Cedar Grove Board of Education Meeting 8-23-22

001please rise for the flag salute i pledge allegiance good evening everyone new jersey open public meetings 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 place thereof posted on bulletin boards in the district published and or transmitted to the verona cedar grove times and star ledger newspapers tap into online news filed with the township clerk and posted on the district's website roll call please mr marzullo here mr schoener mrs miga here mrs dora here okay um at this point we open the

002meeting to any comments from the public on agenda items only and we have nobody that signed up for that so i closed that portion okay tonight before we get into the meeting we are going to start our interviews for the board vacancy before we get started um mr edelstein is going to explain to the public the process and how this is going to unfold so thanks so the the process of filling a board vacancy is guided by statute and board policy and i'm happy to tell you that the statutes in the board policy in this case happen to be the same and the process works like this the board advertised for candidates for the vacancy and there were two candidates the board has the option to interview those candidates either in closed session or an

003open session and has chosen to interview the candidates in open session and they will do so in alphabetical order for purpose of fairness as each candidate is interviewed and each interview will probably take about 10 minutes the other candidate will be asked to step outside the room because each will be asked exactly the same questions once that is completed the statute and the policy describe how the voting must take place and here's the way it works the board secretary uh business administrator uh will ask if there is a nomination for the first person who was interviewed alphabetically if there is a motion and a second then there's discussion and then there will be a vote on that person it will take three votes to to elect a replacement that's because the statute and the policy

004require a majority of the members who remain after the vacancy was created if that first person gets three votes that's the end of the process and that person is selected and there is no further vote if that person does not receive three votes then there is a nomination and a second if there is a nomination in a second for the second candidate and then a vote on the second candidate to see if that candidate gets three votes if neither candidate gets three votes the board has the option of re-voting or continuing this decision to another night if it wishes because the statute requires that the vacancy be filled within 65 days of its creation and will well within 65 days of its creation if a school district doesn't fill a vacancy within 65 days then

005the department of education operating through the executive county superintendent does it for them and that county superintendent picks an individual to fill the vacancy optimistically assuming that somebody is selected tonight that person will be sworn in immediately and will take his since they're both gentlemen who applied will take his seat tonight so that's the process and alphabetically the the the two candidates who submitted uh uh applications are mr palik and mr wood uh so mr pallek will go first and mr wood will i don't know who's who i mean mr miser okay mr wood will excuse himself and uh there's you don't have to as i was saying you don't have to go in an isolation booth just go in the hall okay thank you mr edelski so mr palace does he have to state

006his name and all that no you know his name um it probably uh mike is is there a way to uh get mr palak uh someplace where he can sit with a microphone i guess down here good evening mr palace how are you tonight good evening everyone thank you welcome thank you thank you for coming and for uh submitting your resume for consideration so as mr adelstein stated um the board has compiled some questions that we would like to present to you today we have your resume we've reviewed it um so with that being said why don't you start off with uh telling us a little bit about yourself [Music] as um i've indicated in my letter and my resume i've been a lifetime residency to grow i've been here all 68 years of my

007life i now um have two grandchildren in the schools i attended south end school and ironically the classrooms my wife and i grew up in they are in now i attended cedar grove high school um very proud to say that you know i was the president of this high school way back when and also right after high school i moved on to college being in school and we became involved in the field of education my passion was to teach and coach which i did for the first part of my career and then i moved into administration administratively i've spent over 30 years in in school administration i'm starting at the end of being an athletic director moving all the way through to becoming then an assistant principal a principal an assistant superintendent and a superintendent

008for over a long number of years in one district which is unheard of through that career i was at a position where i was able to retire i was able to retire collect my pension and at that time commissioner surf offered me a job with the state department i worked for the state department as the implementation manager for five years going on six years it was an interesting situation because my they bought my contract from my previous district and i worked on a a loan program they called it for a number of months and then became a full-time employee of the state with that i had the great opportunity to go work throughout the state working through being the implementation manager doing a lot of trainings for administrators principals and supervisors in the areas of

009teacher teacher and administrator evaluation instructional practices monitoring i'm very very familiar with monitoring as a matter of fact when i was leaving the state department i was working on the committees that created new dprs for monitoring and uh i can say that that the career has been very fulfilling has given me a tremendous amount of experience in a vast array of areas and um in short i retired to [Music] babysit my grandchildren along with my wife that's that's it in a nutshell really but i'm i'm very thankful i'm blessed with the career i'm blessed with uh what i've been able to learn just to give you an idea and i'm not a name person but you know my my one of my real mentors was dr feinstein the executive director of school boards i was

010his assistant superintendent and i've had many of them so along the way i'm i'm very happy to say that the career was nice my wife my children went to this school my grandchildren are going to this school i truly have a vested interest in the community as you can see my volunteerism has been i think extraordinary over my lifetime whether it be through literally baseball whether it be football and i can also tell you at the age of 26 i was voted on the board here in cedar grove and so that's that's kind of it uh in an abridged version okay so that thank you that kind of goes into our next question you kind of touch base a little bit why why do you want to serve on the uh cedarwood board of education

011all right i have a lot of whys i can't prepare for that question um first off is because of my commitment to the community i think it's an important i think this is a very important time in cedar grove and i think it's an important time for the board of education to regain its impetus to to move the school districts forward but but more importantly you know you having been a superintendent and working with boards of education i know what their responsibilities are and i truly don't want to be an administrator but i do want to be the conduit that helps you make decisions moving in the right direction i would give the board another lens i would give you another set of perspectives to think about when we do make the decisions and we

012do vote you know my biggest concern is that i want to address the academic growth of students of all students and if you if you notice i use the term growth because that's what we worked with at the state department we move students to a point where they grow in every environment that they're in and i do think it is necessary to address the loss of instructional time during the pandemic all right and i know that i a lot of my colleagues that call me have been doing it they have different programs in place to do so but that that's one of the areas secondly student safety and security i think that is critical to districts right now i am a trained district security officer i've been through the state training and very recently their

013most recent training i'm certified in that area i can look at things from a different lens from security pers you know presenting that to you and saying and asking the right questions as an administrator if you want the right answers and you need to get the right information you have to ask the right questions and if you're not knowledgeable enough you're not going to ask the right question because you don't know any better to ask that question third thing is i want to ensure a positive and comfortable learning environment for all the students that is age-appropriate that we move forward and start moving our kids towards growing academically and i want to be that kind of person that works with you that makes decisions for the benefit of all students i really think whether it's

014myself or mr wood whoever it is the past has got to be in the past you have to move on now you have to start to look at where you want to go through your planning and so forth i also want to become a team member for the board assist and provide you with insight some better understanding of some issues because i watch the meetings like everyone else does and i'm saying to myself why don't they ask that question why is that question answered why are they presenting it this time there's not enough information and so therefore i think that you know the questions i might ask and what i might say to you might be able to foster a better understanding and also create a better relationship as we move forward with the public

015because everything you read if you go to anything about the role of a school board and the responsibilities of a school board you will see that the second word that's almost in every parent in every statement is working with parents and getting parents as partners in the process and understanding where they need to be and where their children need to be their children are their most prized product and therefore they have to they have to really be involved in this i want to bring balance to this process i want to eliminate any divisiveness i want everybody to work together because it's the kids i also want to work collaboratively with the stakeholders allow the stakeholders to understand that they have a real vested interest in this and they need to be part of where we're

016going to go as a school district and the last two things i'd like to say in this regard are one is that we tend to want to take net positives and turn them into negatives if a and b are positive you don't take away from a and b to give to c to make that a positive you build c to a positive level and keep a and b at their positive level and build it even further next you know that's got to be some of the things that we we need to do and in saying that how do you do that well you have to have you have to have a very good strategic plan that's clever collaboratively built you have to have you have to have a vision the board has to have a

017mission and with that mission and the vision you set up district goals and of course you have district goals but the district goals should really be addressing the instructional process and what's going on in the schools and then when you have those buildings have goals district has goals buildings have goals staff members have goals all those goals need to be aligned if you're going to go and move in the right direction those are the things that have to have to really occur and you know finally i would say that i would be a proponent of this let teachers teach support their efforts let administrators lead support their efforts but there are accountability and responsibility factors that go along with being a good administrator let advisors advise their clubs without interference let coaches coach their teams

018those are the kinds of things and then finally let's allow kids to be kids and let them move forward through their careers as students and come back with a memorable thing and i just like to throw this out there because i think it's telltale of cedar grove and what it's about i'm running our 50th reunion i hate to say that we've been at cedar grove high school 50 years now we graduated class 216 students in 1972. we're going to have over 100 students in that class returning for a reunion forgets that one class remembering cedar grove and remembering what we did it's truly a remarkable community with a very sound school and we need to continue it but we need the planning and we need to work together and we need the unity but more

019important i'll end with this until you have your next question decisions that you make need to be about students they don't need to be about adults because if you makes the decisions in the arena of students you know you're making the right decision thank you so you've kind of answered the next couple of questions so the third question was going to be two or three most important issues that you think the district is um is facing and that you would like to address you clearly answered that if i may on one other if i can answer that question i do think that the enrollment numbers and the redistricting of the district redistricting of the district if other schools are not opened is a necessity you have to look at that there is a clear imbalance

020in classroom numbers in different schools all right you can have one kindergarten class and one school with 25 kids and two aides in another school at the other end of town have 15 students that needs to be administratively taken care of whether we're going to open buildings or whatever that's a really major decision to be made and how that's going to be there but thank you for allowing me to put you out there and the last one is how will you be able to deal with the time commitment that is required of a board member you kind of answered that already i i think i'd be able to handle it um if uh you would ask my wife you'd probably want me to serve three terms to get out of the house but no um

021it's not an issue for me i don't have other commitments that would take me away from this okay thank you that's all we have i appreciate that your time uh mr pollock nice to meet you just ask you too i will um if you could send mr wood i absolutely will i will oh you can i know joe and then at one we're hoping he's not seeing me in the news just please don't leave yeah okay and then we'll have both of you rejoin us thank you for your time thank you i can't hear the streaming the audio from the stream is there an issue uh with the streaming the people at home are saying they cannot hear the audio what's nothing at home is what people are saying okay so it should be okay

022now okay maybe they need to log out and log back in which may be refreshed so if anybody is receiving any correspondence from home if you can just encourage them because i'm assuming they can't hear me um encourage them to refresh and see if that alleviates the problem okay sorry about that that's okay little technical difficulties um i want to start off by thanking you for you know submitting your resume and um stepping forward to be considered as a candidate we really do appreciate that um we just have like a couple questions that we'd like to ask and um we're just gonna get to it so the first thing i would like to ask you is just we read your your resume so we kind of have an idea about who you are but um

023you know it's one thing on paper so don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and bring it to life for us uh so my name is joe wood i've lived in cedar grove about nine and a half years i'm a funeral director a previously i have served the town on the planning board and i'd like to thank you for having this discussion out in the open because when i previously went to the town council to serve on boards with the town the interviews were always done in executive session and you never knew who was there to volunteer so i i think that it's commendable that this is being held in the open um you know the board has gone through a lot um past couple years and uh i think this is a

024step in the right direction because this helps with transparency to let the parents the students the administrators everybody know that i think that you're trying to move in the right direction and transparency i think is a very big thing so i did previously serve on the planning board in town really enjoyed that when i was younger when i was 20 and 21 i did ran for town council in harrison where i grew up um i graduated high school in 2005 and then in 2006 and 2007 i thought that the town needed a younger fresh approach to its governing so i did run for council so i've previously done that really enjoyed it and when somebody's 20 and 21 that's probably not what they're thinking about doing so i've always thought that it was important to

025give back to where i live ever since i was a kid i wanted to be a funeral director not many people want to do that so it was nice going through school knowing what i wanted to do i knew what schools i needed to go to i knew what i needed to do to get licensed a lot of kids don't have that they don't know what they want to do so knowing what i wanted to do i knew right what schools i needed to go to and then my church needed ccd teachers so i said okay you know my older sister is a teacher she always talks very highly of being an educator so i volunteered and probably about three fourths of the way through school i decided i wanted to switch my majors and

026i want to be a teacher so i do have an associate's degree from hudson county community college in elementary and secondary education and i i did want to be a teacher but then life brought me back to funeral service so i am a funeral director been a funeral director almost 10 years and i love it you know some days are tough some days are really rewarding and being a funeral director and being on the school board would be another way to give back to town i've helped a lot of families through difficult times but i've also seen the town come together through good times through bad times cedar grove really it's a good place to live you know people move here because it's a great community good schools good community atmosphere and you know we

027just need to keep that going um the school board has gone through a lot and i think it's time that that gets put behind us and you know move forward and what are we showing our students um who should be looking up to the school board as role models you know with all the infighting and you know watching the past meetings and you know everybody up here they didn't it just didn't it wasn't good and um i think that you know a new direction and a new chapter can be brought forward now so i think that you know it's the right time and i would like to be considered thank you so you talked a little bit into my next question but i'm going to put it out there in case you want to add

028to it um why do you want to serve on the school board i want to give back um professionally i give back but you know i'd like to volunteer um having an associate degree in elementary and secondary education i feel like i have the qualifications um you know if i wasn't gonna be a funeral director i would have been a teacher so i feel like i can look at issues from the public perception uh you know possibly the teachers side of things and just see a fresh set of eyes you know somebody that you know i don't have kids i don't have any children in the school system i don't have any side interests with the school system you know just everybody needs to succeed um i don't have any kind of side agenda no

029special interests you know it's just what's best for the town great from your perspective what are two or three most important issues facing the district at this time so the big thing um i think is the decisiveness within the school board from what i've seen on the outside um a board that doesn't work well together it's not going to get anything accomplished um i professionally i'm a member of the essex union and west hudson county funeral directors association i'm part of the executive committee there and if we couldn't work together we won't get anything done um so just seeing in the past meetings how things have looked chilly and if if a board isn't working together um why what does that put out there to the students and and the faculty and the staff so

030i think i think decisiveness is a big thing with the construction and stuff in town with the hilltop reservation you know students new kids that are coming into the district you know population and is there going to be room for the students um and i just think that you know we all want everybody to succeed and if if we can't do it for the students then you know they're the next generation as cliche as it sounds if we every good career starts with a teacher because you need the foundations whether it's a teacher in school or a professor in college you need that guidance and and without that you know nothing's going to work great and our final question is how will you be able to deal with the time commitment required to be on

031the board of ed so previously i was a member of the planning board in town so looking over agendas and reading site plans and things like that that wasn't an issue i do i've talked to my boss working in town i have the flexibility to you know attend a meeting during the day if needed so i don't think that that would be an issue great um i think that's all we have thank you thank you again i want to thank you for you know coming forward and submitting your resume and you know being considered as a candidate thank you you're welcome to stay at this point you don't need to leave i don't know like it is [Music] okay we're just waiting for mr palace to rejoin us mr davida as well and mr dewita

032okay so before we move we don't take questions in the middle of this okay we're not taking questions at this time okay so before we move on i just want to thank both again mr wood and mr palik for submitting your resume and really just you know coming forward and being willing to put in the time and the work because it is not easy to be in this position and we really do appreciate that for both of you and it's clear that both are very committed to our town and giving back and i just personally want to thank you both um for you know really taking the that step and um coming forward today so thank you very much i'm going to help mr devito along but i i am since i heard it i'm

033going to answer the gentleman's question uh anybody who is sworn into a school board must fill out a financial disclosure form the state requires it and it discloses any potential conflicts of interest the district has a nepotism policy and there is state law which has a nepotism policy so there's very little opportunity for undisclosed conflicts of interest on a school board um so mr devito the way in accordance with the the procedure we set the first thing here since mr powek went first would be for you to ask for uh if anyone wishes to nominate mr pallek for the vacancy and see if there's a second okay so uh do we have any nominations for mr pallek i'd like to nominate mr pallet any discussion i'd like to say regarding mr palak and um his

034wealth of knowledge and expertise i see that as an asset to our community and i think he bring it has the potential to bring to the table the forefront of where we need to go at the same time being very mindful of where we've been and the best way to navigate that so um i would like to just put that on the record uh if i may also uh you know i know mr powell has been a very active member of our community for many many years um he's a very reputable in the field of education uh apparently and uh his experience just brings a wealth of knowledge um he is committed uh and you know as a grandparent i could understand why you want to join this team for the vested interest of our

035young age elementary kids so for those reasons i do think mr pallak does bring a great uh candidate to the table uh mr woods i do want to say thank you i you know and i admire your uh want to join this team also not you know i do encourage you to pursue and continue pursuing that whether you get on tonight or not i don't know but you know i i like what you have to say and i want to thank you for taking the time to come out here and presenting yourself i think you did a great job too i agree with with mr marzullo if there were two seats i'd like to give them to you both unfortunately i don't have that right so i will be doing the roll call this is

036will be for the term uh expiring december 31st 2023. uh mr marzullo i'm sorry say that again for the term expiring december 31st 2023 yes mr marzullo yes mr schoener mrs miga yes mrs dora yes okay that ends the process let me just wear them in there rip us where again all right please raise your right hand [Applause] i paul pallak do you solemnly swear or affirm i paul powell do solemnly swear or affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new jersey and the constitution of the state of new jersey and that i will bear true faith and i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and allegiance to the same and

037to the governments established in the united states and to the governments established in the united states and this state under the authority of the people and this state under the authority of the people so help me god so help me god i paul palik do you solemnly swear or affirm i paul palik do solemnly swear or affirm that i possess the qualifications prescribed by law i possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education for the office of member of the board of education and that i am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs 19 semicolon 4-1 [Music] and that i am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs 19-4-1 nor disqualified due to conviction of a crime nor disqualified due to conviction of a crime

038or offense listed in new jersey statute 18 12-1 or offense listed in nj statute 18a 12-1 and then i will faithfully impartially and justly and i will impartially and justly perform perform all the duties of that office all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me god so help me god [Applause] um [Applause] okay welcome mr palik thank you congratulations thank you okay so we're going to start off with some uh committee reports you have a folder right mike can you mr pelican folder no i okay he's got the agenda okay yeah so you have the as long as he has the agenda okay so we're going to start off with some committee reports not too many today um summer and so a couple things that i do

039want to touch upon is we did have a curriculum committee meeting and i will say that our [Music] curriculum directors have been working non-stop all summer long re-writing restructuring about 191 different curriculums so they really have put in the time and the effort and i commend them for them they're very prepared i spent a long time talking with them mr grosso and i and uh the curriculum coordinators talking about some of the things that have they've been working on we've talked about it in the past regarding atlas which is our district where we upload our curriculum i believe most of it is up and um is in atlas and don't think it's open yet to the public but it tomorrow well look at that um but the last week when we met it was they

040were pretty close to opening so i would say that they've made a lot of progress there so i just want to commend um mr pearson bart pearson and janine barboza they really worked really hard this summer and i where i feel good about where we're at um and then the [Music] the other thing i just wanted to briefly talk about was um buildings and facilities as far as the referendum i know a couple of our candidates talked about the overcrowding and we um we're in a really good place as far as a direction of where we're going we've got some really strong ideas that we are about ready to start pushing out to the community and i feel really good about it the board feels really good about it about you know some of the

041things that we're going to propose and look for feedback from the community and how we can address some of the major concerns that we have with the overcrowding so um summer is coming to an end so it's a really good time to start addressing some of these issues everybody is back in town hopefully back from vacations and we can move forward on that so that is in the very near future i feel good about that that's what all that i have on mrs mika we know she definitely has a curriculum update i couldn't have a microphone tonight because i don't know why that's okay good evening to everybody here and watching at home i hope everyone is having a nice summer as it is slowly coming to an end august 15th i attended a personnel

042meeting august 15th they also attended a town council meeting it's just a little a few little things for them on august 26th there will be cedar grove family day slash night at the pool all cedar grove residents are welcome at the pool for the entire day it's for free with proof of residency they will also be showing the movie i believe it's tied with the municipal alliance committee luca on the basketball courts at dusk and at that point the water will be closed cedar grove residents are welcome to attend all day and night until the movie is over please bring your lawn chairs your own lawn chairs and blankets for comfortable seating also essex county invites you to essex remembers which is a ceremony commemorating the 21st anniversary of 9 11 tragedy this is at

0438 00 a.m eagle rock reservation at the 9 11 memorial and looking ahead i don't have dates i don't know if they said dates but if they did and pick it up there will be a pumpkin event held at morgan's farm in the fall as for student athletes that have been already returning i hope you all have a great season and as september is almost upon us i hope you enjoy the back to school shopping i welcome all the students staff and parents back to school in september and look forward to a happy and healthy safe school year that's it for me mr marzullo no thank you mr schoener okay i just want to add um i i wish a lot of success to all of our students that are going off to college or

044have already made that transition in the last couple of weeks and to the parents who are struggling probably just as much as the kids are as they move away um that's not something i'm looking forward to in the near future but i wish everybody a lot of luck and success in their their upcoming year where wherever they have um are calling home for the next couple of months so okay tonight we have some really exciting board presentations and mr gogerty is coming down as we speak so the first one will be well i'll let mr goldberg do it i don't want to steal your thunder you're very welcome good evening um in a few minutes coach nicki vallarti is going to be presenting her softball programs uh next spring training trip to or orlando florida

045so i figured tonight would be a good opportunity to recognize her um for her past achievement this spring um on about june 27th the nj.com released the spring sports you know all state and all you know the all-state teams the all county teams coach of the year awards and stuff like that our our cedar grove softball coach nikki valardi received the essex county and sec coach of the year award for 2022. um and you know i'm kind of a little close to softball in our county as the athletic director i'm kind of in charge of of the sport of softball in the sec so i kind of you know keep a closer eye on it in involved with the other coaches around the county and and those teams and that success throughout the season and

046definitely this past year i could say it i know the coaches in that division say it a lot um but it's probably the best softball division in the entire state um the teams they play and and for little old cedar grove to be going up against mount st dominic twice livingston twice nutley twice um says a lot you know and i could look at this past year and say i think we finished tied for third in that division and in and in the county but this state recognized you know coach velardi and our softball program you know to go above and beyond this year you know just to finish third and recognize her as the nj.com essex county coach of the year so i want to call coach down and recognize her officially for the

047nj.com 2002 sec and essex county division softball coach of the year [Applause] um i just want to say thank you um obviously i wouldn't achieve anything without my coaching staff and um the great players i have and obviously mr gogerty for always backing me up and supporting me so thank you [Music] um coach can you just when you present the trip just present it to the board if you need to turn the microphone back around please thank you so obviously you know in um march the weather is very unpredictable we could um either get snow a week of snow rain and not be able to play our preseason games and this year in the state they are actually pushing our season back two weeks so usually we would always start that first friday in march

048and now we're actually going to start the 16th so it was always like the third so they push us back a little bit so it's only going to give us a week to kind of prepare and in that week like i said it can snow it can rain so the perfect trip for us and preseason would be orlando florida um and in that in the past i've been to um espn whitewater sports but this year i'm going to ksa obviously if you guys approve this for us it's spring training in orlando florida we would stay at universal so in this packet right here is all the information um really it's not even about softball it's really about team chemistry bonding um the extra games are obviously beneficial towards us but really the um the memories

049made for these young ladies at florida and in florida is really what matters so ksa again is one of the largest school sporting events in the country they provide everything that we do so we would fly out they would handle all the buses food take us to games back and forth and really it's all-inclusive um the the game what we would do out there is play double headers or single games so we'd we'd definitely get more games in florida than we would get here because in um like i said with weather-wise we might just get maybe one or two games and then have to open up still april 1st so they didn't change the start date they pushed our preseason back and still starting april 1st so it's really difficult to you know kind of

050get to see 18 players here if you're not really going to play we would say six nights it would be three girls to uh six rooms which i would choose there's no parent chaperones i expect my coaching staff to really handle everything it's myself my assistant coach jackie velardi my assistant coach eddie capazzi and a volunteer coach pete valerdi so we would really handle um all the rooms we do room checks we eat together no kid would really go off on their own during this trip at all um we are doing a lot of fundraising for this it is a over fifty thousand dollar trip it would cost about two thousand dollars a player so we've been doing can shakes we have a tricky tray dinner coming up in november we do a lot of

051restaurant fundraisers we're doing a world series pool nfl pool we do banner advertising so we do do our tournament um the black and gold tournament over 20 teams that we host every year so it's kind of an annual thing that we do but a lot of efforts from our players our parents so it's a big kind of family community thing we're doing here and then that's it any uh questions is school in session during these dates yes so um school is in session we would go march 22nd to the 28th they are fully responsible of all work if they could get work taken there we have nights where you know we're going to play games and kind of just be back in the hotel so if they have work they are fully responsible to um

052do that i just have one quick question yes all together how many athletes you have 18 12 uh returners um and six incoming freshmen coming in um and like i said we're not um we're success successful program we've won state championships um we're in the championship every year so doing this would only benefit the kids and like i said it's not just about softball it's more of a learning experience for the kids um really forever can i just ask you one question might be the dreaded question that's why i'm here yeah you would then any kind of if covet or monkey pox or any other things come up yeah actually your your guidance from mr gordy absolutely from the cdc or whoever yep on this invoice back here we have a refund guarantee already so

053if anything were to happen school shutting down um the height of a pandemic we would get our money back and obviously i would follow mr gugery's lead on whatever the school's doing we would follow as well thank you so it would just be easy i'm sorry miss valardi um did the part you would department after that day school or would it be that it would be that morning so we'd get a coach bus here um we haven't booked anything yet obviously because we want to be approved before we do any airfare um so what we would do is um leave from the school probably early in the morning we'd head to newark we'd get to orlando we wouldn't play that day we'd play the next game probably a double header um go back to the

054room have dinner next day single game double header next day so we kind of switch it um and and with all that obviously we're going to be team bonding doing a lot of uh team things i have a couple questions yes the first question is the contract with ksa is between ksa and who the district the softball team the softball club so the organization so we have a [Music] tax-exempt organization it's called the cedar grove softball club so everything is ran through then that's where our funds are so all the fundraising we do it's you know nothing with really the school paying for anything so the insurance part of that would come from the club like the student insurance yeah i'm not sure about that is that from uh i mean you know it's okay

055if you don't know now it's just something to i think it's definitely something to look into but in the past i think it was always from the school-wise you know we approved this as a school school trip you know um obviously the like more of the fun side of it you know the fundraising side of it obviously is being handled by the cedar softball booster club um as far as the fundraising um the payments um obviously for the trip but you know chaperone wise obviously you know that's why we've always on all of our athletic trips and school trips you know our coaches our advisors our teachers always have been the chaperones of these clubs clubs and teams taking responsibility not you know it's not just you're staying with your parents and you know that's

056where it is i hope that helps answer it a little bit no yes mr yeah experience tells me this is a school trip it's a school trip and funding will be subsidized through their club however all of the other liabilities and exposure will come to the district and you know you have to be aware of that and that is why my one suggestion and i'm fully supportive of these types of ventures is that the permission slip be very carefully worded and given given for review that's that's all i would say and just to chime in we've always mr davida sends you know me and the coaches a pretty detailed board permission slip that that you know the the students and the parents both sign before any of these trips we've been doing this you know

057i mean this is my ninth year you know i know baseball has gone a few times softball is going to be coach's second time um you know first-time posts mr palik mr david typically sends those permission slips to me to review that's what i was going to suggest yes if not write it yourself don't misunderstand my questions i fully support the trips i'm a product of many my personally so i think is it does speak to the the chemistry and the team building and it's just experience for students that they may not necessarily have so absolutely i think it's a great opportunity i would just want you to be and i'm sure you are mindful of any student that is in any type of academic um struggle prior you know because they will be missing

058school time i think most athletes are pretty much on top of that anyway yeah we try to keep uh yeah just be mindful um that everybody's in good academic standing prior to potentially leaving for a week but it's exciting thank you guys any other question any other questions all right thank you so much for your time good night thank you thank you very much and congratulations congratulations congratulations thank you okay and then we have one last presentation tonight so um mr i'd like to we as a board have um we've been trying to present to see for quite some time um but tonight is a great night to do this we are very proud as a community to present this to you i'm going to read this proclamation that was written for you it states

059whereas the school district of cedar grove recognizes the valuable contributions from the cedar grove high school football program to our community and whereas robert gogerty was raised in cedar grove new jersey and whereas robert gogherty is a product of the cedar grove public schools and whereas robert gogerty was part of the cedar grove panther football team capturing the state championship on december 2nd 2000 beating new providence pioneers by a score of 12 to zero i did my research on that one i said my days are good through those minutes um whereas robert gogerty took over the position of head football coach for cedar grove high school in 2016 whereas robert gogerty led his team to win the njsia group one north regional state championship and whereas robert gogerty led his team of 47 players and

060seven coaches to the 2021 new jersey state finals and whereas robert gogerty was recognized as the 2021-22 new jersey football coaches association group one coach of the year and whereas the purpose of the new jersey football coaches association is to maintain the highest possible standards in football and in the profession of coaching football to promote the highest level of interscholastic competition and to honor the young athletes who play this great game in addition the goal of the act of the association is to have a strong voice in legislation that affects football programs across the state now therefore we the cedar grove board of education hereby present this proclamation to robert gogerty for the dedicated and devoted services he performs as cedar grove high school head football coach congratulations [Applause] [Music] um [Applause] quick word uh

061mr gogerty and and miss velarde i just want to you know i'm in the field of education myself and anytime i go around uh you know and i mentioned i'm from cedar grove and i always hear wow one of the first they got great football and they got great softball and i just want to tribute that to you two leaders uh you guys both are your role models for our students uh they respect you both very much i hear it around town and uh cedar grove is very lucky to have you two leading those programs and you guys are doing an outstanding job and keep up the work and good luck with your futures [Applause] okay so we're gonna move on to the superintendent update right i have to tell you um i was spending

062some time looking through all the minutes from years past and uh mr gilgity has not only that in that year in 2000 but he also has a uh recognition of his basketball achievement so he's um he's definitely uh um we're very we're very fortunate proud to have him here in the community leading or leading our teams um i'm going to echo a couple things that president door had shared but i do want to just share as far as our summer work we are our maintenance and custodial staff has been uh very diligent about getting our buildings done this is a probably one of the busiest times of the year for our maintenance and custodial staff they are waxing the floors getting the furniture together um painting there will be plumbing issues um they have been

063absolutely outstanding and i do want to recognize also john bannon for his leadership during this time as well because he getting all of these folks together so the first time that our children can walk through the doors we really i really want to give um those folks kudos so i want to thank them for that um also we talked about um assessments and um you know one of the things that we started last year with the state with the state started which was to start strong assessments i know there has been talk amongst the education community about start strong itself but that is that is scheduled for the beginning of the school year which will give us in some insight into uh students uh academic achievement over the summer although they did have the nj

064sla um assessments over um the springtime all schedules from the high school and middle school have been opened in the genesis portal elementary will open later this week i also want to share that we last year started our transportation fleet we were able to start off with one bus this year we will be we have purchased uh three more uh the department of motor vehicles have completed their registration inspection of the vehicles and we are waiting for each bus to be plated they've been lettered and uh they should be ready to um go into service for the first day the great part about it is that primarily um those services will be will be provided to our special education routes but also our athletic routes as well which is very exciting uh president or you

065shared about our um our curriculum meeting but the one that's 191 curriculum revisions and writings that is unbelievable uh i do have to thank uh mr pearson miss barboza on all the wonderful staff members who did this task this is a rather monumentous task but it's we're very proud and happy how the alignment of the curriculum has been put together um all grade levels content areas we've had we're looking also the restriction of the social studies six through eight stem five through eight as well as the high school stem classes um and atlas is our resource for um our curriculum uh identification so that will open like we talked about earlier uh tomorrow uh also i wanted to thank mr gogerty i know that oh he's still there mr go getty um who has been

066leading the charge with our health curriculum he's done a fantastic job with it along with the leaders um and we did have our meeting late uh in the spring and we shared with with the community about our parental guardian statement of conflict without conscious opt out form so that will be available at the beginning of september for all of our parents who want to exit who want to exercise that right in that field it will be available on all of the individual school websites uh just a couple i mean i have a little bit a little bit list here um our k-5 updates last year we spent some time really focusing on our writing curriculum and our intervention work and we brought in consultants to start to help uh inform our instructional practices for our

067teachers and this year this is a continuation of that uh we dates are being set for our dates are set for our consultants as well as a laser focus on our rti process and how to provide instructional support for our students uh foundations along with the support of hegarty foundations is the phonemic awareness program that will be introduced to all of our students this year our staff was trained in that at the end of last year and uh there will be uh continuing training of that throughout the course of the year especially at the beginning of our workshops for our teachers when they come back intervention is a focus for this year uh we the department of curriculum instruction our administrative team we are really going to focus heavily on our intervention and support services

068and mr palik had shared a lot of that about a learning loss uh it is very clear that throughout that course of time not only here in cedar grove not only in the state of new jersey but across the country there is a loss and each child had that burden on them in their own individual way so our process of really identifying where those children are um how we can go and support them and move them and growth is important and i always stress this that you know we always look at growth and or achievement in blocks or in isolation when we look at growth and we'll talk more about that as we go into the year his growth really is for even if a child did not attain that level that we want them

069to meet we want to look at their overall growth those are those are big leaps and bounds for our kids so this that is definitely a focus for us this year um our social studies and science curriculum committee is uh to be formed for evaluation of resources um our k-5 social studies curriculum real re what right is in effect in i know that ms barbosa shared with several other staff members last meeting about our lego initiative our summer camp and we were that was unbelievable what they presented but that now that pilot that we did in the summer as a summer camp will be infused into the classrooms along with those individual teachers to really pilot how it will look um to incorporate that throughout the course of the year and ultimately grow that um

070we have a steam program in the middle and high school and our ultimate goal is to have that foundational network at the elementary level at our six to twelve level um we've really have been focusing heavily on program and curriculum updates um as well as the rewriting of the curriculum uh a major focus will be the addressing of the eight to ninth grade transition to really give our students that come to the high school a positive successful attainable experience there has to be that bridge and i know that the high school and middle school have started that process last year but this year it will go even heavier into that where we're looking at curriculum how that curriculum can cross over and even how staff can observe each other uh in the sense of what

071to expect as you move up or what to expect from our lower levels we have spent a lot of time and and funding towards link it link linkit as you know is our data warehousing we just had our administrative retreat and we were able to have representatives from lincoln really start to show us even more intricate ways of how we can utilize this software and how we will be able to relay that to our staff i think it's been extremely valuable over the course of last year even during the midst of one of the world's worst scenarios um we were able to our staff really started to dive into that um our elementary had been using it for set for for several years really focusing on that but our middle and our high school really

072jumped on board last year and this year we really are going to be even focusing more on that data i know data sometimes can be a very dirty word in education but it is very important to see where our kids are how that can inform our curriculum and how it informs instructional practices so um that's something that i really um i really want to thank the staff i want to really want to thank the administrators for really diving into that uh our school safety security needs assessment that was made available to families and caregivers on july 21st it closed on august 4th i know that there is a presentation of um to the board which we'll have further conversation with about the um the outcomes of that but um you know we the the overall

073piece of that was we had out of all of our families over 1084 families in the district a third of the population of our families took that uh survey which was which yielded very interesting results and so um that was actually actually terrific to have a third of the population especially during the summer time and i know um president or you had shared that um about the referendum and um very excited about that uh we are you know the administrative recommendation is has a clear understanding of the significant overcrowding in south end and the lack of space at north end and we feel that this plan really does rectify these issues while also allowing for the flexibility for additional programming to be implemented in our elementary schools as well as the middle school it also

074allows for site work to be administered for facility improvements to extend the life of the buildings and i have to share that during my uh research from mr gogerty uh i actually came upon something it was it was a november 24th 1998 piece on the agenda and it was alternatives for increased classroom space at the elementary level so this has been something that's been going on for quite some time and and um actually uh it did look at you know what we were what we were um sharing the plan we've been talking about it together as a um as a unit so uh it's it's very interesting uh also the other piece is is that um this week there will be a letter going out to the families about um our lunch applications and our

075lunch programming uh something that's a little bit different this year than last year was that last year uh our um we were part of a program where all children were able to get uh a free lunch uh that was not happening this year that is sunset uh but as i said last year and i will say it again at our september meeting that it is we are going to heavily push our families to really fill out those free and reduced lunch applications because it does help our families it helps us as a district to ascertain the needs that we can provide for our students but that will all be coming out and i'm also very excited to share because i've shared this multiple times but we will have a new look for our website uh

076our website is not the most current uh not the most user-friendly but the next uh which will be coming out um shortly i do have to announce that uh mr angel perez who's in the back doing our technology he's been absolutely phenomenal we've been working on this for a year and we have gone through a lot of different versions of this and really trying to recognize what the community needs and what the uh staff needs and even what peop perspective community members would need to really understand who we are as a school district and what we offer so i'm very excited to unveil that um in a very short while to the families and um okay so we uh last week we had our administrative retreat that retreat was filled with uh different legal issues

077to keeping ourselves abreast of um the bit you know mr divita presented to the business office we had a lot of curriculum up curriculum updates um a lot of working together so it was a great time to uh really as our administrative staff to really start to come together set a tone for the new year um and i'm just sharing with with the personnel report we've hired over 33 new staff members this year so um i know we hear a lot about uh the shortages across the country and we certainly do feel that but we were very fortunate to have um you know quality qualified people come into our our school district and really looking forward to uh making them part of our family and our team i know if anybody's any questions yes well

078quite um do you have a projected date on when you're going to present to the public the standardized test scores because that's an annual requirement yes it is uh so what we did was we started that process at the end of last um at the end of last year we did the start strong around this time because those those those um results came back pretty quickly uh we are looking to do that in uh the september meeting with ap scores and so everything yes thank you anybody else have any questions okay all right so from the office of the business administrator and board secretary can i please have a motion for b1 to move second discussion roll call please mr marzullo yes mr pallek state mr schoener mrs miga yes mrs dora yes under minutes

079can i please have a motion for b2 through b6 so move oh sorry sorry go ahead second any discussion roll call please mr marzullo yes mr pallek mr schoener i'm abstaining from v2 b3 b4 b5 and yes to b6 mrs miga yes mrs dora yes under bills a motion for b7 please so move second discussion any discussion roll call please mr marzullo yes mr pallak stane mr schoener hi mrs miga yes mrs dora yes okay under business emotion for b8 through b21 second any discussion roll call please mr marzullo yes mr palak stan mr schoener hi mrs miga yes mrs dora yes you understand mr rita i don't have any background in him yeah not any resolution so i will stay abstain from every resolution to see from the office of the superintendent of schools

080and personnel a motion please for s1 this is a long one s1 should i break it up do you think no s1 through s53 second discussion uh yes sorry i'm stealing the mic i would just like to wish all the best to um to our staff members obviously through the whole school year but i would like to um wish mrs dyer all the best and everybody that is involved with the transaction that is happening there i'm sure we can make mrs dyer very proud with the students the parents the staff the board the administration right we got it mrs dyer we got you all right thank you and i just want to add to that that i have the utmost confidence in the um staff members that are being asked to fulfill a role that

081maybe they weren't prepared for um a you know a week ago so for miss english who will be moving down an acting principal at north end and mr valenzano who will be acting vice principal at the middle school um i just want to assure the the community and the staff that we have the utmost confidence in them and that our students will not miss a beat and we have you mrs dyer uh mr veda if if i may on s39 [Applause] i think if the materials we got say that it's the 22nd to the 28th okay i'll just that thank you did that for me okay yeah okay um roll call please mr marzullo yes mr palak steve mr schoener mrs miga yes mrs dora yes okay so we are on page yep yep page

08215. under policy can have a motion for s 54 second uh discussion roll call please mr marzullo yes mr palak steve mr schoener hi this is miga yes mrs dora yes under curriculum can i have a motion for s 55 through s 58 please second discussion roll call please mr marzullo yes mr pallek stane mr schoener mrs miga yes mrs dora yes and finally under contracts can have a motion for s58 please shall move second discussion roll call please mr marzullo yes mr pallek mr schoener mrs mika yes mrs dora yes yeah yeah okay so at this point the meeting is open to the public for comment on items on or off the agenda the board of education recognizes the value of the public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of

083the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest public participation shall be governed by the following rules please preface comments by stating your name address municipality of residence and group affiliation if applicable please be mindful of your statement length and keep each statement to the three-minute limit participants may not speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard please direct all statements questions or inquiries to the presiding officer and any questions or inquiries directed by a participant to another board member shall be redirected to the presiding officer who shall determine if such statement question or inquiry shall be addressed by the presiding officer on behalf of the board or by the individual board member the presiding officer may interrupt warn and

084or terminate a participant's statement question or inquiry if it is too lengthy is to abuse is abusive obscene or maybe defamatory these rules may be waived if necessary to protect privacy or to maintain an orderly operation of the board now with that said we will start with mr steve young stephen young 18 young avenue cedar grove i just have a question if where the high school students are going to do the 9 11 memorial this year um mr schoener you wanna i have no idea at this point right now my concentration is on my family i have three sons they're going off to college and i was even a little late tonight because of the meeting i will evaluate it as i get closer to getting my sons ready okay so right now it's up

085in the air right now it's up in here because i know all the news media follows this and a lot of people i do work in other towns and a lot of people follow this and it's something for sea to grove to be proud of that we recognized all those lies that were lost that day i i appreciate that and it's been a passion of mine i will tell you that last year um the help was not sufficient mrs miga helped some people donated but last year i four needed three hundred dollars to make it work i only raised two thousand four hundred and i had to put two thousand of my own money in there were significant people in the community that did not support it so i'm evaluating it as we do it

086all right thank you appreciate it and uh to mrs vegas i'm on the cedar grove board uh historical society and our pumpkin apple sale is uh saturday october 1st sunday october 2nd uh saturday october 8th and sunday october 9th thank you okay all right that's all i have thank you thanks thank you thank you mr young next we have mr leo stringer good evening leo stringer for hybrid terrace cedar grove uh yeah i just want to address a couple of um i mentioned this last year also kind of a petty thing and it uh but it adds up these student lunches student lunches last year we we all know we had so-called free lunches free lunch it did not go over well because i'm saying a majority of the kids did not want the free

087lunch they end up paying for other things that are not under free lunch because it was very specific what was free so we spent end up paying hundreds of dollars for lunches for the high school also the service fees so their service fees are for every transaction you have to you have to refund the account it adds up for us it was like over 30 just for the super fee the pay schools confirmed for me that that is a school decision many schools absorb that fee cedar grove has chosen to pass it on to parents i don't know not sure how many people realize that that it's not necessary to have that fee with all the funding we've received for covert the reason that we had to pay school system that money came from coburn

088that was not as my understanding that did not cost the school or die also the chromebooks the fee for the chromebooks the 26 dollars that was great when we started because cedar grove as everyone knows started the chromebooks before covert right before covert so it worked out it was really good timing but since then we've gotten much i'm not sure how much money exactly but it's a lot of a lot of technology funding for covert that we've used for technology that could have been there's no reason he's charging parents that fee also and as well we had until september 15 to pay the chromebook fee this year last year was in november this year they locked us out of our schedules so the option to send a check in to pay for their fee was

089not an option because we were locked out of our schedule last week so we had to pay the it's minimal it's it's a um it's a pet peeve i guess but it's the other one dollar fees are so these um we should look into pay schools is making a fortune on pseudogrowth guys charging these stupid these fees that um we could be we could be avoiding it's a it's a school decision okay thank you thank you all right mrs montana hi patricia montana five emory court i was hoping that mr grosso could share with us an update on whether the school district intends to reinstate the library media centers and hire staff or rehire staff for that purpose and related there was a parent i believe who spoke a few meetings ago on this issue

090and asked a question about compliance are we in compliance on on that on that issue in other words are there any compliance issues with the state for not having a library and media center so um i appreciate your question um the goal when that decision was originally made was during a time where we had to weigh out a very difficult decision and that decision was um our media center services or um the mental health of our students coming off of of one like we said before one of the worst times that we've all experienced so when we had these conversations uh initially we looked at it in the sense of this wasn't something that we were going to make permanent um we really look at it as a temporary um a temporary decision our goal

091as a district is we've seen the value of media centers um i've been a principal of a elementary middle and high school and media has changed over the course of of the last five years to 25 years so our goal is as we look at the new budget year and our conversations with our administrators and our staff is how can we implement that and a lot of the conversations that i've had with families who are very concerned about this as well is that it what that will look like in the future may not look like what it was uh prior to covid but i do see the value of that i do appreciate the value of it um and i've always been a proponent of that i've sat on library boards um for that reason

092uh so ultimately when we look at this uh especially um at our elementary levels where i've gotten probably the most um feedback about this is that our goal is as we look into this new school year and we look at our um our budget that is definitely something that we are placing on our priority list so when we talked when i talked with our um and i'll spend most of the time talking about it at the elementary level is that there are ways of actually um being able to circulate those books um and we can state the help of parent volunteers actually when i was a principal in bergen county i didn't have a library i didn't have a library i didn't have a media specialist or a librarian so therefore i had to enlist

093the help of my i had a pta at that time so i enlisted the help of them and they helped they volunteer their time to circulate books that's one way of looking at it i know that you know here in cedar grove memorial middle school hasn't had a media specialist here for years based on a budgetary issue and i know that other districts have had these issues too and unfortunately when it does come time to move the budget forward these are the positions that either they become permanent or temporary in my mind i want that to be temporary i do want to get that back in motion so right now i do not believe they're in violation i know that the library association does put out information stating those pieces but we are able to

094fulfill the need of circulating books as well as when we look at our media specialists along with like computer technology a lot of that has changed and it's been taken on by our classroom teachers because of how we utilize google and our research materials um even in our library here in this high school that has changed we have decreased our our actual tangible books and there are other online formats to go and rent those books i will share this uh one of the things that we are looking heavily into is i sit on the library board with um here in cedar grove and catherine wolverton i do want to really express a wonderful partnership that we have with her is that there are um we're looking at providing a lot of online text through an

095interlone library i know buckles used to be you know there still is but there are other resources to get books into children's hands and um although it may not be tangible um but it's actually uh available through our our chromebooks so um that's a long way to answer to your question but i did want to share with you that this is something that is a priority for me it's a priority for our administration and that we look to find a solution to put a media specialist back into that arena it may not look like i said the way it used to look but we can look at how we can bring it into the 21st century uh okay i'm i'm sorry you as is typical with your responses you provide a lot of information in

096a very long-winded way and it's very hard to have a clear picture of of of what it of what you intend to do which is the larger the library so if you could just if you just answer directly whether we should expect to see a media specialist or a restoration of a library or media room in the elementary school level this year 2022 to 2023 the goal here is is that it will take assistance and so what i'm sharing publicly is and our elementary principles and i have had this conversation is that our goal is to have a circulation with with parent or caregiver volunteers we can make that happen i cannot share with you if that is a possible um completion based on where our budgetary needs will be when we're preparing the budget

097but that i can share with you that it is a top priority of ours as we go into the 23-24 school year okay uh and i have a another question for the superintendent at the same time that we eliminated the library immediate media specialists we created a zen den at the high school and i know anecdotally and speaking with hundreds if not thousands of residents in this community and working on the recall and and campaign efforts the community is curious about that uh space at the high school how it's being used the costs associated with it so i would be interested to hear the data that comes out of its use this year and some evidence that it is supportive of academic growth so i i can definitely answer that question for you right now

098actually um the zenden does not cost it is not uh a costly factor for this high school or the district it is a safe space in the in this particular building that allows our counselors and our students to decompress um one of the things that we have found over the course of the pet these past several years is that our students uh have higher levels of anxiety they've had higher levels of mental health needs and therefore the purpose of creating that room is not used as an instructional space but used as a social emotional space where it can be a private area where a student and a counselor can work together or students or groups rather can work together it doesn't look like a classroom it should look like a living room where it's more

099comfortable where it's more peaceful where it's not so sterile and structured that is very important especially when you speak to professionals in the field of mental health that is a priority of uh your environment and your surroundings are a priority especially when you're working through various issues um so again um you know when we look at our data over the course of the past several years um one of the things that we brought in was montclair state university's um counseling center uh we call it our seeds program and they help to provide us with the data and the reflection of how many people have utilized i mean students have utilized the services along with our own counseling services and actually uh the increase in that as we look at from the very beginning of the

100utilization of that program including the zen den which is just a space are the counselors using the zen den absolutely it's it's a space for that um in fact we've had such an increase that um we've had parents wanting to uh use that over the course of the summer that's not something that's available to them over the summer um along with that with the um montclair state councils and our counselors but i would say if if anybody has any questions about that please reach out to me let me know and in your in your travels when you speak to people please encourage him to have that conversation with me because i would be more than happy to uh relay that in fact i would be more than happy to have some recounsing staff uh share

101the importance of a space like that again it's not costly it's not academic if that facility is being supervised yes by professional staff there's an extensive cost factor to it and how in what way if there is a period during the day in which a staff member who's under contract is assigned to supervise those students is that part of their duty yes so if that yeah there's a cost factor to that to that program no but it's not a program the zen then is not a program the zen den is a room that is dedicated for counseling services it'd be the same way that if you had a counselor's office right uh so it looks very different than a an office it's it's it's and i encourage anybody who would want to see it you're

102more than welcome to it has um the atmosphere is more peaceful there is um furniture that is less sterile than a desk in a chair but the people that are utilizing that space as a decompression space it could be the child study team it could be our counseling services it could be the montclair state seeds program that we utilize so all those people this the room is a vehicle to help provide the service it's a place where you can be private and confidential rather than being out in the open so it's no different than a counseling office it is the only difference is is its environment is more welcoming and actually um more advantageous to actually utilize and get to the needs of our students for our next meeting can we get a report and

103the data for just one second uh mr powell sort of the the culture of public comment here would would ask that you would hold your comments still after the public comments certainly thank you and and i would just i guess close by saying mr grosso the the usage of the zen den seems to have morphed over the year because the presentation that mr bayer gave to incoming ninth graders last year did not present the zenden as a resource room for montclair state councillors and such so it might be a moment where the superintendent and the building principal want to give some clarity to the community as to its usage well the at the time when he presented that montclair state was not part of our programming so it has evolved in that manner um so

104therefore we have now uh new resources to utilize that space so it was yeah and parents wouldn't know that otherwise right absolutely i can definitely share that with mr bayer but ultimately like i said that is a space like any other it's a room it's not a program it is a room to be utilized to help aid the mental health needs of our students thank you and last on our list and i apologize but i think it's mr will renbelt right it's okay i apologize actually i'm gonna just follow up on the comment that was just made and um so i'd like to address this to uh can you just state your name oh i'm sorry i'm 26 glen rock road cedar grove new jersey william reinhardt so i guess i just want to point

105out one thing i guess inquire a bit right so just the context of my background right i'm i'm an engineer specifically systems engineer so i'm very much focused on how we actually evaluate the if you could say the effectivity particular we'll say process that's implemented right so i just want to inquire how we're exactly evaluating the effectivity of this zenda now i believe it was mentioned that usage but i don't necessarily believe and please correct me if i wrong that the increased correlation that is associated with increased use necessitates in any given way that there is any benefit actually tangibly being gained with respect to the student's overall mental health right we could have other actual facets that are contributing to those increased numbers so i'd just be curious to know what your thoughts are

106regarding how we're evaluating that effectivity sure um i think overall when we look at the history of that room it was it was many years ago was actually um our sac counseling room um it's actually right across the hall over here and it was utilized for the same purposes that is utilized now the only difference it with that now is is that the environment again like i shared before previously is that it is a more welcoming space that is less sterile it does provide a alternative space rather than a small office which very often our counseling or our cst may get a very smaller space it's a larger space to hold group sessions with students rather than one individually so the recommendation off of a zen den was taken from research with other practitioners in

107the field of how they design their spaces when they're working with their patients right um so in essence our counseling staff or montclair state or our child study team um we utilize that information to help making a more welcoming space for our students now i know we have been discussing what are the benefits or are there data points to utilize that room i think the data points as we go through this year and compare it to last year is um the frequency of our students using spaces like that it can be used very often um we can have students who are needing a place to just decompress maybe they've gone to conflict with their their peers or maybe they got into conflict with their families or there's another relationship they're having where they're trying to

108work through that a space like that is very often used to settle that student into a place where they feel much more comfortable where they can decompress and they can start to talk out their emotions so ultimately that space is not necessarily data driven but an alternative to how we have traditionally done that in schools and the progression of how schools are doing that um i'll give you a great example of this and and we're a lot of these you know we in education we really don't reinvent the wheel you know we really look towards um other successful programs uh livingston public schools actually has a um a um i can't remember the name of right now but it's an off-site um area where uh students are um provide education kind of like a like

109an annex to it to their high school and they have a counseling room and in that room they have a couch they have a carpet they have um like a fountain they have uh music and the counselor and the student are able to provide that uh provide that service to you know the counselor is able to provide that service to that student in an area where they feel very calm and comfortable that is exactly the um purpose of what we're trying to create there an area that is calm that is purposeful and that allows for a real work to be done with the student ultimately our goal is we would love for students not to use that space and and convert into something else it's a very small space we wish we didn't have students

110with mental health needs and we wish we didn't have um students with that need to be go through the decompression throughout the course of the day um but it's real and we do and um that's a space that we've chosen to to utilize uh as an additional space for our students got it so that does well for one i suppose i'm not nearly as concerned considering i do recall that space if i would call correctly it's the one right over there it's right it's a relatively small space so it's not like you're losing that any significant capital with regards to right uh as you guys i believe had mentioned issues with space within the school district so it's certainly to me far less of a concern there i will echo though that i i remain

111a bit i think it would be it would be a value to look into if there is some data that we can leverage to show that we really are maximizing that one other point i will i will ask on this because i i think there's a very poignant phrase out there right you can give a man a fish or you can teach them how to fish and i think that lends itself very much to mental health now of course i i'm not by any means someone from this space but i've done a bit of reading and so my question would be what is being done by the cedar grove educational community to help facilitate the students not only having a temporary relief right because that zen room they can't carry out the door when they

112graduate but what they can take with them are skills that are data driven that show you based on cognitive science based on studies on stress what kind of skills what types of perceptions they can have on the stressors that impact them in such a way that they can better manage them so i'd like to ask what are we doing to teach the students these valuable skills because they're certainly not something i walked out those doors 10 years ago with now that was certainly nothing in the curriculum but with the advent of this being a critical point of discussion today especially in the wake of the pandemic with the burden of social media and the degradation of certain social infrastructure and the loss of social capital within many of our communities what we're doing to help

113our students remain resilient when they walk out the door i have to share with you i couldn't agree more with you and with your question and i think that is something that has um it's plagued our education system for quite some time i think you know to give you a an answer i would be more than happy to arrange a time if we could discuss as in depth but our goal is to prepare our students to have coping skills as they go out into the real world i work very closely with a lot of the deans and um a lot of the professors of colleges and one of the things that i've always said to them when i've had a conversation about developing programming was like what do you need from us and their answer

114to us always is um our students this our students that come to our colleges they're not prepared um socially and emotionally the academic pieces we can work through that but it's the it's the social emotional pieces of how can we they learn how those those coping skills and we as adults don't even have those coping skills right so i mean it's hard to say for our students you know you spend four years with us in this high school or you spend 13 years with us in a public school and um you're set to go it's not true because our lives will change right i mean our relationships will change and the world around us has rapidly changed so what we're facing right now as adults we didn't face that five years ago and our children

115certainly didn't face that five years ago so i think you know the way of of opening those doors for our students is giving them opportunity to express themselves right uh giving them an opportunity to speak with individuals that are professionals in the field because we as educators we go through our education but we're not counselors right um if you're an elementary school teacher you're everything right you're everything to those students every day but as you move up the ranks even to high school students will feel really really comfortable talking and making a connection with it with a teacher and that's a wonderful thing and that impacts them for the rest of their lives but for some students they'll go through all these years of schooling and they'll never make that connection we don't know what

116their home life is we don't know what their financial situations are we don't know um we don't know if they're even going to have a meal from day to day but the reality of it all is is that with putting in programming like we have started to do with our counselors um with making awareness available for our other for their peers to be able to work and understand each other that's a start i'm not gonna lie to you that's not the answer to everything but it is it is a beginning because we are evolving human beings and our challenges are different every single day and i won't even say week to week or month to month it really is a day to day piece so putting pieces like we've already put in place and that

117we will continue to build off of that based on our needs for our kids hearing those needs from our kids then we can involve that process so i'm reassured to hear that we are interested in providing coping skills i will mr reinhardt i'd like to add too that a big part of our curriculum is um what we call sel social emotional learning it has you bring a valid point that a lot of in the past a lot of our students do not leave school having been exposed to different coping skills and way to handle different situations and it's not just here in cedar grove this is across the united states it's across everywhere sel has been become a intricate part of our day-to-day uh instruction so to answer your question we are we do value

118that the importance of that and it is incorporated in all of our teaching we provide professional development for all of our staff on how to provide that type of training and instruction because it's very different in every classroom at every different age so you bring a valid point and i assure you that we are it is equally as important to us and being addressed uh daily in many different uh aspects that's wonderful to hear is there anything online on the website that points to what this sel curriculum looks like or what is being done to facilitate the development of these lifelong i'll say stress mitigation techniques essentially yes actually if you go on to our current website right now and you click onto the mental health page it will outline all of that for you

119and the services that we do provide to our students okay i'll check that out then thank you all very much for your time i appreciate it okay that concludes that portion of the meeting announcement of future meetings i do want to add that there will be a special meeting a week from tonight on august 30th at 7 30 and then the following meetings are as originally scheduled september 20th and october 18th there will be a posting so please keep an eye out for that thank you very much meeting is adjourned have a great night everyone