Cedar Grove Board of Education Meeting 09-28-21

001i call this meeting to order will everybody please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] the new jersey open public's 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 are transmitted to the verona cedar grove times and star ledger newspapers

002tap into online news filed with the township clerk and posted on the district's website oh sorry roll call please mrs detera here this is miguel here mr pandoria president mr schoener mrs dye here the meeting is open to the public for comments on items on the agenda nobody signed up for that portion so i'm going to close that part of the meeting good evening everyone how's everybody doing this evening good hello all right before we start our general committee reports we actually have aaron burke who is with all school counsel who will be coming to our meetings and giving us updates so good evening erin if you'd like to start hello everyone this is as this is our first board of ed meeting of the new school year i'd like to introduce myself i'm the

003new all school council president aaron burke and we have as this is our first normal year in a few years now um we have a lot of events in the works um not only for the high school but for the town as well so so far we've had our first spirit week at the high school and our first pep rally it was a great success and everyone had lots of fun we had the club fair where the multicultural club was started along with the bocce club and all school council has attended all the class meetings and gained many class members from many members from all the classes some upcoming events include the we have a cross-country meet tomorrow at branch brook park girls and boys soccer play tomorrow at payne tech and newark tech there's

004a football game on friday against north warren regional there's an all school council car wash this saturday we have the town under the stars next wednesday at morgan's farm along with homecoming which is our first home coming here in a long time on the 28th at seven o'clock at the high school um we also have a trick-or-treat this halloween one to three at the high school for the whole town to attend and um we have a college fair coming up as well for all the students of the high school to come and look at all the colleges and there will be representatives there as well and we have a possible 5k in the works for the town and for the school ran by all school council so that's all the updates i have so far

005but i'm looking forward to this year and looking forward to lots of events to share with you all thank you [Applause] thank you erin we appreciate it all right uh committee reports from our board of ed members miss amiga i know you have a long one so mr chair do you want to go before miss me let me go first so i've been told i've been busy we've had a lot of meetings the first meeting i went to was the recreation board meeting and the good news is let's see [Music] um all of our fall wreck programs are being run and they're going wonderfully the turf field is being completed or being worked on um i know they were turfing it on the 12th so that's good to see that coming along [Music] the pool

006did very well this year there will be another pickleball tournament since the last one was such a huge success they are planning a new one and that will be scheduled and announced shortly and on thursday october 21st it is our seventh annual real panthers wear pink that's the wonderful evening that they do the fundraiser for breast cancer awareness and all proceeds will go to minnett's angels so seventh seventh year it's a great it's at panther park starts from 6 to 8 pm if anybody hasn't been there it's just a fabulous fabulous evening definitely go it's a great time for the kids so october 21st mark your calendars i also went to the north end fsa meeting and the big news there i'm just i'm sure we're going to talk about it a lot tonight is

007the naming of a blue ribbon school so we just want to congratulate them that is such a huge honor so that was so proud just so proud of all the work that our teachers and staff and ms dyer have done there it's just amazing um so some of the things that they're doing and announcing october 2nd for everybody who's watching who has a child that's coming into pre-k october 2nd is their first pre-k saturday from 10 a.m to 11 a.m so it's they have i think it's the first saturday of every month so all the kids that are going to be going into kindergarten can meet with their some of the teachers will be there miss dyer will be there sometimes they get to see what the school's like and they're going to get to

008meet some of their classmates i don't know this for sure but i think south end is having their pre-k day on october 2nd as well um they're having their trick or trunk it's back the date is scheduled for october 30th with a rain date of the 31st from 1 to 3 p.m so we're extremely extremely happy to see that back let's see what else um i think that's it for north end and last night i went to the middle school fsa meeting and one of the big things that we talked about was and this was really nice work between all of the fsas since south end was scheduled to have their big fundraiser last year and couldn't have it the whole schedule has been pushed back so the south end big fundraiser is scheduled for

009this year so they don't miss it uh mms is going to be the year 2223 and north end's going to be 23 24. um mr de court explained to us all about the testing that's going on he gave a really good explanation about linkit strong testing all that good stuff so it was really informational all of our clubs are back emails are going to be going out we're thrilled about that um and we're gonna have some cultural arts presentations that's back and i think let's see book fair the book fair is happening and it's scheduled on up for october 14th through the 18th and the one thing that they requested for fifth grade sixth grade and seventh grade they are still looking for class parents um so they really need some help it's not a

010huge commitment so if anybody has some extra time it's really like for back to school night and the last day of school if you want to attend go ahead and put your name in i think it's tiffany willis is the contact and that's it thank you mrs miga i believe you had an update as well this is mega has an update tonight hello everyone welcome back i first would like to welcome one back to our schools and hopefully with a year of a little bit more normalcies we all know the students parents teachers and staff have been challenged over these past 18 months or so let us hope covet does not bring more challenges this year and we can focus on what needs to be done for the student's sake as we know the beginning

011of the school year had an added twist of excitement hurricane ida she made a visit to cedar grove and i hope everyone here managed okay but i would like to give a big shout out to john bannon and his crew to say thank you [Applause] you're just gonna prolong this speech they worked tirelessly so we could open the building on time during another challenging time i want you to know you are all very much appreciated for everything you do in the district i would also like to thank david schoener cedar grove waves for another year of the flag display and the ceremony to always remember the victims and their families i also went to the cedar grove junior football league they had a game in the honor of the 20th anniversary of 9 11. they

012did a fantastic job remembering 911 and all that have perished now i have to take a little breath breath there was a state trooper flyover in honor of new jersey state trooper i can do it i can do it considerable resident he'll fear one sorry sorry sorry he was a very good friend okay that's not supposed to happen okay they also honored nikki nikki storm who sadly lost his battle with cancer the final ceremony i attended was the high school football game where the cedar grove high school touchdown club had a beautiful ceremony with police from many organizations including a strong presence from the port authority police the ceremony is beautifully done and i commend all involved in making this to honor the victims and their families these events were all different but with a

013common theme we will never forget now for those of you that are interested i did see that you could still purchase signs for nikki at twenty dollars at cedar beans with the south end fsa the signs look beautiful throughout cedar grove and it's great to see our community come together for the continued support of the family also south nfsa is having students and staff wear gold for childhood cancer awareness month that will be this thursday september 30th so if you have some gold on thursday and you could wear it it will show some good support yeah i'm still going as you know our community has lost several crossing guards in the past year due to their passing i just want to say thank you to all the crossing guards and all that they do for

014our students they go to work every day with a smile on their face in all sorts of elements of weather and i don't think we thank them enough you know but they're there every day these men and women so i just want them also to know that they are appreciated and a big shout out to mr david koster who was a cedar grove high school teacher he was in the montclair magazine he won teacher or county teacher of the year last year and he has a nice little interview in the back to school edition of montclair magazine of course a shout out to north end school administration teachers students parents congratulations on becoming a blue ribbon school it's a very nice honor in putting cedar grove schools on the map now i did attend the

015apt meeting september 13th and it seems like there's quite some energy up here at the high school for starters the apt was able to provide a coffee truck called the java bar and they came to welcome back all the uh all the staff have a cup of coffee on them which is very nice they are also going to be painting the planters and some paw prints in the front of the school to spruce it up a bit they did ask that you please remember to join and support the apt with your dues of twenty dollars per family this past friday they had a pep rally up here like ms burke said so i wanted to give a big shout out to mr gogerty ms mccarthy and our cheerleaders for putting on a great event and

016miss jensen and the choir for providing them the music then i have a bunch of dates i don't know that i need to rattle them all off but if if you're high school parents you really need to watch your emails especially senior parents there's a lot going on it hits you fast and furious um a big one is the college admission reps coming to the high school october 1st if your kids didn't tell you about it they should start signing up for the reps to come into the building it's so much easier on the the homecoming football game the homecoming dance or fantastic guidance department will have this college fair here which is nice when my kids were around we had to go to west essex for it um what else do i have oh

017can i do one more shout out of course you can michelle a shout out to the alumni i don't know if you guys know this but since i'm alumni here there was a very big reunion this weekend i don't know if anyone knows this but they had classes all the way back to the beginning of when the school opened and all the way through and i was told it was a great event and very well attended so it's nice to see our people still come back you know support us and whatnot and one last thing as you all probably who know me know i'm a big advocate for the cedar grove high school black and gold club please remember to join if you have a student athlete at cedar grove high school the membership per

018family not per student is 40 dollars and they also need help with your time and donations in any way you can and i will shut up now wait i have one question just the senior parents october 1st is that to sign up for when the college reps or the college reps coming on october so what happens is the college reps come into the building but your the students have to sign up like if so if they want to see montclair state and montclair state's coming in i don't know october 18th they still have to go on to naviance and sign up they got to get a pass to get out of class to go visit the rep okay and go on from there and that's separate from the college first is the first day that's

019the first day okay and it'll keep going thank you awesome information welcome i'm done now are you sure does anybody have any other updates all right uh the only update i have is i attended the high school open house last week and uh even though it was a torrential downpour um it was a a lot of people in attendance which was great and mr bayer did a good job as well as the two guidance counselors mrs missloda and miss testa so they did a great job and it was uh it was well attended it was nice to be back in the building and going to the different classes and the the teachers were all great so i shout out to everybody at the high school and thursday is the middle school right isn't this what

020would you say this thursday is the middle school yes yes um one thing one thing i forgot to mention before is that there's a there was a technical difficulty with the original link to the board meeting this evening and so it's been updated on our board website so if you're going back and looking at it or if somebody's contacting you just tell them to look again and it's been updated so i apologize for that um before we move on um mr grosso did you want to uh a moment of silence we just want to take a moment of silence i know ms mika talked about one of our students nikki storm who lost his battle with cancer but i think it's only appropriate that we honor his life as a member of our community and

021as a member of our school community by taking a moment of silence thank you uh our our prayers are continue with the storm's family so thank you this evening we have a few board presentations uh are we going in order mr grosso and we're gonna go out of order okay well then i'm gonna let you take it from here okay so the first uh the first presentation or the rest recognition actually is of one of our students louis akala so would you want you would make this coming up here so everybody can and you're gonna love to come up here in front of everybody yeah you can come up in front of everybody um i just wanna yeah this is fine that's that's right there's fine yeah i just want to i want to recognize

022louis um and lewiston's love loving standing in front of everybody but louis akala has been named a national merit semi-finalist so let me tell you a little bit about what that means so the national merit scholarship corporation honors seniors who completed the psat the m and sqt in their junior year and were amongst the highest scorers in their state louis akala has been named a national merit semi-finalist in the 2022 national merit scholarship competition lewis's psat nmsqt scores have placed him in a group of semi-finalists which represents 16 000 of the highest scoring students nationwide yes lewis now has the opportunity to continue in the competition towards national merit finalist recognition louis i want to share with you and on behalf of the school district the board and the community as a whole we congratulate

023you on this honor and we look forward to you going all the way and being one of the finalists so keep up the great work and congratulations thank you [Applause] those those are the really beautiful moments so um i'd like to now call up uh and introduce one of our new members of our staff uh her name is miss bobby blondie she's our mental health coordinator and anti-bullying coordinator she's doing a little presentation on herself she is not new to the district but she'll talk to you a little bit about that uh right now she comes up to the microphone [Music] good evening everyone good evening my name is bobby blondie and i have to just tell you i'm so excited to be back in the district i was previously the student assistance counselor in

024the high school and i left for some family reasons but i'm so grateful to be back i know how wonderful the kids are here and the staff so it's an honor for me to be here um a little bit about myself and my experience i have an m.a in teaching and m.a in counseling along with having my i'm a licensed professional counselor i also have my student assistance counselor certification a guidance certification elementary ed certification and a special ed certification k-12 i was a special ed teacher for eight years prior to becoming a mental health counselor which i've been in mental health field for 13 years i've provided counseling in agencies and in private practice and i've worked with basically every age group and with families i'm extremely extremely grateful to mr grosso mrs dye

025and all the board members for understanding the importance of addressing mental health needs of children and you know really putting in place programs and and also creating my position not only have they um created my position but they put these programs throughout the whole district to assist students and how to identify and express their emotions as adults we sometimes struggle with doing that so for children we could certainly imagine how difficult it is for them to just talk about how they're feeling and what they're dealing with so what we're hoping to do with everything that we're putting in place is to help them to express themselves to manage stress to promote self-esteem to maintain positive relationships to make responsible decisions and to help with conflict resolution throughout the district i along with the appropriate support

026staff will be doing individual counseling and doing group counseling already i started a social skills group at the elementary level with one of the guidance counselors school counselors and we're going to soon start one at the high school level and and that's just beginning we really want to do more with groups and you know also with individual counseling mental health problems were already on the rise pre-pandemic among young people and over the past year it has increased children are feeling stressed and more disconnected unfortunately in the first three weeks of school i had to send out more than one child for suicidal ideation to the hospital and as we all know even one is too many and if they're young and this is already happening and you know it's hard for kids they're dealing with

027loss it doesn't even matter like someone has died it's just lost in other ways and again like i said the isolation that some kids have dealt with and just coming back to school they have to learn how to as adults too how we have to socially interact with one another so within implementing all these programs and moving forward with counseling and training programs for our staff we hope to create an environment where the children know that they are heard and are able to convey their feelings so that's what i'm doing that's why i'm here if anyone that needs to contact me with further questions please just reach out to my email address and i'll help you and meet with you if need be thank you [Applause] thank you our next presentation um this is a

028phenomenal honor and i know we sent out a press release um about our own very own north end being the national blue ribbon winning the national blue ribbon award this is a humongous deal in education in general but to understand the depth of what this truly means and what this is going to truly mean for our community here i'm going to share with you a little bit of the historical piece of when this started and some numbers to try to really put this into perspective so the national blue ribbon schools program it started in 1982 so that is when we were really looking at the formation of the department of education and that recognizes not only public but it recognizes private elementary middle and high schools and this is based on their overall academic excellence

029of their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups or their high performance in general so every year the united states department of education seeks out and celebrates american schools schools that demonstrate that all students can achieve to high levels schools were recognized by the u.s secretary of education miguel cordona as a national blue ribbon school for the 2021 school year based on their overall academic excellence north end elementary school which is led by miss tracy dyer the principal was one of eight elementary schools in the state of new jersey now think about how many elementary schools there are in the state of new jersey and out of them eight were recognized and we are one of them under the leadership of ms dyer [Applause] there are 302 public schools nationally honored with this recognition

030and north end elementary school is one of those the national blue ribbon schools awarded tests the commit the committed work of students educators families in the community in creating safe and welcoming schools where students master challenging content the united states department of education will formally recognize the public schools and 23 private schools at an awards ceremony in washington dc on november 4th and 5th of this year at this present time i would like anybody in this audience to please stand if you are a staff member if you are the principal or if you are a parent or community member that went to north end or help support north end please stand [Applause] we thank you for what you do every day and this recognition is just a gratitude and the recognition from the united states

031department of education you know it's nice it's nice to feel that every now and then education so at this moment i'd like to call up your principal ms tracy dyer [Applause] thank you so much what an incredible honor i'm humbled to be here in front of you today and i i thank all of you every single person in this building that has any tie to north end should be up here receiving this accolade if you will because i truly believe it does take a village it was not tracy dyer that did this it was the hard work of every single person that has walked through the doors at north end in my opinion since the day i got here which is now are we ready for this those of you that have been here this

032is my 10th year in cedar grove and i honestly couldn't be more proud thank you and so just to go on a little further about this so i want to just mention to you that as mr grosso explained that this is based on achievement data and as you all know we haven't had true state achievement data for the last two years so this is based on 1819 school year data and so normally what happens is that following year schools are that are nominated which we were nominated are then given the opportunity to apply and so last january we were nominated and were asked if we wanted to apply and i said of course we want to do your 23-page application in the middle of a pandemic of course we want to do that all kidding

033aside why wouldn't i want to do that to recognize all of the efforts like i said of every single community member and really what we had to do then was walk through and basically describe and explain how did you get those great test scores and so i think that you know it was a combined effort between as i said every staff member every teacher every paraprofessional everyone because it truly does take a village and so you have to walk through and answer questions as it relates to curriculum and instruction parent involvement community engagement school supports what are we doing for our special populations and our different demographic uh different different demographics within the school and all of these things have to be explained and discussed as we walk through this application process and it was

034very easy to do because we've done a lot of work at north end and south end over the last years as it relates to professional development and working on different areas throughout the um throughout that time so way back to we started our common core teacher academies as we unwrapped the common core we did work through daily five and good habits great readers we invested a lot of time energy effort and money again thanks to the board and their support through conquer math as we worked on instead or instituting best practices in relation to mathematics instruction the list goes on and on we've done lots of things and we've put lots of things in place to help all children so again i couldn't be more proud and again also i can't leave out the community

035we ought to talk about parent involvement and family engagement we have an incredible fsa that supports us more than you than we could ever express they do so many different things with us and for us financially and with doing lots of fun activities with our children and so it was really easy to walk through that application and to our horn because we've been doing lots of great things at north end again i'd like to thank all of the teachers all of the staff every single person every parent every parent that reads an email every day you've played a part into all of this so i thank you i thank the board for all of your continued support and everything this is quite an accolade and we're going to ride high on this for a little

036while so thank you so much i appreciate it [Applause] all right uh all right so let me give you a little bit of an update um so we had the opening of schools and uh it was quite a different opening than we had last year uh it was great to see i was had an opportunity to visit the schools multiple times for the first of the the week and uh the beautiful thing was was that the the staff was right on point they were enthusiastic they were welcoming and they were excited to have the students back uh and the students were really excited to be back um and they they've acclimated um very well to the to the i guess back to what was prior to to march of 2020 um you know one of

037the things i do want to echo what michelle you talked about was was uh i want to give a uh an accolade to to mr john bannon again um he was actually phenomenal through this entire process along with his team and that includes all the maintenance crew grounds crew all the custodians it was absolutely phenomenal what they did to get the school in order uh prior to the entrance of ida especially down at south end south end was we were very very nervous to be quite honest with you we were extremely nervous about opening school and we you know john myself mike we all missed devito we we actually looked at other locations to see where we were going to place children based on the damage that we thought was was being done to the

038building and in fact it was we were we were definitely saved and we were saved because of the determination of the hard work and dedication of our staff here in cedar grove um i will tell you mr bannon john was up all night that night he was calling me at 1 30 in the morning so he was out on the roads he was giving me the updates every hour on the hour so i have to tell you uh he deserves another round of applause and so do does our team here in cedar grove if it wasn't for these these people that we would have never never gotten to school where it was um you know i just want to echo some of the things that ms bellani had had shared when we talk about the

039acclimation back into school our students are very resilient and children often are but one of the things some of the things that we've noticed and that we have to continue to work on uh would be the stamp an issue of stamina for our students uh that is something that's very very different than what they've been used to for the past year of the past year they were used to being at home or or coming to school on off week so it's this it's building that stamina of coming back to school the way that they knew it to be and for some of our students they've never even been in that in that in this full position before i think it's also looking at organization uh the organizational skills of our students how do they organize

040themselves in the way of the daily business that they have to conduct being in the our buildings it's also those interpersonal skills those are things that we're finding that are challenging for our students how do students uh react to each other how do they associate with each other how do they have conversations with each other and it's also the piece of the conflict resolution and that's something that we definitely anticipated which was something that we talked about a lot last year in anticipation of our students whether they were at the elementary middle or high school level which is the creation of isbilani's position as well as having accounts on each of our buildings so those are some of the things that we've seen within the first three weeks of school that really have caught our

041attention uh we talk about learning loss and you know and and i i like to use the term learning pause because there wa there was learning going on during that time but we'll talk a little bit more about that you know you know as i move down the line of some updates um but uh these are our major these are our major pieces that we've noticed within like i said the first three weeks of school i'd also like to thank publicly governor richard cody uh governor cody um he gen he and this is something we will vote the board will vote on to accept tonight his generosity for supporting our paid program our panther academic dual enrollment program here at um cedar grove high school uh he made a donation of 1 500 to the

042to offset the cost of tuition at montclair state university for our students so we're very grateful to his uh interest in our program here in cedar grove and our continuing the dedication of our staff and students and moving them forward so i just want to thank governor cody for his partnership with us i also want to um i know miss mika also shared about cedar grove waves i'd like to thank mr david schoener who's not here tonight for his constant support and remembering those we lost on 9 11 20 years ago through cedar grove waves students and staff were involved in the process of placing those flags representing each individual life lost 20 years later that pain is still real and mr schoener's dedication helps to engage the students of cedar grove in a way

043that a textbook never could do so we thank mr schoener for that i also want to take some time and this year i'm going to be talking a lot about this during these updates is about lrp we talked about this last year when we when the board in the district commissioned a demographic study of really where would we be in the next several years uh student based and when we when we look at this um one of our solutions that we looked at was utilizing a building that maybe some of you in the audience had gone to uh for their early childhood experiences um it's currently occupied by the administrative offices of the district but the bottom level is has been in contract with a rental agreement uh with the essex commission that that rental

044agreement will be up at the end of this year and we mr dan dressler our architect did a presentation in june about the condition of that building and how we would be able to utilize that for um our fourth and fifth grade students utilizing it as an as a possible intermediate school so i did want to give you an update about where we were in that process because this is it's a very lengthy process and i will share that when we originally started talking about this we had some pie in the sky ideas and saying yeah it's no problem we're gonna get this done real quick well it's not so easy because there's other pieces of that puzzle that come to play into fruition but just to give you an overall picture of where we

045currently are in the district if i walk you through a seven-year historical context of enrollment for both north end and south end i will tell you that the south end had an increase but from the past seven years around 16 and a half percent uh increase in enrollment and those families that are actually at south end right now they're feeling that they're feeling it with the increase in classroom size as well as the altering of classrooms and services when we look at north end overall if we take the seven years as a whole there's actually a three percent decrease over the seven years but inside that seven years you have a five from the last five five um consecutive years you actually had an increase of six point four percent so although if you look

046at the overall there is a three three percent decrease the increase with inside that window is rapidly growing so what that means is is that our enrollment is growing and i will share that and i know for a fact because we've gotten a lot of um communication from realtors that since the announcement of north end being a blue ribbon school there's a lot of people that are going that are looking to move into cedar grove because they want that kind of experience for their children so this is something that we can definitely look at having young families with with school-based school-based children coming into our district which is great we want our district to grow but we also need the room to do that and currently right now we are um we are in in

047jeopardy of keeping those class sizes that we normally have always had and keeping the programming the way that we've always had and keeping that attention into smaller cohorts that we've always had so i did want to share with everybody where we are with that and i will consistently give you updates every um board meeting about the progress of where we are but that progress um we look at where lrp is currently located now lrp you know with its creation was at a very different time in a very different place uh families were in a very different position at that time we may have had a two-parent household where one parent was working that's not necessarily the case anymore you have both parents working it was a neighborhood school and traffic wasn't the way that it

048was on pompton avenue and parking wasn't the way that it was on you know on pompton avenue in fact within the past year or so the whole entire configuration has changed you know on pompton ave so we look at the entrance and egress patterns to that building and it's a beautiful building you know mr david and i go in that building every day it's a gorgeous building the facilities in fact it's the only i'd say primary school building that actually has a stage on it it's beautiful facilities rooms that are very large uh and yes for those of you who went through that blue tile is still there on the walls but you remember that but it's actually um it's in need of repair and we and i've said this before and i'll say it

049again when we look at providing students and experience and families and experience it should be as good or better than what you've already had so that's something that we're very dedicated towards but part of the biggest issue that we face right now is not necessarily the uh construction or the refurbishment of that building on those floors it's the actual entrance and egress patterns into that building so we looked at several options and we've had some collaboration and and talks with the township manager and as well as um the police department and there's two options you look at the option of vreeland and that would that would deal that's a very small street to begin with and that would deal with some major dot work um one of the options that we all felt as a

050township as a police department and as a board of education is the utilization of a access road into the panther park area so to accomplish that um there there are wetlands and that deals with the the the department of environmental protection so you can't just create a access road and call it a day there's a mr david and i learned a lot about what this all really truly means um but we're talking about anytime you have to displace land in a wetlands area you have to create the addition of land that is equal or or equal to what there was and there's also a flood line because there is a body of water that runs through there so there's a lot that goes into that but with that we have to survey that area and

051one of the things that we did at the last board meeting was we uh the board did go and um uh approve a surveying company and so they will be uh conducting their survey uh next week and that with that information we'll be able to have a better idea and then there's the application process to the dep so it's a long process um a lot longer than we thought it was going to be when we all sat down together together as a collaborative team but i want to just give you an update about that and uh where we are um you know some of the other things that we've talked about as a whole is we've talked about air conditioning which is something that has really brought it to the forefront after last year uh

052going through covid um air conditioning in you know in our other buildings that don't have that so that's something we've looked about and we also looked at you know things such as you know boiler replacements as well so we continue to assess and want to keep our facilities in the best shape that they possibly can but also offering experience for our children uh and our staff that is conducive to um the best experience that we could possibly give them based on their needs uh so there'll be more information of that as we move along i did want to talk a little bit about assessment i know that our our curriculum instruction department did send some some information at the very beginning of this school year but just to give you an update so we are

053in the midst of the assessment season and there's multiple um points across the uh the year actually online you will notice that there is a 2021-22 assessment calendar and that is under the calendar section on the website and that breaks down for you our nj sla start strong assessments and that's for our k-12 and that's a mandated assessment by the state of new jersey to really to really look at where are we as a district uh and and how do we fare from the covet experience we also have we've invested a lot of time uh and um funding into linkit which is our data warehousing uh service uh which is something we will continue to uh spend a lot of time with this year which is we're in the midst of of sharing benchmark a

054a form a for ela and for math and that's in our grades k through as well as dra which is a diagnostic developmental reading assessment uh and that is for grades k through five and that's something that the district has done for uh for quite some time as well as our renaissance learning star assessment and that assessment is for arcade 2. so you hear a lot about all of these assessments these assessments that's in sorry the renaissance learning star assessment is in literacy and math these assessments are extremely important for the simple fact that uh one assessment is not going to determine where a where a child is now there is a full there's a philosophy on assessment about do we need it do we not the reality of it all is is that we

055do need it and we need it in multiple measures and when i talk about that multiple measure we talk about dra link it even the start strong assessment we'll see how that where that brings us from the state of new jersey that will help us to gauge where our students are and then put into a rigorous support system a tiered response to intervention system tiered one two three uh for our students as we move across the year um and the one last thing i do want to share with everybody is uh one of the things that miss blondie is putting together as a family series and there'll be more of those coming up is on october 19th and there'll be information going out to families there will be a family form this will this means

056that families including their children would be able to come to a forum with a professional talking about dating abuse and social media use which is something that is extremely important especially as we get into the high school level and how to handle relationships appropriately and how to utilize social media appropriately and how that enters the lives and so i think it's a good opportunity to have a great conversation for those families who do want to include their children i think it's really important i ran a lot of those throughout my time as a principal and i found it to be most beneficial uh when your children can join you because there's a cons there's a there's a consistent conversation and consistent language that was built upon that and then you get to know a little

057bit about some of the sites that are used that are not really appropriate for anybody as well as the relationship and i talked a little bit about in the very beginning about how how our children are struggling with just those interpersonal skills and so when you get to a high school level uh even at a middle school level those those those um relationships and learning how to navigate through that are very difficult we as adults have difficulties navigating through relationships so why wouldn't our children have those difficulties so this is part of our um informative series um that will involve families students and staff as well so that's it thank you thank you just a couple of questions when you talk about lrp and you talk about the you know how that it needs some

058updating let's say [Music] can you talk about how you explored other options such as adding onto north end or building something behind north end and why continuing with lrp was a better option than than doing something different sure lrp is a stable building uh that we had that has been used before that is currently in our possession so it's something that um is a staple of the community and it's something that at a at a cost level um lrp in general excuse me uh is seems to be uh more economically sound more fiscally responsible uh when you look at adding on to any of our elementary buildings are elementary buildings that were built over 50 60 years ago they're not designed to build on top of so you can't build a second floor on top

059of that on top of north end or south end you basically what you'd have to do is you have to build around it and raise it up and in that process you would displace students um and that would that would cause another um period of time where i know we had the issues with asbestos building onto the back of north end which is really the piece of property that is most plentiful here um you're looking at building another brand new building that would cost more to build than to renovate lrp so we're trying to look at what do we currently have how can we currently reinvest in it and use it appropriately rather than spending more money on something that is new um when you already have a piece of property that we're currently in

060ownership of and using that does need to be up to standards with 80 making it ada compliance would with dan dressler had talked about our architect uh back in june um but we're really looking at seeing something that would be in the best interest of our students and our families in town got it and and obviously with utilizing um lrp we would stop renting the the lower portion obviously um so has there been any movement to your knowledge on uh further discussions as far as the the pilot money no i have not heard anything about pilot money at all um and actually our um like i shared in the very beginning the the lease on lrp is over this year it's the end of um that was like a 10-year lease right 10-year lease so

061that that revenue source is over for us got it um so no but i have not heard anything about pilot money okay mrs carello has your office gotten an update i know that we didn't attorneys were talking originally we do not have an update no okay all right thank you you're welcome appreciate it all righty then thank you yep i ask a separate question for the donation from governor cody that fifteen hundred dollars does that go to any like is that broken up amongst these i don't know how many students are in the paid program but does that go to one pro one student does it go across the board so so currently right now there are four students in the paid program and uh in january uh there is going to be a um

062i guess like a symposium for current uh seniors or other current juniors to be involved in the uh paid program for next year so our anticipation is that program will grow but that money will offset the cost of tuition collectively for all the students so if you've got four students or if you had 24 students it would be split equally across the board i got you okay thank you sure okay i'm gonna move on on the agenda thank you from the office of the business administrator and board secretary under minutes can i have a motion for b1 through b5 so moved second b1 is a motion to approve the public in executive minutes of august 17th and august 27 2021 b2 is a motion to approve the budgetary transfers for the month of august b3

063is a motion to approve the treasurer's report for the month of months of june and july b4 is a motion to approve the board secretary's report for the months of june and july and b5 is a motion to approve the board secretary certification to the city road board of education pursuant to the code that no line item account has encumbrances and expenditures which in total exceed the line item appropriation in violation of the code any discussion no roll call please mrs dichara yes mrs miga mr spandoria aye mrs dye yes under bills can i have a motion for b6 somo second b6 is a motion to pay the list of bills um for the amount listed um for the time period of august 18th to the september 28th 2021 any discussion no no no roll

064call please mrs de chara yes mrs miga yes mrs pandoria aye mrs dye yes under business can i have a motion for b7 through b25 somo second b7 is a motion to approve the following parent transportation contract for the 21-22 school year b8 is a motion to approve the following parent transportation contract for the 21-22 school year b9 is a motion to approve the subscription busing contract for the 21-22 school year b-10 is a motion to approve the following parent transportation contract for the 21-22 school year b-11 is a motion to approve the following parent transportation contract for the 21-22 school year b-12 is a motion to approve the subscription busing contract for the 21-22 school year b-13 is a motion to accept school supplies that were generously donated by regina tully from the verona

065junior women's club for the needy families of the cedar grove school district b14 is a motion to retroactively approve the location agreement with lion television and the cedar grove board of education b15 is a motion to retroactively approve the location agreement with park pictures and the cedar grove board of education b16 is a motion to approve the location agreement with planet pre-pro and pro ny richard schultz photography and the cedar grove board of education b17 is a motion to retroactively approve the location agreement with irving pictures llc and the cedar grove board of education b18 is a motion to approve the proposal from the living literacy network b 19 is a motion to retroactively approve a w restoration inc b 20 is a motion for approval of professional appointment b-21 is a motion to approve

066the special education tuition contract in the amount listed b-22 is a motion to approve a fee of 26 per year per child to parents for the use of 24-hour chromebook accessibility for students in grades k-12 b-23 is a motion to approve the sidebar agreement made on the 20th day of september 2021. b-24 is a motion to accept fifteen hundred dollars for the purpose of tuition allocation for the panther academic dual enrollment program that was generously donated by governor richard cody and b-25 is a motion to accept the stipulation of settlement between the board of education and the parent of the student number listed any discussion no no roll call please mrs dichara yes mrs amiga mr pandoria aye mr dai yes but i'm going to abstain from b24 from the office of the superintendent of

067schools under personnel can i have a motion for s1 through there's a lot of s's um [Music] oh my it really is a lot s52 so moved second all right s1 is a motion to approve the lea guidance for virtual or remote instruction plan attestation s2 is a motion to retroactively approve michael devita business administrator longevity pay s3 is a motion to retroactively approve denise gettis high school transition coordinator s4 is a motion to approve denise gaddis high school transition coordinator up for reimbursement of fees sorry s5 is a motion to retroactively approve denise goddess for morning and afternoon bus duty driver s6 is a motion to approve luann longo for morning and afternoon bus aid s7 is a motion to retroactively approve suzanne marzuka memorial middle school math teacher maternity leave replacement s8 is

068a motion to retroactively accept the resignation of rose remundo full time lunch lunch aid s9 is a motion to retroactively accept the resignation of romney retell high school head wrestling coach s10 is a motion to appoint the following staff in accordance with the state emergent hiring start date procedures s11 is a motion to rescind august 17 2021 motion s14 for shannon king at mms maternity leave teacher and retroactively approved shannon as mms full-time math teacher s12 is a motion to rescind resolution s14 from the august 17th agenda for rosemary des rosiers north end school nurse and approve employment at the at the rate listed s 13 is a motion to rescind resolution s 14 on august 17th agenda and approve gretchen bowie high school medical leave science teacher s14 is a motion to approve the

069resignation of olivia miller high school english teacher s15 is a motion to approve christine palomara high school english teacher replacing olivia miller s16 is a motion to retroactively approve tiffany caputo willis district sub nurse s 17 is a motion to retroactively approve the following staff building only s18 is a motion to approve camas sorry some rhine south end part-time lunch custodian s19 is a motion to approve gales for video to provide supplemental reading instruction s20 is a motion to retroactively approve alyssa lever and shannon shawna sorry perna for substitute teachers s21 is a motion to retroactively approve laura rubinich to provide morning and lunch supervision s 22 is a motion to approve katie danelli to prepare intervention program material s23 is a motion to retroactively approve the following high school math teachers to instruct an

070extra class s24 is a motion to retroactively approve the following middle school teachers to instruct an extra class s25 is a motion to retroactively approve the following middle school teachers to instruct an extra class s 26 is a motion to approve bob savino memorial middle school for morning duty s27 is a motion to amend the resolution from july 20th uh liz uh shane 8th grade leadership cycle extra class and approve at the at the rate for the sixth period pay x2 s sorry 28 is a motion to amend the resolution from july 20th and approve the mms team leaders at the rate listed s29 is a motion to retroactively approve an adjustment to the 2122 district calendar to reflect only one early dismissal day on september 8th for pre-k and kindergarten students s 30 is

071a motion to approve james stefanos site coordinator for the virtual high school at the rate listed s31 is a motion to rescind motion s20 on june 15th for annabelle jacom s32 was a motion to approve the following employees for lunch duty at the rate listed s 33 is a motion to rescind motion s 16 on august 17th and retroactively approved melissa ricca high school behavior list the rate listed s34 is a motion to approve change in the high school course name for ap studio art to ap art and design s35 is a motion to retroactively approve jody inglis to assist with the reopening of the high school from august 18th to the 31st um s 36 is a motion to approve joe to inglis high school vice principal reimbursement for the completion of the leaders

072to leader certification program s 37 is a motion to retroactively approve justin broner broner to provide supplemental instruction s-38 is a motion to approve the cedar grove high school's chemical hygiene plan naming john bannon as the district hygiene officer and lori robinson as the site chemical hygiene manager s 39 is a motion to rescind erica slota as the high school peer leadership stipend s 40 is a motion to approve the cedar grove public school district's district goals for the 21 22 school year goal number one being professional development goal number two being community goal number three character goal number four curriculum support slash student needs and goal number five curriculum s 41 is a motion to approve the following staff as home instructors s42 is a motion to approve danielle mclaughlin as a supplemental reading

073instructor for the rate listed s 43 is a motion to approve the following staff as after school pathways instructors s 44 is a motion to approve the following lunch aids at the rate listed s 45 is a motion to retroactively approve lauren ocker medical leave replacement for lauren mysteria s 46 is a motion to authorize attendance at the following events s47 is a motion to accept the september 28th um submission of the eeo-5 report s 48 is a motion to approve the following leaves of absence s 49 is a motion to approve the following school volunteers s 50 is a motion to approve the following students for classroom observation s51 is a motion to approve tuition reimbursement for the summer 2020 fall 20 and spring 21 semesters for the following employees and s52 is a

074motion to approve the salary degree advances for the 21 22 school year based on the salary guide any discussion i would just like to say something um i want to just draw our attention today to denise gettis so i just want to publicly acknowledge her efforts so it was spoken i guess during budget season that we were going to start to build our fleet of school buses something that we haven't had and um it's been quite difficult to get school buses as it is to get a pickup truck a cargo van a minivan any kind of vehicle and we actually received our first addition to our fleet which is a 16 passenger uh bus which sits right outside of of lrp which is in use but the need but to do this we need we

075one of our one of the ways that we wanted to look to be financially fiscally responsible was to develop our own drive drivers well as you know the nation is in a school bus crisis drivers crisis in fact a lot of states and communities are bringing the national guard to actually drive school buses but denise took the time out of her summer and studied took the the exam took the physical exam had to learn how the mechanics of the bus works and i have to tell you i just want to thank her publicly because she is the the the the initial um it went on its maiden voyage today uh for uh picking up our students and uh so i can't thank denise enough for really dedicating her time and her efforts into being a

076huge team player for us and we hope that we can develop more relationships with our staff to to take on those responsibilities and and to continue to build our fleet here thank you and can you speaking of that actually can you i mean i know we talked about it a little bit at budget time um but can you talk about the why we're trying to build the fleet versus continuing to um you know go with outside companies for these needs sure so our our goal is that you know we currently run in correcting from wrong we currently run four 54 passenger routes the long buses and we have how many other uh small buses many vans 16 passenger mini vans eight to ten so just to give you an idea of the cost of this

077uh one of the supplemental bus routes that we had to use in the very beginning of the school year because the dmv was taking a very long time and now they're going to actually speed up the process for drivers while we were waiting for ms gettys to get her license it was nine hundred dollars a day so think about that and we we actually utilized that that service for was it over ten days right so you're looking at nine thousand plus dollars for just a little over ten days of service so our you know one of our i one of our ideas and realizations is that if we can build our own fleet um we ultimately over the long run will save a tremendous amount of money and especially if we could build our own

078drivers um there is that sense of care uh and and um continuity for our students um but overall and i have to tell you this one of the things we talked about is is perhaps in the future building a our own consortium of group sharing for surrounding towns so that could actually be a revenue builder for us as well when we talk about losing revenue from the rental of lrp this could actually be a possibility for us as well as of developing that but it's right now we're in the middle of a crisis so we're very fortunate to have who we have helping us and moving this process along great thank you and thank you to her um all right roll call please can i just say yeah i'm sorry that's okay i see here

079the resignation of the south end launch aid do we have any launch aids at south and left or like what's happening what's happening with with with south end just with lunch aids uh we we do so uh one of the things the only reason i'm asking is because it looks like north end has so many right so this has been an issue for us uh in the very beginning of the school year um where we we had that unexpected resignation but there there is uh there are yeah that's not something that's going away that's needed now more than ever especially with the free lunch program right okay yeah and just making sure thank you i'm sorry any further discussion no roll call please mrs dichara yes miss amiga yes mr fondoria aye ms dai yes

080uh under policies is there anything we have to read or this is all the second reading and we're just voting on them now okay three is a second but 54 is the first three all right so why don't you go ahead and read everything for 54 and then we'll approve both after that all right we have some policies on for first reading so i'll just summarize them the first is policy number 2422 for the comprehensive health and physical education this policy is revised to reflect the change in updated statutes that must be included in the school district's curriculum as required by the new jersey student learning standards the new statutes recently approved include sexual abuse and assault awareness and prevention education curriculum to include instruction on diversity and inclusion uh the incorporation of age appropriate

081instruction relative to consent for physical contact and sexual activity health curriculum to include instruction on mental health uh information about new jersey safe haven infant protection act is included in the public school curriculum and the infusion of african-american accomplishments into school curricula and this policy is mandated next is policy 2467 for the surrogate parents and resource family parents this policy revisions mainly focus on terminology updates and some minor language changes in administrative code and this policy is also mandated policy five one one one is for the eligibility of residents and non-resident students this policy addresses residency criteria for a student residing outside the district to be allowed to continue attending school in the district the law also provides that if the student meets a criteria and continues to attend for more than one year the

082state will assume fiscal responsibility for the tuition costs and this policy is also mandated policy 5114 for the children displaced by domestic violence this policy is abolished as the information contained in it is now thoroughly addressed in policy 511. policy 5116 for the education of homeless children this policy is revised to ensure compliance with code and statute districts are required to annually to report to the office of homelessness prevention in the department of community affairs an accounting of any instance when a student is enrolled in the district as a result of being homeless policy and regulation 7432 is for eye protection the policy and regulation have been updated to provide more detail as to a school district's requirements to provide appropriate eye protective devices pursuant to code and this policy is mandated policy eight four

083two zero is for emergency and crisis situations this policy is a rise to align with the updated statutes by inserting language provided by statutes regarding the school security drills and this policies mandated policy 8420.1 is for fire and fire drills this policy revision includes added language from statute to directly align with the school district's responsibilities regarding fire safety as mandated by law and this policy is also mandated policy eight five four zero for the school nutrition programs this policy revision addresses requirements for all school nutrition programs of the new jersey department of agriculture including the national school lunch program the school breakfast program the after school snack program and the special milk program the breakfast program is now is a new requirement if the school district meets certain eligibility requirements in statute and this policy

084is mandated policy 8550 was for meal charges and outstanding food service bills this policy is a rise to reflect changes as per statute a district is prohibited from taking certain actions if a student's bill meal bill is in arrears and are now required to take certain actions if a student owes money for meals districts are now required to develop and implement a meal charge program pursuant to new jersey department of event guidance and this policy is mandated policy 8600 for student transportation this policy has been revised to address a new subsection in the administrative code districts have the option to adopt a provision in the policy that requires the compilation of a list of students transported by a school bus to a school-sponsored activity and this policy is mandated policy 8810 for religious holidays this

085policy is abolished as the legal requirements are addressed in policy number 2270 and is no longer necessary policy number 6115.01 is for the federal awards funds internal controls and allowability of costs this new policy is mandated for school districts that receive federal funds written procedures for determining the allowability of costs in order to be eligible under federal awards is now required policy number 6115.0 is for also the federal awards funds internal controls and it's for mandatory disclosures this new policy is also mandated for school districts that receive federal funds a district is required to disclose all violations of federal criminal law involving fraud bribery or gratuity violations potentially affecting the federal award policy number 6115.03 is the federal awards funds internal controls for the conflict of interest this new policy is also mandated for school

086districts that receive federal funds it addresses standards of conduct covering conflict of interest and governs the actions of school district employees with contracts supported by a federal award and lastly policy 6311 is for contracts for goods or services funded by federal grants this policy is revised to require a district to refer to the federal system for award management to search for the bard or suspended vendors for contracts to be funded by a federal grant and this policy is mandated that's it thank you and i appreciate the efforts of the of the policy committee uh so under policies can i have a motion for s53 can we can i want to just oh i'm sorry so can you just um sir devito or i don't know who wants to just explain a little bit about how

087we get our policies like we use strauss sma for a lot of people out here that don't i guess deal with these kinds of policies and how we get them and what mandated means and and trying to go into that just a little bit all right sure who wants that one mike's got it sure um we have a contract just like a lot of districts in the state with uh strauss estimate um they um they have a bunch of lawyers um and they they review all the uh the new statutes and federal guidelines and all that and they develop the policies and they send out policy alerts um so this right here we get a policy alert uh sometimes maybe um you know once every quarter or so with a list of uh policies that

088they are recommending that we do some of them are mandated meaning that we we have to have them in there and others are just um suggested policies to have um uh so we we review them when our policy committee meets we review all the policies a lot of them are we have existing policies that are just updates so we um update the policies we compare them to what we currently have and any changes that we want and then any new policies uh are come from any new uh statutes or codes or anything that that we're required to uh to have in place just one of the other things that mr david mentioned was the um the policy alerts one of the things that we do do is um on our district updates we have a

089policy alert section so you can always go back and look at those because some of these some of these policies they may they might not mean much to anybody but to really understand and digest it and understand it there is exactly what mr devito read is actually on our district update archives to look at policy alert 241 or 242 or whatever it may be so you can always go back and look at those thank you so can i have a motion for s-53 and s-54 solo second any further discussion no no okay roll call please mrs dichara yes mrs miga yes mr spondoria i missed ai yes under curriculum can i have a motion for s55 through and i'm sorry s55 and s56 so moved second s 55 is a motion to approve the following

090employees to write curriculum at the rate listed and s 56 is a motion to approve the following curriculum guides for the 21-22 school year any discussion no no no roll call please mrs dechara yes mrs miga yes mr spondoria aye mrs dye yes under contracts can i have a motion for s57 so moved second any discussion no no no roll call please mrs dichara yes mrs miga yes mrs pandoria aye mr dai yes oh sure go ahead i'm sorry i forgot to mention this during the update uh and this is required so uh it's under superintendent's update on the agenda new jersey regulations njac 6a semicolon 8-5.2 f require districts to report graduation results annually to their district boards of education or charter school boards of trustees at a public meeting no later than september

09130th so districts are required to report the total number of students graduating in the prior school year so that would be for us 131 students the number of graduates who met the graduation assessment requirements by passing a substitute competency test that would be zero uh the portfolio appeals process that would be zero and meeting alternate requirements specified in their iep that would be zero the number of 12th grade students who were denied graduation and how many of those students were denied solely due to the failure to meet the graduation assessment requirements that would be one student did not meet graduation requirements but was not based on graduation assessments thank you at this time the board of education offers members of the public an opportunity to address issues regarding the operation of the cedar grove public

092schools in this section we allow public comments on all school related matters our regulations allot 40 minutes for these communications each person shall be limited to three minutes there will be a countdown timer and at the end of the three minutes the microphone will be shut off and the speaker will be interrupted speakers may speak more than once only after all others wishing to speak on a topic have been heard issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate this portion of the meeting was meant to hear public comment not to have a dialogue between the board and the person speaking the board asks the members of the public to be courteous and

093mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students district employees and members of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board the public is reminded that students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments all statements will be directed to me as the presiding officer and no one may address board members individually please be reminded that if your statement is too lengthy abusive obscene or defamatory you may be

094interrupted warned or your participation may be terminated please also be reminded that if any person does not observe reasonable decorum is disorderly or disrupts the meaning you'll be asked to leave the meeting the board reminds those individuals who take this opportunity to speak to identify themselves by name address and group affiliation if applicable every time you address the board and to limit their comments to items directly related to the operation of the school district uh there was a sign up sheet at the beginning of the meeting and i'm just going to go in order and the first person i have is edith fusco good evening my name is eddie takovska fusco and i reside at 75 boardick road recently i read through cedar grove's diversity equity and inclusion curriculum and i am pleased to say

095that i found it to be thorough but there is something that i would like clarification on in cedar grove's curriculum stereotyping is defined as a blanket belief that presents an oversimplified opinion predator prejudiced attitude that is typically negative and highly generalized privilege is defined as an advantage granted to a particular person or group of people and a systematic set of benefits granted to a dominant identity group such as greater access to power resources government language and land ex the specific examples that cedar grove's guide lists for privilege were white privilege straight privilege christian privilege and cis privilege the way that i read this is that it implies that i am privileged because i am white straight catholic and i identify as a female from birth to me that sounds like stereotyping i can tell you

096my background and experiences are not that of a privileged person i was called the dumb polock was the brunt of polish jokes was told that god must hate me because i am blonde and polish and even had mugs of hot coffee smashed on my head this isn't exactly what i would call privilege this assumption of privilege completely mitigates all the hardships that i have endured and that others like me might have endured i have worked very hard to get where i am today so to assume that i am or was privileged is demeaning and insulting if i may also add i did not choose my dna as a growing embryo or fetus i sorry i did not choose my dna as a growing embryo and fetus and i did not choose to be white straight

097etc so to guilt me for my skin color or sexual and religious identity is unsettling as well given my story can you clarify for me how the school intends to talk about privilege teach it and incorporate it into our curriculum clock please sure um first off just to clarify that is not curriculum that you're reading it is a guide it's not adopted curriculum so it is a guide for our staff and also for you as a parent to have a conversation with your children at home if a conversation did come up in and in your home or for conversation to come up in classroom when you talk about the term stereotyping and privilege these are definitions of the word based on the usage of those words stereotyping and privilege that is by no means sharing

098that the cedar grove board of education is telling you what you are that is your interpretation of those words but it is actually a guide to help guide you if your children want to to have that conversation or if there were parents that wanted to be a little bit more uh informed of that as well as our staff uh if those conversations did happen to come up in class right but the specific examples that were given of privilege i fall under all four categories so to me i read that as i'm privileged i mean i fall into white straight catholic and cis which means i i still identify as a female because i was born a female right so mrs fusco i just wanted to share that's your interpretation of that i'm not sharing that

099that's what you are um that's your interpretation of it i'm saying those there is information out there and these are these are factual pieces of information that that will help to guide conversations and so when you share that is not what the cedar rail board of education is sharing what you are or nor is it what i am sharing what you are we each hold our own experiences and journeys through life so therefore when when children have have questions and conversations it is important for our staff and for our community to have a clear understanding of what those words truly mean and then to continue that conversation it's there as just a guide but i don't understand the examples i understand the definition right that a certain dominant group has uh an advantage that i

100that i completely agree with but why specifically point out certain examples because because there are examples across the board for lots of different things um and these are the examples based on a cultural guide and so therefore that is how those terms are utilized within society in a cultural competence but if someone okay but if i walk down the street someone may point to me and say hey you're white you're privileged sure someone could say that to you right right but that's but that doesn't mean i was privileged no that's that's someone's prerogative to share that with you i'm not sharing with you what your belief should be we're just sharing that if someone did do that to you that you can go back and say okay what does that mean where is that coming

101from what is that what does that terminology mean i shouldn't have to get into that discussion with anyone i don't have to sit here and tell my life story of how well that matters no one's asking you to do that either it's it's just clearly there for a guide because some people you may be more what you may be more well versed in that than somebody else may be so therefore for some that is necessary for them to have that guide okay i don't understand but i want to move on to the next topic the next topic actually comes from my children and other children apparently the lunch has been getting progressively worse examples of children receive molded bread chicken made a child violently ill today my son received a burnt burger that he couldn't

102eat i understand that they are not paying for the lunches but if you can't eat the lunch why serve the food i mean it has to be edible so that i appreciate you sharing that i know that um we've had a lot of uh happy customers with that but there are just like in any type of food service there may be uh something with the food so that's something that mr b and i will bring back to pomptonian and share with them thank you thank you next i have leo stringer [Music] hey david uh leo stringer for high view terrace uh yes i was going to touch base on the lunch also a combination of the lunchtime at the high school we we were taken for a loop by juniors and seniors are allowed to

103leave the building juniors is new this year but we were never told that they had to leave the building within five minutes of the period starting and they were not allowed back in the building until five minutes before i've had a lot of emails with ms singles and miss mr bear but why was this not told sooner and why why are not why are we keeping the kids locked out of the building there's no reason they can't go back in it's never been an issue before this is new this year seniors two years ago were allowed to come back in the building at any point this is not this is a new a new rule that was changed okay i also want to touch base on a dress code uh high school has a new

104dress code i'm not sure how many people realize this the panther pad dress code differs from the posted dress code mr bear and mrs english explain to me that this happened this year there was a committee of parents and faculty that got together based on students supposedly to change the dress code for example girls tank tops can now be have to be two inch straps not two fingers it's been two fingers for 12 years that i'm aware of so it's um we're changing things with another secret committee so that's a concern i also want to touch base on mr grosso you mentioned stamina for students yes i agree with you students have a hard time with stamina last year and this year it's face masks we need to they cannot breathe if the students cannot

105breathe they're going to have a problem with stamina okay and i also want to touch base on the food service as well the food is disgusting this year there's a lot of there's actually a food challenge in new jersey going around on youtube with all schools are having this and this is a i believe it's a direct result of free lunches you want to get free lunches pomptonian is probably not getting paid what they were expecting to get paid for each lunch so they're cutting they're cutting the value which means to me if you look at the high school you'll see most of the juniors are leaving school because they're not eating the lunch so we're not we're not getting free lunch because they're leaving the building so what's the point so i think we

106need to get rid of the free lunches let palmtown make the money that they expected to make and then we can give a better product it's a direct result we did not ask for free lunch we did not need free lunch okay thank you thank you very much i'll take that to review thank you okay sorry the next person i have is joe pirro uh the next person i have is chris i'm sorry uh christine perry is that am i saying that correctly hi christine perry 52 cedar grove parkway normally my husband represents our family at the board of ed meetings he's much more measured succinct factual logical in his statements my brain doesn't function that way so i'm going to try my best to convey my thoughts in the next three minutes as we

107know covet wrecked habit across our country i'm sure many of us had family members or friends who got coveted died from covet or experienced complications from coven there is no doubt that our country has lived through a tragic error however i'm hopeful that we're in the light at the end of the tunnel and soon we'll be out of the tunnel kids are back full time eating lunch having recess playing sports although they were playing sports throughout kova just with less spectators in most cases if at all while many of our kids were playing some sort of group or individual sport their education did not keep up i absolutely love the teachers my son had at north end school and he's now in fifth grade at mms i see a light back in his eyes that

108went dim and many more smiles and giggles i have concerns around the quality of education in cedar grove we moved here 10 years ago a month after my son was born after looking at numerous towns in the west essex area we ended up loving our home on cedar grove parkway and i was satisfied with the school ratings at the time over the past 10 years our ratings in the high school have gone down every time it happens i asked my husband should we move i'm scared we made the wrong decision see i grew up in a very affluent area in westchester however my family was far from affluent my parents had no more than high school education but worked their butts off to live in a town that had a blue ribbon high school so

109that my sister and i could have an education albeit on the wrong side of town we still receive the good education every generation wants the opportunity to give more opportunity to their kids i thought by moving to cedar grove i was bringing even more opportunity for my son the one good thing that coped brought to this town was more awareness of just what's going on in the schools i admit i never attended a board of ed meeting never really read the curriculum in detail so shame on me i tr i just trusted the board of ed to provide the oversight and guidance to our educators as directed by the state of new jersey what i am now finding out is that our teachers are giving in my opinion inappropriate surveys are the teachers directed to

110give inappropriate surveys to second and third graders taking liberties on what the state of new jersey has set forth is what is required it's apparent there's a gross misuse of power i have 34 seconds and i know i can't do this i'm just very disappointed in the way that superintendent grosso has handled his leadership role the last meeting a very brave mama stood up here asking for help with her son with disabilities when she was finished there was zero comment for mr grosso and the board of ed president verbally suggested to give her a call how could you have nothing to say to that mother is disgraceful when the football coach spoke and apologized for not fully understanding the quarantine procedures you sat up there smug letting the coach take the blame and you had

111no responsibility you're the superintendent a leader a leader does not disassociate themselves from the team so miss perry i'll definitely be able to respond to that and i i feel uh well actually sure go ahead you i appreciate that very much a leader does not disassociate something themselves from the team when this mistake was made they take some sort of accountability for their team's mistakes overall the optics and i swear this is one minute or 30 seconds the overall the optics of this board event meetings with everyone sitting up on the stage and the parents beneath them is very telling actions speak louder than words coven has taken the smoke screen off what goes on the board of ed and parents are now fully aware and fighting for their kids to get the best education

112they can please put academic education as a priority in our schools when our kids apply to college should they choose to the administ admission administ and finish officers are not going to be reading and telling up if they're aware of cultural differences their sexual preference or gender they're going to look at grades extracurricular activities s.a.t scores and the ratings of the schools they've come from sure one can argue that they can express their awareness in the essay but that essay might get them in it's their academics that gets them to stay and succeed in college and beyond so thank you miss perry and i wanted to share with you that um you know just just to a few points here uh we have an excellent education system here in cedar grove uh i'm very proud

113to be a member of the educational team here in cedar grove um from the staff to the paraprofessionals to all the the members that help to educate the the children of this of this community um can we do can we do better i think that i don't think you ever stop wanting that right so i think that's part of the process of why when we look at those district goals for for this for this year uh those goals are centered around uh data and centered around uh professional development and centered around student support so yes we do take that very very seriously here uh when we talk about you know your your opinion of me um i welcome you the same way that i welcome the other parent to come and have a meeting with

114me the parent did take ms die up on that and we had an excellent meeting and we were able to work through many issues sometimes i just need you to understand that i don't necessarily will i won't necessarily talk about certain things in public because it's based on particular people's children and that is private that is something that would happen behind closed doors the same way that i would want to respect your children and i appreciate you absolutely so and i offer you the same thing if you want to go um and if you would like to have a conversation with me and go into further detail i would be more than happy to do that and be a partner so this way we can um continue to make cedar grove a place that is

115a place for our children to excel in and again like when you talk about children applying to colleges it isn't just about the sat scores and it isn't just about the um their grades it's about the whole student in general and i know that after having relationships with a lot of admissions uh directors and mission officers in colleges and universities they do look for those outside experiences as well so please if you would like please i'm more than happy to sit down with you and have a further conversation on that can i ask just one question because this kind of it was ironic that it triggered so when you have motion here um to prove the cedar grove public school district goals goal one is professional development which is amazing we want our teachers to

116be awes they're awesome already we want them even more awesomer two is community three is character four is curriculum support student needs and five is curriculum what made this go in this order why was why is curriculum and curriculum support student needs the last two on the goals so there's no reason why they're they are in any particular order uh those are five goals that equally hold value here in this district from profession development to character to community to uh curriculum so to create a cohesive district all five of those um all five of those goals should be met so they're equal with fidelity their their weight equally when you guys are 100 there's there's it's absolutely there is no other way to provide a sustaining educational experience for student if we do not weight

117all of those equally okay thank you thank you and thank you for the extra time thank you next i have laura marinelli laura marinelli 112 sherman avenue i have a question with regard to the board council i know that uh scrillo cornell merlino mckeever and osborne is your um your counsel for the board and i'm just wondering why tonight you approved another law firm in addition to because clearly i'm sure there's a retainer i have to retainer paid monthly why was there another law firm contracted well we have if i'm correct uh we have a conflict and that we know the other party and as a result the board of education had to select someone other than us to represent so as counsel to the board we gave them several choices and told them to

118pick the one that worked the best it's it's it's predominantly a one a one-party case but we can't be involved because we have a conflict because we knew the party and we've represented the party so there was a conflict with regard to a contract dispute yes yes so you as your as that uh law firm won't be handling that case this on either side of it no we're not we we can't be involved in either side based on the ethics rules so we have um uh we have stepped away that other party has chosen another attorney as the board has chosen another attorney for that particular contract thank you no but good question thank you thank you i closed that portion of the meeting announcement of future uh meetings the next one will be october

11926th same place same time and november 16th um same place same time and i was um asked to remind everyone in case you haven't heard that the board of ed has a facebook page um so you should follow it um for updates uh same as we post on our website but uh it's just another way of reaching out to people anybody have any further comments or anything no no all right can i have a motion to adjourn then so moved second uh any further discussion no no no we'll call please then mrs dichara yes mrs miga uh yes mr spandoria hi this is dai yes the meeting is over everybody have a great night thank you you