001to the flag of America to the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty andice for all. The New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this act, the Cedar Grove Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be advertised by having the date, time, and place thereof posted on bulletin boards in the district, published and/or transmitted to the Verona Cedar Grove Times and Star Legend newspapers, tap into online news, filed with the township clerk, and posted on the district website. Can we have a roll call, please? Board member Grande here. Board member Marzullo, here. Board
002member Palak here. Board member Keegan here. Board President Dara here. Thank you. Okay. This time I'll open the meeting to the public. Agenda items only. Uh seeing we don't have anyone that wants to speak. I move to close that portion of the meeting and uh move on to uh committee reports. First, I just want to say good evening to everybody, everybody at home. I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day to all our moms and those who act in the capacity of moms. Um, we had some beautiful weather. So, that was really nice and enjoyable. Um, okay. So, we will start with our student rep. Good evening. How are you? Good evening. How are you? Doing well, thank you. So, obviously with the school year coming to a close, everything's slowly winding down. We've actually
003been the height of our AP testing last week and this week. So, that closes up this Friday, I'm pretty sure, is the last exam. And then we're getting ready for our Memorial Day weekend. A nice long weekend. And after that, when we come back, we have our junior senior prom, which is taking place on June 4th at the Legacy Castle, which we're all very excited for. It should be nice. Um, and another thing that um the seniors are very excited for is we have our senior sunset to close out the year. In the beginning, we had the senior sunrise back in September, and so now we have the sunset coming up along with a end of the year barbecue for the seniors, which everyone is really excited about, but yeah, that's it as we're getting
004ready for the close to the school year and graduation. Great. Um, something I wanted to propose, a couple of the board members were talking about, maybe you um when you go back and you can kind of share it with um with those. I think like maybe moving forward like next year it would be nice if we could have some at our our meetings when you present your report that we could include some feedback from the other schools. Okay. Like so maybe um you know if we could work somehow in conjunction with the building administrators and u maybe the middle school to peer group or you know however the building administrators want to do that. It would be nice if we could have like a report. That would be nice. That would include all the the
005district schools. So, I'm not sure how to do that. So, I'm gonna let put that you guys. Whatever you you know you think would be the most efficient. I think that's a great idea. Me and Ava will definitely go talk about that. I think that would be more effective and be a good idea. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you. Good luck on your AP exams. Thank you so much. [laughter] I appreciate it. Okay. So, we're going to move into some committee reports. Um, all right. Curriculum and instruction. Mr. Pock, would you like to report on that? Thank you. We had an education meeting, myself, Dr. Canelian. Some very very important issues were discussed during that time. Uh one of the most important was the initiative by the superintendent
006in relationship to his goals uh regarding analyzing our test data as we go through the district and um it has been one of the goals the superintendent has set forth and he's been analyzing those the data and has presented some to Miss Dora and I. Um, one of the things that we we'd like to continually see is that this data comes to us and comes and becomes transparent for the community and that we understand what this data is reporting on. Um, we use link testing within the district. It's being used very well by our teachers and it is it is giving us information about what groupings can occur in classes, what standards have been hit versus those that may have been missed. And it allows to help you really schedule your teaching and and reaching
007the students at the highest possible level. Uh the next piece that I'd like to really emphasize is that when we're presenting test scores, and we've presented them in the last couple years, um district has present them based on state proficiency averages. And that usually is not the way test scores are presented. They're more presented in your relationship to your district factor grouping, meaning like schools. And we need to look at our scores against light districts and like score schools so that we can really see where we are. Um in certain areas we do well in other areas we we are underachieving and that is part of the goals that are being set by the superintendent and they are addressing. But it is important for I think all the people that look at these types of
008things to understand what those scores truly mean. And um finally um some information regarding uh scheduling that's going on in both buildings, the high school and the middle school. I think the superintendent along with their administrators are really doing some uh research on some innovative strategies on how to implement some timely 2025 initiatives into the into the curriculum. But that's our curriculum instruction personnel. Mora and I met with superintendent. Uh all those items are being recommended by the superintendent on the agenda. That is why there's so much paper here today as we are approving all of the staff members for the next school year. And uh finally, uh the North End FSA. I met with them last week. Uh that's an outstanding group as all the FSAs are. They do tremendous work for not only
009their school but also for the teachers. and I'd like to commend them publicly for all the things that they do and the turnouts that they get at their meeting. It's a it's an absolute pleasure and a privilege to be uh the board representative for their FSA. Thank you, Mr. Pock. Uh finance. Sure. Thank you. Um so Lou, uh Eric and Dr. T and I uh had a a very quick finance committee meeting uh earlier this afternoon. Um really just two two things to to mention. The first is that um uh Eric uh does plan on uh re-evaluating um our relationship with our PNC, our property and casualty insurance broker. Um and this is consistent with uh other uh contracts that we've been re reevaluating relationships with. Um so he plans on doing that. And then
010the second thing is uh relates to transportation bids. So advertisements went out uh yesterday um for those bids and uh hopefully uh we'll be awarding uh new contracts uh at our June meeting, next meeting. That was it. Again, it was a quick meeting. Quick is good. Yep. Okay, Miss Keen. Um, I attended the South End FSA, sorry, Southoun FSA meeting um, a few weeks ago in April. They reported on some good success with their fundraisers this year. Um, they do have one more meeting coming up and they do live stream their meetings as well, so the attendance has been pretty good. Um, so I look forward to visiting with them again in June. Yeah, our FSAs really do a phenomenal job. I have to echo what Mr. Pallik said. So many events and I I'm
011excited to see them all on the social media. You know, not having any students in the younger grades anymore living vicariously through their Facebook pages. So, it's really exciting times. So, all right. So, let's um moving right into we don't have any formal board presentations tonight, but Dr. T certainly have a report. Sure. Okay. Thank you, Madam President. And good evening, Cedar Grove School community. I have several updates and highlights I'd like to share with the community this evening. First, NJSLA testing has begun across our district. As I noted at the April Board of Education meeting, we ask for support from our families to express to students the importance of taking these assessments seriously. The data generated from these assessments plays a significant role in our ongoing planning for new curricular resources, professional development for
012our teachers, and in identifying areas in need of improvement, as well as trends that are points of pride worth honoring. It remains our goal and expectation for our student academic outcomes to well outpace that of state averages. Thank you in advance to all of our families for your support. I would like to highlight some key items on our agenda this evening. I am very pleased to share that we are bringing back a music summer enrichment program this summer. I'm excited so many of our middle school students and families expressed interest in this program. I'd like to thank our three music teachers for spearheading this initiative to bring back a summer music program as we look to increase the number of students excelling in our music programs through their high school years. And the key starting
013point to achieve this goal is a robust program at our middle school. Also on tonight's agenda is our very successful Lego summer build camp. The camp will run the weeks of June 23rd through the 28th, July 7th through the 11th, and July 14th through the 18th. For all those interested, please be on the lookout for more information in the coming weeks. In closing this evening, I'd like to remind everyone about some exciting events coming up. We'll be hosting the high school art show at 6 p.m. followed by our spring concert this Thursday evening here at the high school. Our varsity girls softball team will be playing in the county championships this weekend and they are set to begin their run for an unprecedented third straight state championship on May 28th with a home game. And
014we will be hosting our senior academic awards evening here this Monday evening at 6:30. As we enter the final weeks of the 24-25 school year, we could not be more proud of our students, teachers, and staff for all of their hard work and accomplishments this school year. And with that, I end my report. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, we have a lot of business to move tonight. So, let's get started. Um, okay. Under the business administrator's report, can I have a motion for G1 through G10, please? Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Board member Grande. Yes. Board member Bullo. Yes. Board member Pallet. Yes. Board member Keegan. Yes. Board President Dara. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Under superintendent report general administration. Can I have a motion for H1 through H5, please? So moved. Second.
015Any discussion? Roll call, please. Board member Grande. Yes. Board member Marzulo. Yes. Board member Palak. Yes. Board member Keegan. Yes. Board President R. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Under human resources, a motion for I1 through I13. So move. Second. Any discussion? Just like to say, M. door that in analyzing um as we go through personnel how many really great teachers we do have and you don't you don't realize it till you see the list and I'd also like to say that I do think that um we need to continue to help with the pay structure that we work within with our teachers that uh in our entire profession that we can really enhance our some of our teachers are really not making what they should make for the work that they do. But they we
016have an outstanding group of teachers. Yes, we do. Thank you, Mr. Pock. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Board member Grande, yes. Board member Marzulo, yes. Board member Pal, yes. Board member Keegan, yes. Board President Dara, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. We are on thought we were on 22 but we are not. 24. Yep. Here we go. Under curriculum instruction. Can I have a motion for J1 through J3, please? So move. Second. Any discussion? Can I have a roll call, please? Board member Grande. Yes. Board member Marzulo. Yes. Board member Pallet. Yes. Board member Keegan. Yes. Board member Board President. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. This time I open the portion of the meeting to public comment on any school related items. Seeing there's nobody signed up or uh coming to the mic, I move
017to close that portion of the meeting. Announcement of future meetings. Our next meeting will be Mayune June. I'm like, wow, that's today. um June 17th at the high school auditorium and open meeting will start at 7:30 and the following meeting would be July 22nd same time at the high school auditorium. Um motion to close the meeting. All in favor? All right, meeting adjourned. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening.