001good evening and welcome to a meeting of your mountainside board of education today is january 26 2021 in accordance with the state sunshine law and state regulations adequate notice that this meeting was provided by mailing a notice of the time date location and instructions for accessing the meeting to the union county local source and the westfield leader filing same with the borough clerk posting the notice at the main access door of the mountainside board of education building and on the mountainside board of education website to protect the health and safety of the community of the community while ensuring the continued functioning of the board this meeting will be held via zoom tonight because of the weather and is also accessible via a conference line these meetings are reserved for board deliberation and for review of
002items contained within the agenda the board reserves the right to vote on action items the board welcomes the participation of interested individuals we encourage questions about specific school practices incidents or events to be brought directly to the school administration public comment will be permitted at the beginning of the meeting for agenda items only each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement in addition time will be allotted at the end of the meeting for public comment on any item may i have a roll call please mr jaylen here dr rudy cpatron here mr hyman here miss pupo here mr rubion here missiana here mr venice here we had a quorum excellent so at this time i'd ask for a motion to go into executive session it is
0036 32 i anticipate us returning at 7 30 to continue the balance of the agenda and the meeting thank you all those in favor aye aye moshikaris i will see you in about an hour okay so we are returning from our executive session it's now 7 30 so at this time i'd ask that we all rise to salute the flag wherever that flag may be i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all awesome so at this time and ask for a motion to approve the minutes from our regular and executive sessions of december 15th don't move jim i'll answer questions i'll call please mr dylan yes doctor who do you see patrol
004yes mr hyman yes miss poopo yes mr rubban yes michiana yes mr venice i think he said he abstained he wasn't there let me okay excellent okay so with that i will open the floor to public participation on agenda items only again this is the portion of the meeting where you the public get to make your comments on the items we will be voting on tonight before we vote on them so if you want to raise your hand i will call on you we will unmute you you can ask your question please state your name or address prior to making a statement or asking a question i do not see any so at this time i do not have a president's report tonight so i will turn it over to ms walling for her superintendent's
005report good evening everybody um first of all thank you for joining us on what luckily did not turn out to be a terribly bad weather evening but always better safe than sorry so a couple of things i am very very happy to share with everyone this evening the first is i would like to take a moment and i know it is in a motion under administration on our agenda but i do want to take a moment just to recognize our board of education january is board of education recognition month and so thankful and so appreciative of our current and past board members who have always put the education the safety and the health of our students here in mountainside and our staff at the front and foremost part of everything that they do so it
006is um at times a thankless job that they volunteer many many hours of their time so to these board members who are here in front of you and the squares just a big big thanks from me um and on behalf of the public i want to say thank you your efforts are recognized we appreciate all that you do so i did want to share that now we are going to have the opportunity i am very very excited to see how many people are on with us this evening to help celebrate our teachers and our support personnel of the year every year at both beechwood and deerfield we recognize a very important teacher educational support person and support staff so three people that we will be recognizing from each building this evening they have we have
007the opportunity for both colleagues and parents to nominate and to share with us why they feel these staff members are deserving of this praise and i'm so so excited for the people that i'm going to share with you this evening so uh if you can give me just a moment we do want everybody to see their beautiful faces when i share with you so mr whitaker is going to promote um to panelists this evening um don't worry you don't have to vote on anything but we do want you to join us so from beechwood we have mrs bruno hi mrs bruno we are going to have mrs lima and mrs deanna i see mrs lima's coming in there we go hello welcome to our fun and mrs deanna so i'm going to share with you
008some words about each of our nominees this year um and i just am so so pleased so the first one that we have hi mrs deanna welcome so first we have our teacher of the year and that is julie lima so i'm going to share with you some things that we were shared with us and some pieces that i put together so ms lima has worked at beechwood for five years as a special education teacher prior to that she was also a long-term leave replacement and a substitute teacher she has made a recognizable impact on so many students as she supports their individual needs both educationally and emotionally she has also become a go-to professional resource for her peers and has provided them with the professional opportunities to help strengthen their own educational practice mrs
009lima's colleague kristen eckert summed this up so nicely when she wrote i have seen firsthand the dedication that julie has to her job as a special education teacher she spends tireless hours creating differentiated and modified lessons for her students she knows exactly how to meet the needs of all of her students and does this every single day julie knows the ins and outs of her students strengths and weaknesses she knows which student needs a pencil grip who needs an extra breathing exercise and which child needs a visual aid to better understand addition strategies julie is also a brilliant resource to her co-workers always lending a helping hand to those around her in addition to being nominated by her colleagues ms lima received recognition from some parents whose kind words included the following in a year
010of unknowns miss lima has been our constant our dependable leader in not only educating my child with special needs but also supporting me as her remote school teacher miss lima has not only been in my child's teacher but mine as well she literally has taught me how to teach i honestly don't know what i have done without what it would have done without miss lima this year her professionalism kindness and expertise working with children with special needs is a gift in fact miss lima is a gift to the district our children and the families of mountainside one other parent wrote i've been lucky enough to know julie lima as a parent a colleague and a friend over the past few years she has been a teacher to my two daughters and has helped them progress
011greatly she is kind smart patient and ever so helpful her professionalism and enthusiasm for watching her students learn and grow is a great thing to watch thank you miss lima for everything you have done for your students and your colleagues we are so proud of you thank you everyone thank you ah well deserved next we have our educational support person of the year lisa bruno for anyone who does not know mrs bruno she is our school nurse at beechwood school simple words cannot even begin to describe the positive impact that mrs bruno has had on countless students and staff during her 13 years working at beechwood school she approaches every health situation with caring compassion and a desire to assist it doesn't matter if you are a student parent staff member or me she will
012immediately drop whatever she is doing in order to assist gather information and help make the best decisions for all this has never been more apparent than this year as we have worked through such a wide variety of covid related situations in addition to her work in school she routinely volunteers her time to support the health of the entire mountainside community from helping administer covid tests and vaccines at keene university to working with the union county health department to support their covet efforts to serving on the mountainside board of health mrs bruno's efforts are to be celebrated and recognized she received a nomination from her colleague sony bronco who commented that lisa has and continues to be one of the best mentors i have had the pleasure to work with her collaboration with staff parents and
013students has been exceptional in ensuring everyone's overall health she has been a great teammate in tackling things together especially during these uncertain times this is especially due to her work ethic her genuinity and good-natured spirit she's an amazing school nurse colleague an exemplary mentor and deserves this nomination for educational support person of the year we couldn't agree more so thank you lisa for everything that you do for us thank you very much i appreciate it and mrs deanna as our support staff of the year i am so pleased to be able to recognize maria deanna as our beechwood support staff member of the year while i have only been fortunate enough to know maria for the past year and a half of her 26 years with the district maria did you know you've been here
014for 26 years my goodness that's fabulous what i can tell you though with 100 certainty is that her flexibility and willingness to serve in any role that is needed is clearly evident every single day her desire to support the beechwood staff students and administration shines through in every aspect of her approach especially this year while her official title may be paraprofessional she routinely steps up to fill in as a substitute teacher in whatever capacity may be needed she does so with a smile on her face and a willingness to learn new things and teach whatever subject is needed whether it be gym second grade or preschool no matter what role she takes on she does it with the goal of student support safety and progress at the forefront at all times maria was nominated by
015mrs gracie who wrote i have had the pleasure of working side by side with maria in a few of these roles so i can attest to her patience dedication and flexibility she is helpful organized and aware of both teacher and student needs mountainside is a tight-knit community maria deanna is certainly one of the threads in the fabric of the town she's a resident a parent of children who attended our schools and a friend she has been ready and willing to play countless of other roles even with short notice and she has done so with grace i am so appreciative of maria's hard work support and willingness to help in any way she can we echo these sentiments from mrs gracie and we thank you maria for everything you have done and continue to do and
016by the way i am sure that mrs jenks will be texting you shortly to let you know what position she needs you to help out in tomorrow thank you for everything you do thank you i appreciate it so these are our beechwood staff members of the year so i thank you and i'm now going to share with you our deerfield school teachers and support of the year so we'll just transition if you could mr whitaker we're going to bring on mrs scanlon mrs cressifully and mrs levy and while that's happening just so you know we go through a process where nominations are sent in we have a committee who meets and in addition to these teachers that we and staff members that we are going to recognize tonight there are many other staff members in
017our district who were nominated and i was so pleased that we were able to share those nominations and what the kind words the parents and staff wrote about them with everyone um after after all of our nominations came in and i know the staff appreciates it hi guys hi mrs scanlon this is chris fulley and mrs levy good evening so we're going to begin with mrs scanlon who is our teacher of the year sharon scanlon has been a dedicated teacher in mountainside for 19 years during this time she has taught at various grade levels and currently is our seventh grade language arts teacher as i have gotten to know sharon i quickly learned that she is thoughtful in her approach dedicated to helping her students learn and supportive to all of the deerfield staff and
018she does all of this in a quiet and unassuming way i think that her colleague nancy kinney summoned it up best in her nomination where she said sharon scanlon is one of the most dedicated teachers i have ever met and has had impacted many many student lives personally sharon taught my son years ago and she was the first teacher to really really understand him my son was bright but energetic as we say sharon saw this and ran with it helping him to channel that energy into learning she did this with countless other children as well teaching language arts can be challenging but sharon does it with ease and a strong knowledge base she just gets it she understands what students need and what they will find interesting she is a pleasure to be with for
019both students and her peers she makes her classroom inviting to all which in turn makes children want to be there and want to learn what a wonderful tribute for a special teacher i think we all could have benefited from a teacher as dedicated as mrs scanlon thank you sharon well thank you so much i'm really honored ah thank you next as our educational support person of the year natalie chris fully hi natalie so calculus staff members and students in mountainside have been very fortunate to benefit from mrs christophule's math knowledge and support she has a depth of knowledge regarding math academic data curriculum and many other aspects that has made her a strong math specialist and allowed her to help so many students and teachers take academic leaps and grow educationally her colleague kristen del
020cortivo who nominated her summed it up beautifully when she said what is truly inspiring about natalie is how she helps students improve in math from a holistic approach always considering social emotional wellness in addition to academics natalie goes the extra mile to build rapport with students their families and their other teachers she creates a safe space for learning in addition her willingness to always and i mean always help anyone who asks is to be commended and is truly appreciated whether it is providing professional development for staff members meeting with team members to help them understand student data working collaboratively on curriculum development with her counterpart in berkeley heights or demonstrating a desire to learn truly learn every aspect of her job and everything that we have to offer such as link it our benchmarking systems
021genesis and many others natalie approaches every single aspect with a huge smile and a team approach to be honest i'm not sure that she has ever uttered the words no or i don't have time maybe she does it at home but definitely not here at school mountainside is very fortunate to have mrs chris fully as a member of our staff and i thank you for your dedication you so much i truly am so honored thank you thank you and our support staff of the year we are very very happy this evening to recognize carol lee levy as the deerfield support staff member of the year mrs levy has worked as a library assistant in the deerfield media center for the past four years as the media center has grown over these years so has her
022importance and her role in helping everything to run smoothly mrs bradley who nominated mrs levy wrote she is an invaluable member of the library's staff as she works with grades three to eight she continuously goes above and beyond her job description which includes but is not limited to an average of 566 transactions loaning requesting renewing and returning items every week maintaining the one online library catalog repairing materials and many many other aspects what impresses me the most about mrs levy is the way she works with the students and staff she is always respectful considerate soft-spoken and friendly she always stops what she is doing to help a student and the students respect her and respond well to her in the library i know that mrs bradley and the students truly appreciate her assistance and so
023do we so thank you for helping to make reading such an important part of student lives congratulations thank you all right so thank you all i'm so pleased i'm sorry that we weren't able to do it in person but very happy that we were able to celebrate it with many more people through our online platform so again congratulations to all of you we are so pleased to have you as part of our staff and part of our schools have a good evening congratulations to finish up my report i would just like to share a couple of educational programming updates and details um on in both buildings we are hitting that mid-year point where we are administering our benchmarks so if you recall at the younger grade levels up through grade five we are utilizing i
024ready this year as our student benchmark program and in the middle school we are using the linkit benchmarking program so this is an opportunity for our staff to assess students in both reading and math to determine where they stand in growth and progress from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year we will then administer these benchmarks at the end of the year as well so it gives us three touch points throughout the school year another point of information to share with everyone we just took our third transition point where students were able to choose to come from remote learning back to in-person education and at this point both between both schools we currently have approximately 87 to 88 percent of our student population attending in-person instruction at this time um and
025i'm so very pleased to see that i'm so pleased to see that the other level of support that is also going on with our remote instruction and the progress that we expect to see in students in both instructional settings while we do hit the middle of the year and we know that we have a lot of school to still go in this year one of the things that happens at this time is we do start to turn our mind towards the next school year i'm going to be very honest we don't know what next year is exactly going to look like structurally yet we don't know we know that we have vaccines coming um we know however that at this time all of those vaccines are for students 16 years children adults 16 years and
026older so we don't know what our programming what our structure what our class set up there's a lot of unknowns which we all honestly are very used to at this point um so we plan accordingly we start to plan as if our structure looks the same in terms of classroom setup in terms of student numbers and we begin to plan with the ability of being ready to transition um to change as we may need to going forward but with that said there are some pieces of next year that we absolutely need to start looking at so for example we have registration for preschool so along those lines to those parents who have been eagerly awaiting that information and is coming out for that we anticipate at this moment that we would be continuing half day
027programs for next year while we would absolutely love to reinstate full day preschool building space needs because of student spacing timing needs again because of certain aspects student needs all of those at this moment lead us down the path of continuing with half day preschool program a morning and an afternoon again with looking at if there is the ability to expand we always would look to do so along those same lines we're beginning to look at how do we address student needs for next year and that those are lots of conversations that happen they happen with the administrators they happen with our staff and one of the things that we are looking to do next year and i'm very very excited to kind of share the the big picture of this is we are looking
028really at how do we expand meeting the needs of our special education students this is especially at our younger ages and so we are beginning to explore an expansion of a program to a self adding in a self-contained special education class next year at the beechwood school this would allow us to open up and address some of the developmental needs of some of our neediest students here in the district without looking beyond our district walls to be able to support them we have begun some programming over the past year and a half of what is called aba programming it's applied behavior analysis which is a way of teaching instruction to some of our needier students and setting up a separate classroom space that would allow them to learn these skills that they need to then
029work very closely with peers here in the district so it gives opportunity for the students to be with their peers for certain classes but also receive the special supports that they may need um so this is something that we are looking to create over the course of the remainder of the year to be able to have in place for our media students next year so it is our goal that this program would expand these ideas provide greater differentiation of instruction and ultimately assist us with keeping some of our neediest students here in mountainside school district for a longer period of time with their peers and in this educational setting um so i wanted to share some of those updates and things that we look for what we're doing now as well as kind of where
030our our thoughts are headed as we start to look to the future thank you and now i believe this is our inaugural business administrators report starring raymond slam thank you thank you very much i just have a few updates uh this week uh i just want to give a quick update on the audit um the auditors are currently finalizing our cafe our cafe uh that'll be submitted on february 5th and they will be present at the next meeting to present a summary of our audit for the 1920 school year in previous meetings we had talked about the touchless upgrade to flushometers and also faucets at deangerfield and beechwood so the items are in stock i'm just awaiting an estimated delivery uh once we get that we're going to touch base with the other render so
031we can start scheduling installations there was a little bit of an uncertainty around that just because we weren't sure uh just because a lot of schools are looking to do these upgrades right now whether we were going to have a long wait time or not but right now it's looking pretty positive so i'll you know continue to update everybody as we gather more information on that uh and then in terms of the budget i just wanted to provide a general update um still looking at you know estimating expenditures as janet mrs walling mentioned there are going to be a lot of unknowns uh next year um in terms of what everything's going to look like so that's going to put a lot of uncertainty in the process of me a lot of changing numbers as
032we go forward so just looking at the expenditures uh projecting out what i think you know some of our local revenues will look like um trying to look into a crystal ball and figure out uh what state aid is going to look like speaking of which the governor is on february 23rd uh tentatively that could change uh so i'll be keeping an eye on that and keeping everyone updated um and then uh just kind of one of the first deadlines we have will be march 22nd and that'll be to file the tentative budget uh to the county that's pretty much everything i had previously we had talked about the laptop upgrades so those are actually in district now um and they're currently being uh set up so they can be deployed so i'll end my
033second report with that positive news excellent that's just second i don't remember now making his debut as the berkeley heights liaison mr jordan hyman thank you jim if i can top that ray but i will do my best so the uh berkeley heads board of ed uh we met for our reorg meeting on jan 7. we re-elected doug reinstein as president and mike tequila as our new vp um cohort a up at gl returned to live instruction just this week uh and for some students i think it's the first time back in the building since uh roughly thanksgiving or even pre-thanksgiving so uh exciting and and uh hopefully hopefully um something that will stay in terms of students able to get into the building um uh on on gen 7 uh we also uh talked
034about a new diversity equity and inclusion task force that's being formed uh the task force is a mix of volunteers that includes parents uh current students former students uh all of whom would be interested uh in in getting involved in volunteering time and perspectives um and dr varley sort of summarized the the focus of of this task force uh as looking at uh where we're going how we're going to get there uh and what the success metrics are to track um and uh i i don't have a firm date on when that uh first meeting of that task force was to take place but the the estimate was either this week or next so hopefully i'll have more more updates uh to come on that um we also um approved two new elective courses at
035gl for the 2021-22 school year one is called race in america in the 21st century and the other is roots in rhythm the history of rap and hip-hop lyrics in addition uh this week two new gender neutral bathrooms opened at gl uh they've been in the works for some time but they officially opened uh with the reopening of in-person instruction this week um and then just last on on the sports front um it there's been sort of a staggered return to to sports uh at the geo level but uh hockey the geo hockey team started practice up again the week of jan four uh and i think at last check they've won their first two games um and were two-and-oh um and then it sort of is a rolling uh reopening from there so um
036fencing and basketball uh restarted practice i think on jan 14th uh and then the next wave of sports uh including track uh winter track uh and swimming uh are basically rolling out from there with group three sports including volleyball picking up uh in march um and and just a note on on all these sports uh there's no obviously no live spectators uh allowed at this point but um according to the gl uh athletic director and clifton they're doing a nice job with remote live streams um and just figuring out ways to to obviously allow parents and fans to be able to to keep track of all these sports uh interestingly the the swim meets uh are not actually team versus team they're they're basically timed meets so um you know they're competing at the same
037time but you know your times are compared you're not actually in the same poll you're in you're in your home pools so um thought that was kind of interesting uh and our next meeting is is feb4 so i should have a further update uh as we go at our next meeting and that is my first inaugural liaison report there you go great job thank you mr hammond so at this time i ask for a motion to approve under administration items one through six packages any comments or questions roll call please sir dylan yes doctor good to see patreon yes mr hyman yes miss pupa yes mr rubin yes michiana yes mr venice yes motion carries thank you motion to approve under budget and finance items one thank you comments or questions you might have a
038comment just uh before we vote on number eight um the tuition for preschool this topic did come up in the finance budget finance committee mrs walling did share that she did do comparable tuition against the other local preschools right um and definitely was comparable uh and and our our assessment from that committee was uh this was a the right tuition to charge so just a little bit more information from our committee thank you any other comments or questions roll call please mr helen yes doctor who do you see patrol mr hyman yes miss poopo yes mr rubion yes ms tiana yes mr venice yes motion carries motion to approve under personnel items 1 through 11. don't move second comments or questions i just wanted to make a note that on motions two and three uh
039there was an error it states we resignation but it should actually be retirement the agenda provided online has been updated thank you ray um so i i did want to just make a comment on items two and three um these are two tremendous ladies who have um done a lot for this district and um i've had the pleasure of well this debbie's known me since high school um so sorry about that but that's true um so i've had the pleasure of working with both of them and again they're just just amazing and um as far as miss richard just goes just uh from my point of view being on this board a decade now or a little longer we've had quite a few transitions quite a few changes quite a few um [Music] organizational structures
040and the one constant we've always had is is miss richards uh for me she's always been an integral part of everything we've always tried to do as a board and was incredibly important to those things and i just i wish you the best it's been wonderful working with both of you um and uh congratulations on your retirement very good roll call please mr dylan yes dr woody's tpatreon dad i would like to say no and take back mrs richard's uh retirement but i can't so yes i wish her last she will be totally missed mr hyman yeah it's it's a begrudging yes for me as well uh and i share the same sentiments thank you mrs richards ms yes and thank you to both miss richards and ms debbie for your years of dedication to
041mountainside i appreciate it we all do mr rubio i thought the mistake i thought the mistake was that they were on there but um yes machianna yes and miss richards you can ask miss um walling um my reaction and my email to her when i found out you were retiring mine too mr venice yes and i would like to thank mrs richards for her great job she did i remember we we had interviews jim and i and i guess chris thanks and we went through so many people and we came out in agreement that she fit the bill and she did and uh i'd like to say thank you job well done and with that the motion carries motion to approve under policy item one for first reading item two for second reading and adoption
042second comments more questions roll call please mr dylan yes doctor who is cpa true yes mr hyman yes miss poopoo yes michiana yes mr venice yes motion carriers do we have any old business this evening any new business jim i can just go quickly yeah i can go quickly on the on the library front um the library board of trustees uh we met uh last week on the 18th um and just a quick quick couple of notes um we we have three new uh library board of trustee members uh uh including including vivian poopo who's here tonight um um we've also added marnie dardanello uh and wendy kakamo uh to the board um the library technically remains open for for curbside only uh at the moment uh sorry loud dog in the background apologies uh
043um and and we've talked about dates for uh for when we're when we'll be back and we'll be able to open live but um there really is not a firm date at this point um and then uh just uh just a note uh that um and and i think um catherine brown may have sent you a note janet on this that um library is obviously as always sort of encouraging for uh parents that are that are enrolling students in kindergarten that uh that their their psa notice of of uh were welcome to to uh to have uh to to get uh library cards for uh for their students um so i think she had sent sort of a mock flyer to try to include at some point when the time is right it's going out
044with it will go out with our kindergarten uh when the parents come in for paperwork we misses uh cause chisuli has already added it in there so we appreciate the the reaching out for that as well and keeping that continuity going sounds great thanks excellent thank you any other new business tonight with that we'll move on to committee reports jim i have one yep go ahead so uh the finance committee's actually met twice uh since the last meeting we met on the 7th and the 19th some of the topics have already been discussed here tonight preschool tuition um the topic of exploring the self-contained special education which mrs walling covered off of um we are starting to talk about uh the previous year excess surplus utilization and reserve deposits right to where will we putting
045the money that's been left over um and certainly preparing for the 21 22 budget so again as mrs walling said um the scenario building are multiple right so well the environment looked like we are now with a partial remote and an abbreviated in-school right so there's still a lot of variables that have to be hashed out um so we're we're scratching the surface on on what those may look like and uh i'll continue to update you know on these committee uh reports you know as i as i have more so that's the end of my report thank you excellent bill uh any other committee reports uh jim if i could to the board i am going to be setting up uh first committee reports for the new year for all of our committees i have
046heard from some board members on availability but if you can please send me emails about what your availability may look like in the next week or two this way i can schedule times whether they're during the day or in the evening so that we can have all of our committees um and then we'll have reports to share next month excellent thank you if there's no other committee reports then at this time i would open the floor to public participation on any topic please use the raise your hand button and we will unmute you again state your name address prior to making a statement or asking a question oh um mr matacek is here we have to unmute him there we go okay thank you welcome thank you steve matajek 312 partridge run i just wanted
047to introduce myself i am the new pearl mountainside liaison to the board of education i know some of you personally uh met some of you recently uh and i know all of you by good reputation that you have for doing great work uh for the board and um uh the school district i'm a resident uh obviously a parent with two kids in our in our system and and i'm alumni of our system i have a great interest in uh in the good work that you're doing and i look forward to uh working with you um in the next year thank you thank you we appreciate it and thank you for jumping on let's see if we got any more i do not see i'm scrolling i do not see any more questions so at this
048time i do not believe we will need a second exec so i would ask for a motion to adjourn i'll move all those in favor aye opposed motion carries meeting adjourned thank you everybody and um we'll see you next month and mrs richards did want me to convey her thank you to everybody well deserved thank you thank you everybody good night