear from them as well would you be able to tell the story of the mural sure i can give you a very brief overview because it is for everyone else please i did read what you presented so i appreciate that from my understanding it's a story that was a pageant in the early 1900s it was just a story that someone wrote not necessarily based on fact and then when sears was building out their nationwide stores that they wanted to have some type of connection to the local town so they hired artists to do something that they thought was connected to the town but

021i don't know that any of that is built and based in fact is my concern sure did i get that all right um that is correct okay so i would offer that this story actually has been um a part of wachong for a really long time i believe that this mural and we believe that this mural generally makes wachong unique just as much as wachong has two lakes so it's been a part of wachong's fabric for a really really long time and the story actually ultimately um is showing compromise and peace once everybody comes together it's also saying that the indian the indigenous people wanted to burn the dutch settler at us at the stake that is part of that was part of the story but they ultimately came together okay um in unity to

022settle the area okay seems like a violent depiction and it also seems i'm you know again i would like other people's opinions but the mural itself seems somewhat sexist with the woman basically bowing to the men um i had a question about in the documents that were provided to us there were other options of town hall and the text your house can you explain what happened there because personally just by looking at it it seems like a better fit for those environments but if you can explain to us what happened with those two locations sure sure so the borough hall is definitely another um feasible option it's one of our recommended locations bro haul is a little bit more challenging to install at this time in part because the ceiling has to be partially raised

023the chair rail has to be removed down below and it is also pretty tight between where the castle deus is and the chairs where the council members sit and the back wall where it would be installed so there would be need to be a little bit of added protection on the bottom of the mural the mural also would not be fully um framed a portion of the mural would actually be blocked by the council days as well but that's a viable option that is one of the options that we outline yes and the textier house there is no room in the text your house for it there's no space in the text your house for it it's not i think there was one story um that didier dario told me so going back to you

024know just saying about princess witamka a lot of our for instance our streets are named they have a lot of lenini names um it's the native american names and going back to just the picture itself there's a lot of residents and children when from valley view and bayberry when they used to visit the texture house they were able to connect more with their town their streets their history and even when it was displayed at the um cinemark it the historical committee actually had a lot of residents and parents and anyone who's actually visited the sears itself when it was located on 22 a lot of people reached out from different states and said it was a great thing that it was being preserved because of the value and the childhood memories it brought back i

025i don't think um i agree some of the history of it could have been just not politically correct but a lot of it is mostly when you really look at the gist of it and you look at it it's more of a story of compassion and just giving each other that room and being able to be friends and come together eventually and i think that tells a great story because not only is it telling children and our generation in a way saying that you may have your differences like you said we are trying to bring in inclusion and include in just equity it's saying when you have your differences you should find similarities and come together that it doesn't mean that you have to go at each other all the time 100 agree with what

026you said so i just don't know i support the picture with the background but i 100 agree yeah so so the mural has had um as amber's kind of mentioning the mural has had there's several there's much of the community that actually have a great connection to this mural um we've heard stories of people going out of their way while they're at sears um to go visit the mural um to take a look at it even if it wasn't in necessarily the area that they were shopping in and the watch on historical committee would actually like to start reaching out to the schools to educate the schools and the children a little bit more about some of wachong's history in general um and we think that this mural actually which has been a part of

027watchung's history um going far well you know going far as back earl before the town was even established you know this is a nice connection at the schools to ultimately where we hope to go with just teaching you know the students a little bit about our history in our town as well well i think adam's raised some interesting points um [Music] if it's possible i mean if you could send the board i would like to hear from the lenny lenape tribe as well just hear from them directly you know if they support the mural and if they support it being displayed in a middle school i think that would be good for the board to know okay okay i if i can add i mean sure absolutely from art is at the eye of the

028shoulder so everyone's gonna have an opinion that's fine um i do like the history of it and i don't like revisionist history right it's it's a point in time um you can't go back and say hey this is the way it should have been now uh because 50 years from now they'll look back now and say hey you should have been different um but i do respect that comment you made dory about um the wonder tribe if they in their view um don't feel it to be offensive and to be of historical significance um i'd be supportive uh so i know we have this on the agenda tonight but if we're gonna wait for more information so i'll pull this from the agenda until we get that and then you know we can go from

029there um while we're here i would just any other questions or concerns that anybody has um while we're here in prep for the next meeting excuse me chris thank you for coming and mayor putin thank you for being here tonight uh could you just uh describe how it would be mounted and the you know how that would go onto the wall sure so it would well what's likely gonna happen is there's going to be a backing frame of some sort like a wood frame or something that's going to go around the perimeter of the mural painting and then what will happen is is in part of our restoration efforts we had a canvas backing that was placed on the mural currently and so that that canvas backing will then be stretched to this frame attached

030to the frame and then we'll put a border around it and we currently have an our conserver jason kraft who's mentioned in the report who is willing to do this and able to do this um as soon as we have a location approved one thing i would add if if obviously we discussed we get more information from the monopoly tribe if it is deemed to be acceptable from their perspective and of course the other board of members would would have to agree it'd be a good opportunity for the school and the administration to educate the children about the indigenous tribes that were here with the lenape and to be an opportunity from you know an educational perspective so just i thought and about the lenny lennon tribes and beyond you know for for general watching

031history as well uh we do have quite a bit i guess i was just going to add that i was just going to add that regardless of if we decide i think some context to the mural would be important so exactly to what you said like just if it just came out of nowhere wouldn't have as much relevance as you described you would have to have some context and some description as to why is it suddenly here sure yep we plan to have some sort of description about you know describing the mural itself once it's installed i guess my concern isn't so much the mural itself right it's it's a nice picture it is part of the history of wachong right i love that it but it's the story behind it right so if it

032was just a picture on a wall that'd be one thing but people start to dig and they see that background story and then i start to get concerned [Music] that this is what we're teaching our children that's something that's not factual i would love for them to learn more about the facts of the history of wachong good bad or otherwise um so i'm all in support plus also you're not going to get the widest viewership here right i mean this is a school it's really just the kids their parents what couple times a year and the teachers it's not open to the public so it is it is not open to the public but this room has historically been a gathering place um for many meetings and many get-togethers and i think that vale this

033the valley view auditorium particular is probably one of the locations that would get some of the most views actually of all of our potential and possible locations that we've listed sounds like we need more meeting spaces in the town chris could you just describe your your interaction you said that you had already reached out to the lending of the venape and they had expressed support for the project for the restoration and for the uh posting so is that something that was in an email or is that just verbal so yeah that was that was verbal um several years ago so we can i have a contact person that we can be in touch with for further detail on that they described a little bit more of the background um and the history of whether a

034mural like this or sorry excuse me like whether a story like this was actually um true or happened um they provided a little bit more information on that um so we can get a little bit more further clarification i think you i think it was in the video when you were creating the video of the mural just the lenient lobby and just what the native americans were experiencing when they lived here and exactly how they yes moved to different areas of new jersey and new york and pennsylvania right new york and new jersey pa right back to dory's point uh the library is not an option there's no space in the current library for for the mural it's 16 by what it's 16 feet long by 10 feet high so most ceilings as we know

035are about eight feet or so so we need the additional two feet this space in particular actually has um has the 10 feet that we need i just want to ask board members and maybe this is just because i'm a teacher can you please make sure you speak up into the microphone so that the person in the back of the room can hear you because i'm sitting near you and i can hardly hear what most of you are saying so i'm not trying to be rude to any of you but if you could just project that would be great because i see people in the back and they have no idea what most of you are saying at this point so i'm sure the people who are watching the live feed of this can hear

036you more than them but just make sure you project okay thank you mrs harvey um i i would like to add i do really like the idea of perhaps the historical committee uh talking with the administration at some point and talking about you know like other districts i've worked in in the area uh usually like in june kind of spend a week you know whether you're teaching kindergarten or third grade talking about the town the history of the town you know where is the library why is this name mobis field um it's it's nice and i've done it with kindergartners i've done it with third graders and it's just it's just really nice it's kind of like a get to know your town kind of thing and it's a nice like as a teacher like

037the end of the year like you might be done and it's like oh let's talk about town and it's it's a nice idea mr alexis it's questions for you i think when you you grew up here right um you went through the school system and watch them i think at one point they did teach the history of wachong in the schools and i think you also had mayor of the day and if you're a mayor for a day i think um essays at one point you're gonna you're gonna blow my cover here uh i i can't say i remember being taught the history of wacho uh we did have the officials for the day through the optimist club and we had the mayor and the fire chief um the police chief uh i forget who

038else but then also the superintendent of schools and so when this happened in my eighth grade class i of course was trying to get like fire chief or mayor or whatever get elected to one of those and i got elected to be superintendent who knew so talk about history i can actually answer that amber when i was in third grade i think we all had to do a um project on wacho as part of our third grade curriculum and i think i remember going to i think it was the second floor of the library at the time uh where they had everything i think since been relocated probably because it's actually your house but yeah that is something that i remember doing back when i was at the schools we did it in my school

039system too it was great yeah i think i mean even like telling young children about how that police station was blasted in over there in the net like they'd be like that's so cool i i just think it's i think it's nice and we also believe that this mural would be a very nice connection to to you know to watch young history as kids go through the school system are there any other questions okay well thank you both thank you very much and we'll get a little bit further information um from from some of the tracks thank you thank you thank you um i was just asked for a brief recess because there are refreshments for the staff that we're honoring tonight [Music] okay we're gonna reconvene if everyone can please start mosey on back

040to their seats no i don't want to get anything on it no no okay uh so back to you george yes thank you mrs harvey pierce is ready to give the principal's report good evening everyone my name is pierce winston and i am valley view student council co-vice president i am happy to present the valley view principles report for the month of may engineering the months of may and june were very busy ones at valley view teacher appreciation week began on may 2nd our staff was treated to lunch from the valley view student council personalized messages of gratitude from our community outreach club and special treats provided by the pto thank you to everyone who took the time to say thank you to our staff it is greatly appreciated on may 3rd dr mikey fallon

041used human performance art poetry storytelling psychology theatrical monologues and his personal dna to communicate the importance of getting to know someone before judging them the valley view battle of the books was held on friday may 6th the winning teams were the book natures for grade 6 and the book warriors for grade five congratulations to all of our leaders on may 12th arthur gordon coolman visited with our students to share his experiences as a published published artist since starting at age 13 the writing process and tidbits about his latest works the young entrepreneurs at valley view showcased their goods and services on may 19th at the trip's marketplace the young professionals excited and driven translated their interest into savable products they are all successful managing to have fun and make some money at the same time

042the trepps club is sponsored by the watching borough youth services commission the sixth graders enjoyed a trip to patriot stadium on may 18th students were able to complete the baseball statistics project by watching their favorite players and monitoring their baseball batting stats of course the valley view section treated extra loud for our hometown player anthony bo student council community outrage joined forces to host a spring family trivia night it is an exciting evening for all participants we look forward to scheduling our next event for the fall students from our sewer class qualified and competed in the junior solar sprints finals on may 23rd at new providence middle school it was a great experience for our students during the week of may 23rd the students in grades 5th through 8th took the nj's through our assessments

043in language arts and mathematics our course concert and art show were held on tuesday may 17th it was followed by our band concert on may 24th the student performances and creations were extremely impressive miss morrison miss esposito and miss nestor did an excellent job supporting our students and showing off their talents our fifth sixth and seventh graders enjoyed active and exciting theories the events were held both indoors and outdoors with icy's grade level t-shirts and a valley view skydiving cheering them on thank you to our pto mr b and coach leslie for helping make our field days a blast on june 1st parents of incoming fifth and sixth graders were invited to attend the valley view pound orientation presentation attendees learned all about life at valley view and were led on tours by our peer

044leaders for anyone unable to attend the presentation is posted on the valley view website the 5th grade dead graduation was held on thursday june 2nd our day our offices sheriff satan and pete kuvaz planned the event with the 5th grade teachers students were chosen to introduce our guest police chief heart and the winners of the dare essay contest additional police officers and parents joined us for this annual celebration the incoming fifth grade students had their turn learning about valueview during the move up day on june 3rd students visited classrooms and chatted with staff and students about all the exciting changes they have to look forward to this week our fifth seventh and eighth graders enjoyed time away from valley view during our field trips fifth grade enjoyed some time in nature at the great swamp

045the seventh graders extended their understanding of possible solutions for providing food in an environment where land and clean water are not abundant at the battery park conservatory the 8th grade students explored artifacts and interactive exhibits during the visit to the intrepid sea air and space museum complex thank you to all who made these fun and educational experiences possible valley views day of giving is scheduled for tomorrow to impact during the event students will participate in multiple activities that give back to our school at a greater community and to the environment as part of the day the community outreach club will hold its annual miles for smiles walk-a-thon students paid three dollars to walk around the watching lake to ensure they support for the washington rescue squad next week we will celebrate our 8th grade class

046with the barbecue breakfast and at the commencement ceremony on wednesday june 15th at 6 pm information about summer reading and grade level classroom supply list will be sent to families and posted on our website related this month our final day of school is friday june 17th valley views summer pursuit of excellence program will begin on july 5th and run through july 28th students will receive small group instructions in mathematics and language arts and also supply their critical thinking skills while working on a cross-disciplinary unit on ancient civilizations as we begin our summer i would like to extend my gratitude to the board of education staff parents students and community members who continue to support us i wish everyone a healthy and rejuvenating summer thank you and have a good night great job pierce thank you

047and thank you for delivering those principles reports all year have a great summer hello good evening denise fichner principal good job pierce i know that was a workout all right so in may and june at bay berry students ventured outside of baybury to go on a variety of exciting field trips that complemented the curriculum kindergarten in first grade visited turtleback zoo second grade explored trailside nature center third grade went to the environmental education center and fourth grade learned about the american revolution at the liberty hall museum at keene university in lieu of a field trip our preschool saw an engaging presentation by the lizard guy thank you to the pto for their help in funding these activities is this you can hear me okay yeah the past couple of months has been an exciting time

048for our students with multiple performances and celebrations of their work we started the month of may with the spectacular third grade recorder concert followed by our second grade play pajama party led by mrs riley first graders and mrs reilly also gave us a sneak peek into music class by presenting spring songs dances and movement activities that was actually today on june 2nd mrs morrison and mrs reilly led our 4th grade farewell farewell concert in a memorable performance the bands and coors did a great job showcasing their skills and passion for music the end of the concert was bittersweet as students performed the traditional bay berry farewell song there really wasn't a dry eye in the audience students parents and staff also enjoyed the memory video slideshow created by the pto fourth grade committee our families

049were also treated with an impressive art show organized by miss higgins the bayberry hallways came alive with our students artwork and information about the artists that inspired the projects during the first and second week of june our students enjoyed field day with engaging activities planned by mr primo and miss tron alone we also enjoyed having peer leaders from valley view to run the activities thank you to the pto for purchasing the t-shirts wristbands new games ice pops and air dancers we think they're called i'm not really sure those floaty things all of these things made the field days super special we welcomed our incoming kindergarten students to bayberry on may 24th for kindergarten visitation it was really exciting to get back to this and to see our new families our future students worked with our

050teachers on a variety of fun activities while parents met in the apr to learn more about bayberry from cpag wef pto and from me our fourth grade visited valley view on june 3rd from middle school orientation they enjoyed touring their new school meeting the 5th grade teachers and their new principal we had a special author visit on june 8 from audrey vernick author of bob not bob and other popular books students learned how to get ideas for writing and learned what it is like to be an author throughout the day bayberry staff also offered workshops on related topics to provide students with an immersive experience thank you to ms heller our reading specialist for organizing this event and for the pto for providing funds to make this special day possible we will be wrapping up

051the school year with our end of year parties and our preschool and kindergarten move up ceremonies i would like to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable summer it has been a great year and we look forward to working with everyone next year thank you thank you mrs fickner we'll have our uh presentation on our progress toward our district goals um aaron if you could just bring that presentation up and go to that second slide division statement mr craft referenced this earlier and it really is at the core of everything that we're trying to do in the school district um in cultivating a culture of inquiry equity and collaboration um we take our responsibility to have that culture of inclusivity uh very seriously and we believe in the importance of reflection and ethical decision-making as we

052all move forward and grow together the next slide will give you a brief overview of what we're doing with this presentation it is similar to the ones we delivered in november and also in february we're going to have a update on student learning um using the i ready diagnostic results from the spring and mrs fichner and mrs kidd will take us through those uh data points uh and then we also have the update on the progress toward our four district goals uh and then uh next steps that we'll address so if i could invite mrs kitt and mrs fichner forward that would be wonderful mrs victor why don't you begin with the bayberry data okay all right so as you can see here this is our reading overall um end of year data um and

053compared to the beginning of the year um so if you look at the green uh we go from the beginning of the year 50 in the green mid or above as well as early on grade level to 81 which the 41 increase that's quite good um our yellow is 30 goes from 39 to 15 which is what we want we want that to be decreasing 24 decrease and then our red which is our two grade levels below or even three grade levels or below go from 11 to 4 impressive impressive growth in reading and then this is divided by grade level uh similar patterns when you look at it by grade level um significant growth for the green section and then also if you look at the red we do have several grade levels that

054significantly reduce the red the two grade levels below it's very hard to see there like our grade one goes from seven percent in the red to zero uh grade two fifteen percent to three grade three fifteen to three and our fourth grade actually has the more than two grade levels below started at eight percent and then went to five so that is a really good growth in those areas and our math also some significant growth we look at the green we started at 32 percent and went to 77 percent 45 percent growth yellow 56 and went to 20 again we want that to decrease so that went from 36 percent at 36 percent decrease and then our red which is two grade levels below or even three grade levels below went from 12 to two

055percent is really significant and again you can see similar patterns when you look at it by grade level uh we have even more growth when you look at the red areas i'm not going to read all that to you but when you have a chance if you wanted to look at the individual growth it really was impressive for math because i forgot that i actually need glasses now hit that age um basically we saw the same trends at valley view across reading and math um all of the grade levels showed dramatic growth um what i was looking for in particular were that our students that were at level were moving above grade level and that our students that were below grade level were moving closer to or at grade level overall and those are the

056trends that we saw so we're very fortunate for that um you can it is a little blurry okay so you can see that um for example for the beginning of the year we had 21 of the students that were at grade level and 35 that were above grade level um we ended the year with 53 students above so from 35 to 53 is a significant jump um to get out of percentages it looks like we had 88 students above grade level which jumped to 132 overall so i think that that that says a lot about the performance of our students and how hard they've worked and how hard our staff has worked i'm looking at below grade level two to three grade levels below we had 23 students two grade levels below and 24 separate

057students or additional students three or more grade levels below and we brought that significantly to seven students and fourteen so those are the jumps that's the data that we were looking at oops i took myself right out of it let's go back okay so again you see the same trend with um the mathematics aaron could you go to the specific grade levels thanks um so again what we do when the teachers get together as grade levels is you know in their content areas they take a deep dive at looking at the data to see if we can find trends so you see here the overall trends of growth and what the number of kids that grew what the teachers look at is specifically what areas so they're looking at what areas of mathematics is it

058geometry is it algebraic expression is it number sense what area are the kids having difficulty with which ones are they growing in the most and then they sit and they talk about well how am i teaching that in my classroom what strategies am i using what resources am i using you're having more success with this with your kids what are you doing differently than mine and that's the point of our professional learning communities that the teachers are in is taking data such as iready data and looking at instruction and resources and making decisions to enhance those experiences for the kids meeting where they are and taking them further and we're going to continue that good work next year there you go so that's a little bit about personalized learning strategies you jump in when you

059want to um is meeting the students where they are and then helping them grow and ireti is a great tool because it gives us the diagnostic information but it also creates those learning paths for students and what a learning path is it's a set of activities based on their performance in those individual areas of mathematics and language arts that they can visit independently and work on and it can help strengthen their skills where they are and those activities might be very different than the kids sitting to the left or to the right of them what it also does is like i said it helps in those teacher professional conversations and it also helps the teacher when she's planning her lessons if i see that i have five kids that need extra help in this one

060area i'm going to provide them the resources and the instruction if i see i have kids that already know content i'm not going to waste their time by teaching it to the whole class i'm going to give them some extension maybe challenge them a little bit another thing that we started to do this year was develop more student self-awareness and agency showing them their data helping them make choices helping them set goals these are all part of that personalized learning shift from just pure differentiation where we're saying okay this group does this this group does this this group does this to giving the kids more accountability and responsibility with their learning i talked about using the data to design appropriate challenges the paths i think i did everything um and again we want the kids

061to continue to be curious we want them to develop a passion for learning and as they see where they put the hard work where their interests are and the skills that they're building on they get more excited about it i actually never thought i'd see kids excited about diagnostic results before but when they saw the growth of the areas they've been that's an accomplishment i think that's my key just be quiet let dedes talk yeah so this personalized learning is something we're going to be exploring more next year and building upon things that we've been doing this year um what mrs kidd was talking about is it working um okay uh developing student self-awareness and agency um this year we had student data chats with the students when they took each diagnostic sit down with

062the students and talk about their results and what were their areas of strength or weakness um setting goals with students tracking their progress or all things that we're going to be exploring next year personalized learning also can mean things like student-led conferences more student choice even things like flexible seating can be personalized learning so again these are things we're going to be exploring all right should we go to the next one okay so just a couple of points on the data the student performance is measured against expectation created by historical i-ready data so here you know today we're looking at the beginning of the year to the end of the year and this is also something that i mean the students were excited about but our teachers were really excited uh to do that comparison

063as well and see how much they grew i actually did hear teachers in the hall saying oh my goodness i couldn't i can't believe how much my students have grown that was great to hear um and then the end of your data is measured also against i ready standardized expectations and compared with performance last fall we also like to look at the iri ready data against new jersey and um across the nation that's also helpful to us okay district goals unless basically this is just going to outline the presentation so we'll start with the uh the first one of course which involves innovative instruction design thinking problem solving across the curriculum uh we have we have a number of steam related examples in the slides okay so question there how are we advancing instruction for

064design thinking and problem solving teaching and learning process the classroom after school clubs field trips and professional learning so we're hitting this from all avenues and here is the design thinking and problem solving approach which we have been reviewing each presentation oh this is you so basically this is a picture of our our uh one of our soar teams they've heard they participated in junior solar sprints earlier in the year we had to do it virtually because the original trip to new providence for the in-person solar sprint competition which is making a solar-powered car and racing it against each other and it's judged on all different types of things it was done virtually because of covid but one of our teams did make it to the finals which they were able to hold in person

065and i think that's on the board agenda retroactively approved because we were notified on a friday afternoon that it was happening on a monday morning so this is our team they did a great job there's a picture of their car there so it's just a great experience i think this is the second year we've participated so it's nice that our team made it to the finals and our coding robotics club um they got to try to create underwater robots they were giving uh that design challenge for a circumstance in which they would need one and you know that they got very creative with all of the ideas that they could have thought of of why you would need an underwater robot but then we gave them a kiddie pool and had them test out their

066designs so this one worked and they were very proud of it so i got called out to the courtyard after school to come see how it worked we also did a lot of you know extracurricular but also during the day types of programming for students that anyone could be involved in you didn't have to be in a special club or program we had the trash in show where students had to use recycled materials to create some type of fashion whether it was clothing or accessories we had our trep's marketplace which pierce talked about earlier where our young entrepreneurs had to look at an audience figure out what they wanted to create who they were creating it for market it create it sell it the whole nine yards um and they did donate some of those

067i think five percent of their proceeds to a charity which was very nice we had our battle of the books we still encouraged good old-fashioned reading hardcover books and softcover books at valley view so our fifth and sixth graders all the classes competed and then we did have our final battle and again i think pierce shared our winners our science fair was a district-wide effort we had teams of students that crossed grade levels we had some siblings and again they got to pick their topic it was their passion it was their research and then they were judged on their presentation and then we also had our environmental club did some geocaching at wachong lake and while they were there they also saw some garbage and couldn't help themselves they had to pick it up and

068dispose of it so those are some more fun things that we've done this spring our field trips i'm sure you've heard a lot about them hopefully if your children got to go on them they enjoyed them and were surprised at how fun a field trip actually is it's been a few years since they've had the opportunity so we're trying to make up for lost time the battery service conservatory was um conservancy sorry was today the seventh graders i can tell you were dreading it it sounded like work but they all had a great time i got pictures of them i wasn't allowed to go um i had pictures of them with wheelbarrows of dirt they were doing mulch they were doing planting so they all know how to do landscaping now so if anyone needs

069a landscaper just grab a seventh grader they're all experts um the intrepid sea air and space museum was a great treat i know the adults were just dazzled by seeing a space shuttle in person so hopefully the kids were as well the great swamp we learned the importance of bug spray after a rain the night before but also they did get to see in person some some frogs and other aquatic inhabitants that they probably would have walked right by in a stream in the backyard and they also got to distinguish when a stream is healthy or not how to determine the water quality just by things like the smell looking at the environment looking at different indicators so i thought that was very interesting i learned a lot that one i went on um and

070then of course summerset patriots stadium besides enjoying a good old-fashioned baseball game they get to get to cheer for mr volpe a former student and it is connected to a statistics project that they're doing in their sixth grade math classes which is very nice and now it's k2 okay so for k2 with mrs mills in stem class uh they're working on challenges created to solve real world problems one called shady spot challenge so they were studying the sun's benefits and how it could cause also cause harm and the students had to design and build a shady spot for a lizard made from ultraviolet beads the other project was about buoyancy students have to design a flotation device to keep a doll afloat in a pool always fun and engaging things with mrs mills all right

071so for grades three and four they worked on a hurricane house and they did this as they were studying weather in third grade the students had to design a house to survive a hurricane and they tested it with wind and water and they also worked on spacecraft landing not for national space day um studying aerospace engineering and they had to design a spacecraft that can absorb the shock of landing on mars for two astronauts so always collaborative projects always a real world connection and of course always fun all right so a little more for grades three and four they were continuing um exploring design thinking through different websites and apps there's one um that is a virtual breakout rooms it's called breakout edu it is problem solving and there are virtual escape rooms they're very

072popular um and then we have an engineers app where they also have to solve problems for characters by creating inventions and then they are doing some exploratory things with g suite all right next uh and they also have these stations um they love the robots and there's only a few of them so she always sets up stations where students can rotate through between robotics coding and chromebook coding and also the lego wall and this is you we were happy to bring our dare program back to valley view it's going strong we talked pierce to share a little bit about the fifth grade graduation um we have some assemblies we had dr mikey fallon he talked about the harlem wizards there's a picture there it's not just watching the players the kids really do get involved

073there you see all of our students grades five through eight on the gym floor together with the wizards leading them in some kind of dance i tried it it didn't work and then also we had author visits again we do love reading here too um the day of giving is scheduled for tomorrow and um we the kids had such a great time last year with it with the different activities i feel like there was something that everyone enjoyed that we are repeating it with new activities this year um and ending it with the walk around the lake which we are also bringing back move up day it was so nice to see the fifth graders in the building and we are going to have an orientation for them again open up the building for them

074so they can walk around at the end of august right before school starts our second step lessons continue this spring they've focused on resolving conflicts and taking responsibility for one's actions all very appropriate for middle school we continue our spirit activities our digital citizenship lessons and the school counselor meets with the fifth graders on a regular basis to go through those lessons with them also for our staff we shared a trauma toolkit for educators unfortunately whether it's a world issue or local issue or a personal issue of a student or a staff member we try to give them as many resources as possible so they can deal with them and help support our students we continue to have a health and wellness club for our teachers whether that's giving them nutrition and fitness advice or

075just a partner to cry on their shoulder we have monthly sel calendars just to give suggestions of things we can do on a daily basis themed breakfast by our sunshine club which is made up of staff members who uh sign up for every month to bring in food and decorate and just make it so when people walk in in the morning it's a little extra sunshine and then we are continuing our restorative practices faculty book discussion restorative practice is a different way of looking at helping children recognize the choices that they make and how to lead them to make better choices okay so for uh bayberry social emotional learning we are continuing our weekly seo lessons that is either al house pals or second step we've also integrated with other subject areas as well um

076the kindergarten has been piloting uh something called a little little spot of feelings and that's the picture there and it actually comes with these little plush round little things that actually make feelings very tangible visual for students that was something kindergarten teachers noticed that a second step was filling a knee but there was a hole there in the feeling piece like what is anger what does it look like so this actually helps students like if they are angry or frustrated you know just go and grab the feeling and identify the feeling so that then they can actually do something with those feelings um so we're hoping to implement that with in some other grades going forward um plus they're really really cute how can you be angry if the feeling looks like that um so

077then we have guidance services lessons based on different needs if the guidance counselor sees some things happening in a class or several classes she'll go in and do a lesson uh they started some lunch social skills groups this was something we really noticed just um watching students play at recess some of the social skills were lacking conflict resolution um making friends so the social skills group incorporate students that have model social skills and some that are lacking and bring them together play a game go through a scenario it's really very helpful and it's only about 20 minutes and it's during their recess and the kids actually do want to come uh they miss if they get upset actually so um and then she's dropping counseling and schedule sessions as needed um the school transitions really

078i think it's very helpful in the sel you know realm where we're talking about the fourth grade going to valley view so that really um helps them with some of the anxiety and the fear of coming up here so you've already had that so it's not so scary um same with kindergarten visitation i think um the students that came in they were great about that we scooped them up and they went with the teacher and then i took the parents in the other room and it was great and again the parents got all their questions answered really early so there's less anxiety and the tea the students got to see their potential classrooms really early and meet the teachers so i think that really helps all right next one these are some of the uh

079school-wide service projects we've been doing um you if you have kids at bay berry i know you're you've been hearing about some of these so um miss lamming's been doing a great job with her third grade early act club um and a lot of these projects are school-wide so the one that she did was an animal shelter collection and donated what they collected to the plainfield humane society this other one is going on right now and the competition is fierce penny wars i don't know if you've heard about it but if there is a coin shortage this is why okay it is a lot of fun um and all the money raised is going to library books and possibly something else because where she's raising so much money and the kids are so into it

080um yeah so it's been a lot of fun we have um we were working on this heritage hallway as when you come into the foyer the man trap you can see some of the cultural heritage cultural flags that the students do they're really interesting um and then same with valley view the spirit activities and assemblies the harlem wizards was a huge boost for everybody so for our staff um just some activities that really not only increase deaf wellness but morale and then even when morale is boosted their health is also boosted so we're doing staff breakfast through the health and wellness committee we did an indian dance workshop which not only got them moving and getting activity but also shared a little something about indian culture it's very interesting we did a yoga stretching and

081meditation we have an activity going on monday which is optional watercolors and apps so it's painting with some appetizers something that really boosted staff morale was actually take your child to work day it was super fun the kids loved it the staff loved it my son's back there in the back yep uh he will do anything to miss school so i don't know if he really wanted to come to work with me but um and then our sunshine committee does a great job just to promote positive school culture and do little things and big things for the staff we just had a bunch of donuts in the faculty room for national donut day so these are just little surprises that are helpful all right so we're going to talk about culturally vibrant inclusive school community

082and how are we ensuring this for both schools i feel like yours is going to be very similar to mine we celebrate as a district special education week cpag was wonderful with providing you know just recognition for the teachers activities for the students we did spirit days earth week we the teachers were all given activities from our environmental club that were suggested by the kids for us to implement again spirit days were implemented with that the international international day of families our world culture club created a table and some activities and they participated at the event that was held at bayberry and um our art teacher put in uh in place an artist trading card exchange which was very interesting we actually had not pen pals but something similar but with artist trading cards with

083another district in pennsylvania and the cards were supposed to share something about yourself whether it was your heritage your hobbies or anything like that uh yes i do have a bunch of the same things uh karen talked about so i won't talk about everything um so our staff were very excited to integrate the diverse texts that were donated by wachong um so again those are picture picture books that represent a wide variety of cultures and ethnicity we had special education week autism awareness spirit week we had a celebration of international day of families um and one special day that we did for spirit week was cultural day where students could wear something to represent their culture it just sparked a lot of good conversation between teachers between students and teachers it was really a nice

084day we also did on the morning announcements i announced if any students know other languages to come down and say good morning in a different language and i was really surprised at how many students actually knew different languages so we're going to probably extend that next year and try to do that a little bit longer than just a week okay and then these are some of our cultural arts assemblies from the pto committee the indian dance workshop we did that in physical education class for our students they were really into it you could see the class there they were so cute um integrated visual and performing arts for all this was really great to see all the different performances um that mrs raleigh did and miss morrison and miss higgins with the art show that

085every student gets to perform every student gets a part in a play the art show every student's artwork is up there multiple times so that is really nice to show that we have an inclusive school community i think that's me yeah and these are just ways we've talked about them before ways that we have tried to create a more diverse uh staff uh we've talked about joining cj pride now this is will be our third year next year in the organization but we have the annual job fair uh that the principals and mr total participate in we've increased advertising and networking um and again the principals in mr total have done a great job of recruiting um and i want to thank miss hankowski uh for all her fine work in getting the postings out

086um and reaching out to as many possible through as many possible abuses uh as she could um we also have uh continue our relationship with the watching idea group and i see mrs sims is here tonight to talk a little bit after this presentation and then these two committees i served on through the state organization uh for the school administrators so leadership diversity committee and our pd seminar committee was very focused on diversity equity and inclusion throughout the year and different strategies for making a more inclusive community so i've met a lot of superintendents learned about the work they're doing and also affirm the fine work that we're doing here in the district and uh last is this the um the number the percentage of the new hires that we have brought to the district

087this year since july 1st so this last full school year 41 of the new hires have been um diverse staff mr pepper why don't you talk to us briefly about some of the financial progress all right i'm watching on here so we're going to talk same as the last time we talked how we're trying to meet the financial needs of the district and right now because of our focus on the referendum that's a very big part of what we're thinking about um this year we have the ad hoc committee that has been has started meeting and is providing some feedback to the operations committee that will be processed and hopefully come out with something that the whole community can get behind for a referendum um one of the things that is a challenge for us

088right now is our reserves are very low i was at a conference actually today and drove back from the conference today but i've had a lot of conversations with other business administrators from around the state and um this is a common theme as we whenever i would ask questions about reserves they all had more than we have so this is something we really have to focus on is strategies for increasing our reserves because that opens up doors for uh ways to take advantage of opportunities when they come and then of course the budget process which feeds into that we're going to be continuing to tweak our budget process every year and try and find ways that we can continue can really start to build those reserves back up the next slide is up i get

089you you've covered most of this it's about the the emphasis on the referendum right the ad hoc committee strategies for you know i thought that slide was up when i was talking let's go to the next slide so this is this is for uh more for the principles but but just as a brief overview i think they kind of touched on all this and when we talk about a personalized learning approach we're talking about developing strategies that we can implement and we've begun that that fine work and we want to continue it next year with a real focus and not that we are you know overhauling the instructional program we're doing it with these strategies to balance our other strategies with differentiated instruction um and all the other work that we do to instill a

090sense of inquiry in our students um and in our learning community we are going to make professional learning and resources for these strategies um available uh throughout the year uh particularly at the beginning of the year uh and we also are working on developing enrichment activities that create appropriate challenges so that there are extension activities available for teachers in the classrooms um and there are ways to reach not only our learners that need extra attention but also the ones who are the very high ability students who need increased challenges and as mrs fichner and mrs kidd mentioned we're looking at different scheduling options and strategies for intervention and enrichment one of the things we've talked about through the curriculum committee is about the moving to the electives for the seventh and eighth grade students again

091involving personal choice and helping students find their passions and their pathways but also that idea of developing student agency and student self-awareness so that they understand what they're good at what their strengths are what areas they need to grow in and how they can forge a path forward how they can set their own goals we did a little bit of that with ireti and actual setting goals with data we can do that in other ways also that we'll be experimenting with next year and we continue our district pursuit of excellence after school program uh and also our summer program with that respect social emotional learning again i think they covered this but these are the next steps that we're going to continue with this the second step program is working very well um we're always

092looking for ways to help instill a sense of empathy in students because it adds to the climate and culture of inclusivity uh and and belonging and we're going to continue that work we're going to continue the professional learning for staff and the next mark training that mr todd has brought into the district as well as strategies to address challenging behaviors we will continue with the staff seo buddies as the principal's talked about that has done um you know that has worked out very well for the staff it's boosted morale and you know and when your morale is high your well-being is is high too so we um continue the celebration of diverse groups through the school spirit events uh but also find ways to uh continue developing global citizens here in our community uh and

093again along those lines the diversity equity and inclusion initiatives we're going to continue the celebrations we're going to continue the learning experiences we're going to continue the field trips and special events but we're also going to be embedding that into the curriculum writing and making sure that we are teaching kids about the importance of living in a global society okay next uh mr pepe pretty much covered the financial needs and the work that we're going to continue to do and the importance of increasing those building reserves and also he's been very good at finding cost savings uh plans uh that will continue to help us save money and increase our efficiency and uh the next board meeting when we have the uh the board retreat we'll be talking about the district goals for next year

094and continuing a lot of this very good work i want to thank the principals of mr tota and mr pepe of course for all their hard work because they deserve the credit for all this work along with the staff who is doing a great job uh working with our kids in the classroom and in our after-school programs and activities thanks for your patience that was a long one are there any questions from board members you sure you want to go oh i'm sorry i lost track of that long presentation uh the final thing on the agenda is the enrollment and we're at you know it's an increase oh my goodness i'm sorry mr toad i forgot we have miss datoda mr tota has two brief presentations for us it's a long section today um tonight

095i have oh you can go to the next slide please thank you tonight i have the hib district and school grade report for the school year 2020 2021 and the special education annual public reporting of local district performance for the school year two thousand twenty twenty one i'll start with the hib district and school grade report this is the school self assessment for determining grades under the anti-bullying bill of rights act so each of the schools worked to use the rubric in each of the categories to assign scores in the areas of hip programs approaches or other initiatives training on the board of education approved hip policy other staff instruction and training programs curriculum and instruction on hip and related information and skills hib personnel school level hip incident reporting procedures hip investigation procedures hip

096reporting and for each school the self-assessed score for this um 2020-21 was a 71 out of 78. and from that information and from looking through all of the questions that were asked it was determined that the district and the schools have conscientiously implemented the requirements found in the anti-bullying bill of rights act by training staff school personnel and parents forming a school safety team continuing the character education programming and planning assemblies and activities that are related to anti-bullying and character education the district and schools have made progress in addressing and improving harassment intimidation and bullying and the school climate and culture by participating in the week of respect highlighting anti-bullying with posters signs and bulletin boards and providing individual counseling and conflict resolution sessions and while completing the self-assessment the district learned that our district

097and schools have strengths in the areas of programming instruction staff training reporting procedures and school safety teams and the self-assessment helped us identify the following areas for improvement and those would be fostering pro-social interactions between students and the implementation of diversity training to increase sensitivity to others the 20 20 21 hip district and school grade report is posted on the district website if anyone would like to look at it further and the special education annual public reporting of local district performance for the school year 2020 2021 these are those 14 indicators that we review yearly this information is provided by the department of education to educators and parents on the outcomes of students with disabilities so indicator 1 looks at graduation rates the percent of youth with ieps that are graduating from high school with

098a regular diploma since we are a pre-k to 8 district this indicator does not apply to us so our score for this one is an n a indicator 2 looks at dropout rates the percent of youth with ieps who are dropping out of high school and again this doesn't apply to us so our score is an n a indicator three this is different than other years too looks at assessment and performance but due to the cancellation of the statewide assessments in 2019-20 and 2020-21 and federal waivers as a result of the covid19 pandemic statewide assessment results for the njsla and related accountability measures are not available and will not be reported for the school year 2020-21 indicator 4a looks at the rate of suspension and expulsion was the district identified by the department of education

099as having a significant discrepancy in the rate of suspensions and expulsions of greater than 10 days in 2019-20 for children with ieps compared to children without ieps and we were not indicator 4b looks at the rate of suspensions and expulsions in terms of compliance did the school district have a significant discrepancy by race or ethnicity in the rate of suspensions and expulsions of greater than 10 days in 2019-20 for children with ieps and the answer was no and did the school district have policies procedures or practices that contribute to significant discrepancy and do not comply with requirements relating to the development and implementation of ieps the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports and procedural safeguards and the answer was no in indicator 5 we're looking at school age lre or least restrictive environments and

100the question was the percent of children with ieps age 5 who were enrolled in kindergarten and students aged six through 21 who are served inside the regular education class for 80 percent or more of the day the state target is 45 and our local data was 61.39 so we met the state target um indicator 5 also asked the percent of children with ieps age 5 who were enrolled in kindergarten and age 6 through 21 served inside the regular education less than 40 percent of the day um the state target was 14.75 our local data was 4.95 and we met the the target i feel like i skipped one nope here we go percent of children with ieps age five who were enrolled in kindergarten and age six through 21 served in public or private separate

101schools residential placements or homebound or hospital placements the state target was 6.75 our local data was 5.94 so we met the state target indicator six is looking at preschool least restrictive environment performance the percent of children with ieps aged three through five who were enrolled in a preschool program attending a regular early childhood program and receiving most of their special education and related services in the regular early childhood program the state target is 47 percent and our local data was 62.5 so we met the state target indicator six also looked at the percent of children with ieps age three through five who were enrolled in a preschool program and attending a separate special education class separate school or residential facility the state target was 38.75 percent and our local data was 37.5 so we met

102that state target indicator 6 was also looking at the percent of children with ieps age 3 through 5 who were enrolled in a preschool program and receiving special education and related services in the home the state target was 0.19 and our local data was zero percent so we met that oh we got an n a for that state target so um indicator seven preschool outcomes because we have such a small sample size our district level data cannot be publicly reported for that indicator in indicator 8's parent involvement the percent of parents with a child receiving special education services who report that school facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities the state target is an 85 percent for the 2020-21 school year our district was not in the

103cohort where our parents were asked this information um that's done on a rotating basis and it was not not our turn to be in the cohort that year indicator 9 disproportionality did the new jersey department of education identify the school district for disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in special education and related services that is the result of inappropriate identification and we did not indicator 10 disproportionality did the new jersey department of education identify the school district for disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in specific disability categories that is the result of inappropriate identification and we did not indicator 11 effective general supervision the percent of children in 2020 21 who were evaluated within the state established timeline of 90 days from the date of parent consent for initial evaluation the state target

104is a hundred percent and our local data for last year was a hundred percent so we met the target um that the state set indicator 12 early childhood transition the percent of children referred by part c which is early intervention before the age of three who were found eligible for part b which is our preschool program and who had an iep developed and implemented by their third birthday in 2020 21 the state target was a hundred percent and our local data was a hundred percent so we met the state target indicator 13 and 14 both do not apply to us because again we're a pre-k to eight district so indicator 13 is secondary transition looking at incorporating youth age 16 and above with ieps into a variety of activities there and indicator 13 post-secondary transition

105outcomes um the state target for both right did you flip the state target for both is 100 but that doesn't apply to us because our kids aren't that old and leaving high school that's all thanks thank you okay thank you very much nicole uh and last as i i was mentioning we um the district enrollment stands at 641 25 more students than we had at the beginning of the year that's all for this very long section of superintendent remarks to me okay we're going to move on to committee reports kevin can you please give the hr committee report yes thanks dory um the hr personnel committee met on tuesday june 7th at 4 30 p.m present were myself jen sharp dory harvey and mr alexis we discussed tech restructure and basically this was a cost

106savings proposal to reduce our outside consultant contract for tech services which save us some money and we're going to i guess rearrange slightly the in-house tech position to expand those responsibilities and the committee was in favor of of this approach we also discussed uh overall staffing needs mr alexis reviewed the current open positions with the committee and advised that we have a special education teacher on for approval for this meeting there are a number of board items for june i think most of them are on for this agenda some might be on for the next but we discussed cj pride membership renewal for 2022-2023 authorization to hire staff over the summer approved certificated staff for extracurricular duties approved certificated staff as home instructors approved health services coordinator stipend the point co-curricular at bay berrien valley

107view revised um supervision for the science fair appoint program coordinator for before and after care approved summer curriculum writing uh which is going to be on the next agenda i believe approved summer hours for valley view counselor approved summer title 1 staff revised approved special ed special education staff for the 2022 extended school year program approved special education assistance staff for the 2022 extended school year program approved related services for the 2022 extended school year program approved staff for summer evaluations case management approved before and after care esy staff approve administrative leave approved medical leaves approved leaves of absences um establish esl slash wl position at bayberry and appoint current staff change of assignments they vary accepting resignations appoint districts super substitute coordinators that's going to be on the next agenda appoint student information system

108liaison summer 2022 that's going to be on the next agenda too approved volunteers for esy and title one summer programs approved therapy dogs and i see one in the audience over there who looks very cute approved retroactively create retroactive curriculum writing appoint new special education teacher um and then we also had the committee was in favor of all the above reference items we also had some new business mr alexa shared the mayor's request regarding the canoe regatta and the committee also suggested uh that shared special cert education services with regional districts be explored by the policy committee i believe that came up at our last meeting um our last public meeting there were some questions about it and we decided that we would some we should look into that more and finally uh mrs harvey

109gave an update on the referendum ad hoc committee and that's it [Music] thank you kevin um joe can you please give the operations finance committee report the ad hoc committee report and the policy committee report sure i'll try to be brief uh so june 1st we had the operations committee wednesday it included myself mr ingrassia mr mcdonald miss harvey and mr alexis the first part of the meeting discussed the ad hoc committee the committee members discussed the feedback from the ad hoc committee including a request to tour the facilities the committee asked the administration to determine that the cost of having various representatives as part of the walkthrough including dlb associates and drg architects as part of the tour if if necessary the committee then discussed the administration's report regarding the projects that may be

110capable of being completed over the summer with existing resources the discussion included a review of which projects also would be eligible for debt service aid effective use of capital and the custodial and maintenance staffing availability and or shortages and possible donations from various groups including the pto uh to help facilitate um agenda items uh that are on the agenda tonight were discussed so i won't go into detail you can see them for yourself and lastly the phillips field lease and shared services agreement was discussed as part of the discussions it's still ongoing with the watch on little league and the administration is waiting for additional information from the little league to ultimately make a determination finalization of that agreement uh i will now dovetail into the ad hoc referendum committee meeting which took place on

111tuesday may 23rd members included mr buccarelli miss harvey mr ingrassia mr mcdonald as well as mr alexis mr buccarelli provided a brief overview of the agenda and announced the dlb associates would not be able to attend the committee meeting uh and that they would attend the next meeting for uh independent engineer report and information the draft mission statement was revised originally it was to inspire confidence and generate excitement around a world-class referendum designed to provide the schools with the necessary resources for producing the best possible student outcomes world class was removed and replaced with high quality and fiscally responsible as part of business mr buckarelli asked for feedback from committee members on the projects list from the prior referendum during the discussion members also shared perspectives on effective communication with the community regarding the projects

112means of soliciting input from the community members and strategies to make information more easily accessible and marketing strategies focused on trying projects that are of educational value what was also discussed was the possibility of a town survey uh as part of the referendum and that is still ongoing uh discussion uh with regard to whether that should or should not move forward if the committee so determines uh lastly the policy committee uh was held on this past monday june 6th during the policy committee meeting firstly we discussed new or amended policies and regulations which were in the agenda tonight these are required mostly not all but are required to be updated as part of mandatory state uh regulations and policy updates uh all of them are non-substantive they have to do with minor edits such as

113referencing different statutes that had to be updated as part of the law so there's really not much to say about that um the other half of the meeting was spent pursuant to past discussions we had at board meetings um regarding uh the methodology of of of the venue for our board meetings obviously we're post-covered having them in person but if you recall we were also tasked with determining remote options uh as part of alternatives so based upon the research and information provided by mr alexis and the staff and thank you for that um there's several options that we have um what there's not enough board members this evening to fully go through a vote or address the possibilities we as a committee will present those possibilities uh during the course of the month and then

114have a vote on it in the next board meeting but in essence a few things just to highlight one aspect was the live streaming we do that currently most districts do that so we're pretty materially in line there with regard to obviously in-person meetings post-covid everyone is in is in person meetings from a school district perspective uh and of course um individuals in the community can attend and provide commentary in person so the question really becomes the remote access for purposes of community input and that's where it was very mixed and that's what we'll vote on in the next meeting to summarize very quickly option one is certain districts don't allow for it it's just live streaming and then the community can attend the person certain districts do the opposite they have the in-person meanings

115but they allow individuals in the community to fully participate in terms of commentary uh as sort of as we did during covid when we were quarantined and then other districts have a hybrid model where they have obviously the in person but have a little bit more restrictiveness in terms of the participation where there is some administration in queuing of individuals that choose to participate for commentary it's not a full-blown control but it does provide some queuing if you will of participants and validation in that nature um so we'll discuss that at the next one thank you joe um i'll give the curriculum committee report so the members in attendance were um rita jen and myself for the administration it was mr alexis mrs datoda mrs kidd and mrs fichner we um went over the presentation

116on the district progress towards the goals and the committee offered some feedback the committee also asked about the efforts to support the staff and the principals shared positive experiences the committee was in favor of the approaches and pleased with the appreciation events then we went into the summer curriculum writing the curriculum writing is being planned at both schools at valley view the work will include social studies visual performing arts pe health ela seven to eight and for uh prospect uh prospective electives for grade seven and eight and then at bay very teachers will work on social studies visual arts pe health store extension lessons for classrooms and textbooks for uh social studies at both schools will be adopted to support the new curriculum there is the valley view adventure club which was attached and the

117committee was in favor of the proposed club the initial scale is projected at 15 to 20 students and um for our community who's not necessarily sure what that is the purpose of the adventure program will be designed to introduce and explore the world of adventure through hiking climbing backpacking and team building and the club will emphasize the need to find outlets in life that allow for time to disconnect the positive environment will not only focus on recreational activities but also include guided discussions on opportunities to build deeper meaning from the day the mix of physical activities and social emotional learning will build friendships create trust among peers and reinforce uh crucial life skills so definitely look out for that um we also discussed the um approved rescheduled valley view field trip um a rescheduled stem

118field trip to new providence high school this was previously reported to the board the special services updates um the state's annual report on special education performance indicators were presented this evening as well as the hip report card the esy staff also will be on for approval which i believe kevin mentioned and will include an intern and several volunteers woodworking and tech cpag it was mentioned that cpag wants to donate some money to both schools and this is the datota is going to work with both groups to identify the appropriate use of those funds uh end of the year activities and promotion ceremonies uh we were updated on those at bay berry an author visit sponsored by the pto will take place yesterday and the first grade musical showcase was is coming up tonight it's today

119right okay and uh the awards assembly and fourth grade clap out is scheduled for is it still scheduled for june 16th that's what i have here okay so it's june 16th for the uh those events and the first field day took place uh that week and the art show and fourth grade concerts um which all of these have been uh reported on as well so i'm going to skip over some of those because you've heard all those a lot then we went into the accelerated math at valley view so we went over summer resources for students who are moving into an accelerated level from a regular level prerequisite revisions the intent of the revision is to improve the accuracy of the teacher recommendations and find the most suitable placements for students currently uh the overall

120marking period grade is used as one of the indicators the revised approach would modify that indicator to place more emphasis on course assessment scores principal kidd also explained a modest change to the daily flex time period to no longer require students to attend an extra math class once per four-day cycle students now have a choice of um on where to go for that extra help during that 30-minute period this also will free up the math teachers to work with other students during that period it is consistent with the district philosophy of personalizing learning and developing student agency we did go over some new business the training for the bb ra teachers teachers are provided with ongoing training for staff through next marks models on autism and mujc workshops um the therapy dog which is planned

121for the esy um and even though i know that's not on here i think we did ask if the therapy dog or any animals could continue throughout the school year so mr alexis said he would look into that field trips to sces for valley view students they have a shoprite auto shop woodworking shop for future consideration the director of special services has looked into this previously and is developing a plan for current students uh shared special ed services among sending districts we said we um we were kind of running out of time so we were going to discuss that at a future meeting accepting tuition students we did refer that to the policy committee negotiated tuitions to send received students within sending districts and our other districts we left for further discussion and then i

122provided an update on the referendum ad hoc committee so that was about it um okay so board liaison reports kevin is there anything as a legislative liaison i've nothing for tonight dory thanks okay great uh somerset county ed services commission jen uh not at this time i was unable to attend okay and somerset county uh school boards association amber there's nothing to report but there's um a session that's on monday june 13th this is regarding school safety it's from 9 to 11 30 am so if anyone's interested please sign up it's on the njsba website i will be attending it okay great and for the new jersey school boards association um there is still an upcoming event tomorrow the new jersey school board's virtual school public relations forum there are some webinars on there using

123comparative data another one the board of ed president slash superintendent team leadership meeting that needs meeting the needs of their district there is another one solutions based pd to support your community of learners they're all available for everyone to review um and then finally another reminder that we will have our board goal setting um occur during the june 23rd board meeting which is our next meeting in which we will have our board retreat we have the topic of board goals listed under the board business this evening to discuss so i hope all came prepared again to discuss that and offer ideas of goals and how to measure them i will send all suggestions uh given to gwen thornton our ngs njsba representative since she is the moderator for the board retreat i have um an

124update from gwen on the goals that were suggested at our last board meeting which i will give um it's very brief just so you know um during our discussion on on board business and board members should also remember to please complete the board self-evaluation by friday june 17th okay so community engagement is there anyone here from the pto to give us an update is there anyone here from web cpag watching idea so good evening all tynesha sims co-founder of the watching idea committee um i just have a couple of points uh to update i just want to say thank you to uh miss kidd and miss fickner uh for participating in the um international day of families the week be the week leading up to our event and the week after just some highlights and

125valley view i do volunteer on thursdays for pto lunch sales and the multicultural club that's ran by ms starr she had a couple students come and help us out during snack sales where they were able to speak in different languages whether it's french whether it's spanish and it was really cool to see the kids kind of interact and try to communicate back so that was a really good and fun idea i i know that miss fitner had a full week plan in addition to the salutations and good mornings in the um in different languages during the announcements which is pretty cool and it's a nice way of really diversifying and showing um some inclusivity uh to the kids and then we had our event even though it was raining in bay berry we did still

126have a good turnout from the families and it was fun to learn our neighbors and their cultures so we had some costa rica we had india um we had some representation from the middle east african-american obviously and we also had the multicultural club which had a variety of diverse um uh displayed either um literature or little um little artifacts uh that you can kind of touch and feel and kind of have a conversation about um so it was a good turnout in addition to the the food truck friday so that was a great combination and looking forward to to doing that again next year um and then we have our second annual juneteenth celebration which is now a u.s national holiday and it um it's officially called juneteenth national independence day and for those that

127don't know this is commemorating the emancipation of enslaved african americans on that happened on june 19 1865 in galveston texas um this will be our second annual event and it will be held on june 18th at mobas field so if you are interested in coming out if you're available please stop by or if you want to participate please feel free um last year if you were there or if you weren't we had um african dance and they did get crowd participation so um come ready with your dance issues on and um a lot of fun and that's it so i just want to wish everybody a healthy safe and amazing summer thank you thank you thank you uh so we'll go on to comments from the public on agenda items we welcome input from the

128public there are two times during the meeting when the public is invited to speak the first opportunity to comment on agenda items only is now the second opportunity for public comment is towards the end of the meeting total time allotted for public comment is 30 minutes before you make your comment please state your name and address in the event it appears the public comment portion of the meeting may exceed 30 minutes the presiding officer may limit each statement made by a participant to three minutes duration comments submitted to the board secretary prior to the meeting will be read first our public forums are not structured as a question and answer session but rather offered as opportunities to share input with the board in instances where the board feels a response is needed the presiding officer

129or superintendent will address the comment new jersey statutes do not permit the board to discuss personnel or hiring in public session names of students should not be used members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected and identified in their comments and be aware that they are personally legally responsible with potential liability for comments that they make to the board the board shall not be held liable for comments made by members of the public are there any comments on agenda items okay so we're going to move on to action items um i am going to pull a4 from the agenda which is to approve donation of the installation of the legend of watchung uh so amber can you please move um all of the administrative items except for

130a4 i move uh a one approved minutes of previous meetings a two approved of special education students a three approved placement for special education student esy a5 firm superintendent's hip report a6 suit affirm superintendent's hip report 87 a firm superintendent's hip report a8 affirm superintendent sub report a9 affirm superintendent hip report is there any discussion okay can we have a roll call please mr barbella yes mr ingrassia that was yes mr kraft yes that was a very loud yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs charf yes mrs harvey uh yes to all except for a5 to a9 i am abstaining due to a conflict okay with the extension the motions still all pass okay um personnel kevin can you please move those items yes i move personnel items b1 the point special special education

131teacher valley view school b2 cj pride membership renewal [Music] b3 authorization to hire staff before approved certificated staff for extracurricular duties b5 appoint certificated staff as home instructors b6 approve health services coordinator stipend b7 appoint bayberry co-curricular revised b8 point valley view co-curricular revised b9 appoint summer program coordinator for before slash after care b10 approved esy before slash aftercare staff b11 approved curriculum writing retroactively b12 approved summer hours for valley view counselor b13 appoint 2022 summer title 1 summer program staff revised b14 approved special education and related arts staff for the 2022 extended school year program b15 approved special education assistance staff for the 2022 extended school year program b16 approved related services for the 2022 extended school year program b17 approved child study team members for summer 2022 evaluations slash case management b18 approved

132volunteers for the 2022 esy and title 1 summer programs b19 approved therapy dogs for the 2022 esy and title 1 summer programs b20 approved administrative leave b21 approved medical leave b22 approved medical leave b-23 approve extended leave of absence bayberry elementary school teacher b-24 established the following bayberry esl slash world language physician and appoint staff b25 change of assignment bayberry school b26 except direct resignation and b27 except resignation is there a second second any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr gracia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs scharf yes mrs harvey yes motions pass all 27 of them dang joe can you please move operation items sure move c1 approve payment of bills c2 approve transfer funds 281 22 c3 accept financial reports see four reasonable and customary rates

133for independent education educational evaluations c5 approve annual maintenance service agreement c6 approved inter-local shared services agreement between watch on board borough board of education and morris union joint chair commission for vehicle maintenance for the 22-23 school year c7 approved gov deals for sale of surplus property c8 authorized sale of surplus and or outdated property c9 accept donation from the wachong cpac c10 accept donation from the fanwood watch on crush stone company c11 accept donation from rising stars dance company c-12 approved addendum to extend agreements with ess northeast llc c13 approve addendum to extend agreements with ess support services c14 approved professional travel and related expenses is there a second second i'm sorry any discussion i guess uh i'd just like to ask rich pepe with the capital reserve account just uh in the attachment five

134report um the the front page we have um the capital reserves uh at the 1 million 77 000 and then the next uh second page describes that as the capital reserve at 1 million three hundred seventy five thousand minus the 270 298 000 budget withdrawal from the capital reserve at uh the one that to get us to that 177 000 number right so um this but this is up to april right so we have a new budget that came through is reflecting a sectioning off of some of those funds right to uh in case of any issues so um that's not reflected in this for that reason right that's that's not reflected because that's for the 2022 2023 school year so that won't be reflected until at least july and sometimes there's a lag for

135when it hits the accounting software right all right i just wanted to touch base on that because we've been talking about that pretty frequently thank you uh roll call please just mr barbella yes mr ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs scharf yes mrs harvey yes emotions pass adam can you please move curriculum items sure like to move d1 valley view adventure club program and d2 approve retroactively rescheduled valley view field trip is there a second second any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs scharf yes mrs harvey yes emotions pass joe can you please move policy items sure a move e1 approved policies and regulations for first read e2 abolish policy is there a second second

136any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs scharf yes mrs harvey yes motion's best okay so we'll go on to board business the topic we have to discuss are the board goals the brief update that i have i did provide um miss orton the suggestions uh so far and some i actually received in writing um so it just obviously at the board retreat it depends on what the board wants but i did give her a goal number one that we still have for um the 2122 school year which was to engage in professional development as a board work towards the elimination of inherent bias promote equity and inclusion to ensure a school climate where all students can succeed i let her know

137that a board goal of the referendum was brought up and um [Music] there were others for academic and differentiated learning she did stress that that is a district goal not a board goal um anything that deals with academics and uh how our staff teaches students um so just keep that in mind and then um i did receive one about promoting kindness um with the idea of working respectfully and holding ourselves to the same standards that we hold the students um so i did give that one to her she didn't say anything about that one yet so we'll probably discuss that one more at um [Music] the border tree there was another one that gwen and i discussed just by thinking about some of the confusion that sometimes seems to happen between us as board members

138um so we discussed that it might be a good idea for the board to consider us developing in writing our board norms right of how we communicate with each other the process of communicating with the superintendent what are the protocols to follow so we do have bylaws which we work with um but the suggestion was to kind of beef up our bylaws so obviously along the way policy would be involved in this um and then also maybe establishing times during board business at our meetings for us to discuss these topics so that they're decided on together as a board there are some norms that are just inherent to boards and if we need when to come in and help us with that during these discussions we just have to plan ahead of time to invite

139her to our meetings because her schedule does fill up rather quickly so that was another one that we discussed but um i'll open it up to anybody who has anything that they might want to add that i can send to her um the floor is open for each board member to talk i'd like to bring up the subject of our five-year strategic plan and just uh to touch on that as they as a board goal to look at the uh updating that that plan my god um just fiscal accountability and communications and that's within just the board itself within the district as well i think one of the board's primary function is a direct oversight of the district's budget so with emphasis on communicating the district's financial stability and fiscally responsible choices that support education

140educational excellence i think this is important if we can do that especially with the referendum and then the other needs that we have for the future of the district um i think the way that can be measured is just how much we communicate those needs with the public and within our own board do you think that could be incorporated into the referendum goal sure anyone else no all right um so i'll submit those to her so she knows and i'll also remind her to provide us with the information of the board of a whole um ahead of time she knows this but i'll just remind her just in case um and i didn't receive any requests from any board members for any other board business to be discussed tonight but is there any other board

141business to discuss um i do actually um real quick this came from i was going to admit that's why i had called you because i was going to mention it and i'm sorry to call you last minute today um i was going to mention this during our policy meeting but it slipped my mind um since we did pass a policy to work with law enforcement agencies the one thing that we have done in the district and the principals have you know said that there's different projects and programs that you have local law enforcement and just agencies come in so we have our fire department they'll come in um you have your police that comes in dms they're walking around the lake for them to help that and create that environment where we're working as a

142team and as a community i think um it just a suggestion for the district and the administration is that we i would like to see more um to star fire police and ems come here engage with the children so that these faces are familiar and they start at this age so if they have a problem they know who to go to and how to address it and it's not the first time they're seeing somebody is when they're getting pulled over when they're driving it's more of something that we're creating or building up and we're teaching them this is how you know um the parents know the teachers know the students know and then the um the first responders in our town know them and it becomes a community and as they grow older they can

143look after each other and it's like i think something like that and building towards that is important just just more often i know like we do it here and there we sprinkle it but just a little bit more i'm just looking at george because i think we might do some of those things already i remember the police officers coming in and meeting with the students and then the rescue squad a lot of the students go there during the time where we're celebrating them and appreciating them so they are meeting them but i didn't know if george wanted to if there was anything else that i didn't know no the only thing i would comment on is as that as you acknowledge we do have that kind of relationship with the police department and they are

144they do walk throughs through both schools every day they're here at arrival and dismissal and as much as they can be but they also don't have a large staff a large department and they do have the obligations in the community but i do think the kids are very comfortable with the police officers and i agree with the spirit of what you're saying um we also have our deer care program we had our graduation last week and you know the police are working with the fifth grade students and that continues thank you i remember at food trucks this year last year we had the trucks come in ems came fire trucks please that's cool too that's a nice way to do it yeah they're at halloween yeah at the trunk retreat as well and it's nice

145you know if maybe i feel like um some of these not all the students are there outside events if if that certain program doesn't do it then other programs maybe you think outside the box how can we involve them maybe donate with or donate with a police officer something similar like that or uh ems because we do have their volunteer in our s in our borough so if we appreciate them i think these children hopefully one of them would want to be a firefighter or an ems or possibly police officer um it's just like i said creating that environment and just making them comfortable both ways thank you any other business okay we're gonna move on the comments from the public just please remember to state your name and address this is on any item

146okay see no one um we are going to move into an executive session uh there is not going to be any board business after it just so that you know um and but we will come back into public session just to close the meeting um so can i have a motion to go into executive session still moved is there a second second any discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay mr pepe can you please read the reason for us going into executive session whereas the open public meetings act njsa 10 column 4-11 permits the board of education to meet in closed session to discuss certain matters now therefore be it resolved the board of education adjourns to closed session to discuss specific prospective or current employees unless all who could be adversely

147affected request an open session which they have not been further resolved the minutes of this closed session was made public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists this closed session may be followed by an open session where action may be taken although that is not the intent as mr [Music] okay thank you for joining us this evening this meeting is adjourned