Cedar Grove Board of Education Meeting 05-19-21

001i call this medina order will everybody please rise to 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 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 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 roll call please mrs de chara mrs miga here mr spondoria present mr schoener present mrs dye here we now come to the portion of our meeting where we allow members of the public to address the board in this section we allow public comments on resolutions only our board regulations a lot 20 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 to

003by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate this portion of the meeting is 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 mindful 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 respond 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

004or identified in the 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 interrupted 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 meeting you will 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 if applicable every time you address the board and to limit their comments to items on the agenda the meeting is open to the public for

005comment on items on the agenda and we had a sign up sheet for the portion of the meeting and nobody signed up and so i'm going to close that portion of the meeting good evening everyone how's everybody doing this evening very well very well we have a nice friendly crowd this evening i know yeah we have some presentations we have a lot of products an important resolution so things are good right anybody attend anything or south nfsa okay and not much to report but with the cohort combining 93 of the kids are in class well five days a week very nice that's what it's been and they said the kids are ecstatic to be there i'm sure they are and the teachers also love having the kids there oh yes so the fourth graders will

006have a uh promotion ceremony great and they're going to do a drive-by clap out which is what they did last year and they said that actually worked so well last year they were looking forward to it very nice that was about it okay you didn't attend anything really i'm shocked well i i will tell you that you know well we are um you know cedar grove waves is planning we've been talking about next year what we're going to do and we're also working on um getting and figuring out some permanent lighting uh for the building for the for the flags for that time period and to have the lighting be permanent because it is the 20th anniversary of uh of september 11th so we're working on working on those details now nothing's been formalized just

007because the lighting is so expensive um but yeah that's what's going on got it will you be asking for donations again i probably would be asking for donations once we have a sense of it we've been talking to the lighting companies um to see if they can donate the lighting we'll donate the actual fixtures and um we're hopeful that will happen and as soon as we have a sense of what it's going to cost we may go offer donations again great all right then miss hello i attended the uh city grove high school apt meeting and i won't steal mr grosso sandra i know it's like you can't really say anything no i'm sure a lot of it is in there um but project graduation is looking for volunteers for this year's current juniors and

008sophomores and freshmen who want to run it in the future they're also still selling signs for graduation and those signs are for eight uh fourth eighth and seniors that sale was going on until may 25th they also celebrated um teacher and staff appreciation i think it was this last week i think it was the week of may 7th writers which was like they were a little delayed with what they were doing you know sometimes volunteers at the high school could potentially be an issue there's that let's just leave it at that um so that was it for them i also attended i'm gonna speak for nicole because nicole and i are both at the rec recreation advisory board meeting and the pool will be opening so pool badges are for sale right now pool memberships

009are for sale right now and um they have a bunch of summer programs going on outdoors and i think that's pretty much it all right i i just was going to say that i think if um people can buy the the signs again this year it was a great it was really a great thing because when you drive through town it's really nice right yeah you you're driving past all the houses and you're seeing the signs for for all the different grades that are getting promoted or graduating and their kid the kid's name on it was really nice just last year under the worst you know not a good circle there's two different sizes there's a large sign which i don't want to say what people do or don't do um there's a mixture but

010there's two different signs for people and they're for sale through the 25th after that i think they're going to cut it because they need time to make them and deliver them or pick them up or however they're handling that so you have until may 25th anybody out there who wants to buy a sign or something but it's a really nice touch yeah it's great to drive around town and see and see the signs all over yep that's it for me all right well i think i attended the district advisory uh council meeting i attended the edac meeting uh both from the subcommittee and the regular one and i also attended the selk meeting but i'm pretty sure mr grosso is going to talk about all of them and so i'm going to leave it to

011you okay are we are you talking now or are we going to do presentations okay all right all right so we have a few different presentations are we going in order um all right so the first one is the um 2021 essex county student recognition program uh and who will be doing that um okay and do we stay up here yeah okay so now that's what you're saying [Music] okay good evening my name is mrs lafun i'm the student assistant counselor at the high school each year the essex county unsung heroes program considers students who may have overcome difficult academic or personal challenges modeled good citizenship or exhibited a spirit and quiet strength that has inspired others this includes students that have organized programs that supported local nonprofit charities volunteered firefighters emts or those who

012achieved academic success despite challenges lawrence chin was the first student that came to mind when having to choose a nominee for this recognition award through his constant determination and hard work lauren surpasses all of his academic expectations and his teachers are nothing short of impressed they've shared wonderful things about this outstanding student lawrence is a positive individual who is always encouraging his peers and is proactive in his own work he is the epitome of the student who understands how hard work pays off in the end in his social media class he has focused on fitness promoting healthy healthy living both nutritionally and mentally he is always sending positive messages out to his followers and even takes the time to remind his peers to study for tests lawrence is always willing to volunteer in the classroom

013discussions and makes his classes a better and more fun place to be in he is also currently in the new cedar grove performing arts workshop class he works hard every day on his studies as well as memorizing lines all with a smile on his face quiet's strength is exactly what lawrence has and it can be seen as his focus on how he lives every moment lawrence is also an active member outside of the school he practices taekwondo and is now a second degree black belt he is also a swimmer at the montclair swimming academy and has shown his kindness and spirit not only throughout the school but throughout his surrounding communities he is a student leader at red line student ministries created over 500 baskets of food for the homeless and regularly donates blood for

014the american red cross he also participates in fundraisers to provide food for children in the group homes lauren's goal after graduation is to pursue a career in law so that he can have the opportunity to provide legal advice for those that are underprivileged lawrence is an outstanding student and a person who consistently shows empathy for others and continues to work hard towards his academic and personal goals lawrence on behalf of myself mr bayer mrs inglis mr grosso and the board of education members we would like to congratulate you on your nomination [Laughter] you want to oh is there something in there for real there we go congratulations okay wait wait wait wait wait wait we got to put on instagram yes yes let's get in there okay donna come on let me take a picture

015with your phone please i got it you guys want to go in thank you so much what about the principles just saying yeah let's go here we go everybody here uh yeah i'll go one two we can move this out of the way for a moment i'm just saying you guys should not put me in charge of pictures it's like your wedding sorry did i get in it okay come thank on [Applause] good evening my name is jody imless and i'm the assistant principal of cedar grove high school i'd like to take this opportunity to introduce danica laquesta president of the asian fusion club lana bernardez treasurer of the asian fusion club and daryl laquesta representative from memorial middle school danica and lana are two of the founders of the asian fusion club at the

016high school they wanted to give the asian american population of cghs more representation but more importantly they wanted to educate cedar grove students on the variety of cultures within the asian population through word of mouth from her family in california lana found out about hollaback is a global people-powered movement to end harassment and hate lana danica and daryl along with their advisor mr gallagher and administration have attended trainings to stop anti-asian and xenophobic harassment additionally lana along with cedar grove and verona social justice group will be hosting a zoom panel tomorrow evening on bystander intervention these students have already affected such a positive change within the walls of cghs we are so very proud of them please welcome danica lana and darryl hi my my name is daryl laquesta and i am the memorial middle

017school representative good evening my name is daniel la cuesta and i am the cedar grove high school asian club president hi my name is lana i'm a junior and i'm the treasurer of asian club you and i both know that education is invaluable danica daryl and i are here to share with you about how you can intervene in anti-asian incidents amidst the current epidemic in the united states of racism it is an epidemic that is just as fatal as covet 19 and it started to spread away before kova 19 even existed zero will take it away there you go hi my name is daryl laquesta and i have the honor to present bystander intervention to stop anti-asian harassment and xenophobia danica laquesta lana bernardes and i with the help of mr gallagher have the honor

018to share our message first and foremost thank you so much to mr barrier and miss inglis to give us this amazing opportunity to come onto the stage today i would like to start off with the amount of asian hate crimes since the year 2020. these include physical harassment verbal harassments and many more which we will talk about today many of which have not been reported through these past years but now we would like to bring it to the spotlight of russell jung a professor in san francisco university has conducted an experiment showing each and every asian hate crime since the year 2020 it's depicted towards each specific gender and as you see here females are picked on most and it really asks america is discrimination based on race gender or maybe both aapi if you

019don't know stands for asian americans and pacific islanders from a racial standpoint these groups have been affected the most from the rise of coven 19 the the amount of racial stereotypes and slurs have grown attacking these these groups just like in the 1700s the jewish community has been attacked during the black death and now in 2020 during coronavirus now the government plays a huge role in our lives every single day from the economy to our laws and now racial discrimination some politicians have called coronavirus the chinese virus or the kung flu which kind of changes the mindset of many people to think that coronavirus is a thing of race instead a thing of science now racism has been a hot topic especially in the year 2020 many have different perspectives some may even have different

020opinions but racism oftenly revolves around judging someone not based on the character of their heart but by the race or ethnic group racism opens up many different topics especially admitting its existence and now i'd like to invite danica laquesta to come up and share her slides first of all i just want to thank you so much to my brother daryl for starting us off on the presentation and will be continuing on so the word harassment and privilege very different so harassment meaning aggressive pressure or intimidation and privilege meaning a special right advantage or immediately granted or available only to a particular person or a group in our society there are individuals that do have a privilege and they know it most of the time they use it for the greater good to help the unprivileged

021however sometimes that is not the case there are some individuals that are aware of their privilege and they take advantage of it to harm people who are not given the privilege therefore they will commit harassment towards the aapi community i will be discussing the statistics on the different types of harassment so here are the statistics on anti-asian hate incidences this is the general statistics however as time goes on or if we're going to discuss about the past these can fluctuate so to start off 68.1 percent consist of verbal harassment for instance if a chinese woman is walking to a grocery store and a man drives by her and starts rapidly beeping his horn and starting anti-asian slurs 20.5 percent consist of shunning also known as the complete ignorance of the individual as a human being

02211.1 percent consisting of physical assault so physical assault towards the asian community you will most likely see in social media platforms or on the news and most of the time you will see very graphic images 8.5 percent require i mean consist of civil rights violation and last but not least 6.8 of online harassment as time goes on we actually might see the percentage of online harassment go up considering that more people in our generation will start to use it because information can easily be go out and easily access an example of online harassment is just as simple as an asian teenager like me or lana posting a video on tick-tock or on instagram and some racist ignorant person commenting racial slurs and also using stereotypes to try to fetishize us and even try to humiliate

023and embarrass us so now i will be going more into specifics on anti-asian hate incidences starting with probably the most recent most iconic one starting on march 16 when aaron long committed a series of mass shootings in gold spa in atlanta georgia there were eight victims that were killed and out of eight of them six of them were be were asian woman now on the news people were just saying that his addiction caused him to cause the mass shootings but either way that is not an excuse to consider that this can most likely be an asian hate crime and out of the victims all of them had loved ones and those six asian women they had loved ones there were mothers they were sisters and they were even were daughters and imagine how their families

024could have felt and on this news report by cnbc you can see a man be who is going to later on attack a 65 year old asian woman a chinese asian woman who was actually on the way to church in downtown manhattan in downtown manhattan this 65 year old woman was walking to church until she was approached by this younger obviously taller bigger man who just started kicking her and punching her to the ground yelling anti-asian slurs this gave the aapi community such great fear towards our asian elders because this was a normal day for her she was walking to church and then something just tragic occurred even when this occurred even similar events that have occurred many families would want their elders and the older people in their family to try to stay home

025just because they fear that going outside people will attack them just by the color of their skin police say a 65 year old woman was walking to now we are going to go back to about 100 years ago when the chinese exclusion act was passed by president chester a arthur you may have learned this from your united states history class or you might have just learned it today so the chinese exclusion act passed by chester a arthur banned chinese immigrants from coming to the united states of america chinese immigrants or chinese americans were seen as a threat to america's economy and society of course giving a bad image towards asians in the united states increased racism and with the racism it influences the youth therefore the youth were experiencing racism as well even though um

026these asian people in america didn't do anything the us government gave them this bad image that there were threats therefore people had the mindset of that this image over here is actually very interesting for me because i actually never seen this image before until i researched upon it so this is a filipino tribe in coney island so right by us in the 1920s now this filipino tribe sitting down up here they may look like they're having a great time around the bonfire but in reality they were used as a museum exhibit for white people during this era as you can see over there they were watching them they were used as an exhibit and not even considered as human beings but objects these people who were watching them would throw food at them they would

027start spinning at them and just yelling and mocking them of course this tribe didn't know what was going on because maybe they didn't understand the english language but little did they know like the people watching them just didn't take them seriously then later on president franklin d roosevelt made 120 000 japanese americans or japanese descent americans go into internment camps during the era of world war ii the u.s government feared having a potential spy and going against the government now what is very interesting about the concept of japanese americans going to these internment camps is that even though the country japan was considered the war enemy to united states germany was as well did the u.s government make internment camps for german americans or people of german descent no the reason why they would send

028them to these interim camps is because we have distinct features and we can easily be controlled into one place and 120 000 of these people had to leave their homes they had to leave and close down their businesses and leave all their friends now with after these people after the campers left their internment camps congress didn't talk about the issue until 40 years later actually so later on congress thought that oh this what we did to the japanese americans in 1940s was actually bad so let's repay them however this idea only occurred in 1988 about more than 40 years after and they would give the repays to only the campers that survived and considering it was 40 years later most of the people that got repaid were probably young children during this time and another

029recent um example of anti-asian hate incidences occurred in the aftermath of 9 11 when members of our south asian sikh muslim and arab americans were stereotyped as terrorists after the 9 11 attack because of this one event some ignorant people would stereotype a big community as something bad such as a terrorist and give them an overall bad image so overall seeing the incidences happen recently may have been they may have been influenced by the past and it is very important to keep like the history of this very accountable and to be aware of it now i will be passing on this presentation to london bernardes thank you the number of anti-asian incidents will continue to increase from 6600 however you can do something about this you may find yourself as a bystander when you go

030to new york city or you walk around cedar grove a bystander is a person who is present at an event but doesn't take part in it that's why bystanders need to intervene which is simply to interrupt a situation and help make it better two organizations named hollaback and aajc or asian americans advancing justice developed a method to intervene because all of us can intervene but how we need a formula for this we need a concrete a concrete level of steps to do so these organizations they made the 5ds and 25 of people intervene in situations however 79 percent of people say that the situation improved that means bystander intervention works so i'll talk about the five d's that both hollaback and aajc made to help you know how to intervene in an incident whether it's

031an anti-asian incident or not number one is distract you must help indirectly help the victim in the situation to de-escalate it for example if you see somebody being harassed you can pretend that you're their friend or you're their mother father sister brother and you can help them and take them away from the situation or you can pretend to drop your coffee or your phone and then take them away from the situation you can maybe even scream so that all the attention can be on you and you can just pull the victim out of their situation number two delegate if you can't do anything because you have kids or you just don't think that it's the right time for you to intervene then you need to get help from other people so you can talk to

032the person next to you and say hey can you go help that person out i think there's something going wrong over there or you can go to the manager of a store and ask them to help you out and stop the harassment number three is document this is taking a photo or video of an incident so that you can record so that you can have evidence to submit to the victim however you need to get the victim's permission first and then you can post it on social media number four is delay after an incident takes place you can go to the person and check in with them to check in on their mental and physical health or you can just stand by them and make sure that they're okay and have a ride home and

033the last one is direct this is when you intervene in a situation with words you speak up to the aggressor and before you do this you must assess your safety because you are obviously putting yourself into the situation so let's practice this is an anti-asian incident that occurred on may 2nd it's only been 2 weeks since then and a 15 year old asian american person living in flushing new york city was verbally harassed and the stuff in quote the words and quotes that's what was said to him he was called ching chong and then he was beaten after by five teenagers so in this situation many of the five d's can be used however i recommend using the d distract because if you take the teenager out if you take the 15 year old teenager

034out of the situation you can help him you can prevent him from being beaten by the other teenagers and hopefully de-escalate the situation or you can use direct whatever floats your book noah quintana is a filipino american man he's 61 years old and he was splashed in the face in new york city on february 3rd this could have been my grandpa this could have been your grandpa so in order to intervene in this situation i would recommend using delay which is intervening after the incident occurred by making sure he's okay and he has a ride home or any type of transportation to the hospital and the last example of an incident is um the picture on the right so on may 2nd as well it's only been two weeks since then two people two asian

035american people were hammered by this person in this situation it's really dangerous so i would also recommend using the the d delay and make sure that these two people who are being hammered aren't are okay and checking in with them so that they can go to the hospital or they can get a ride home the most important takeaway from this presentation is that by center intervention it's not a grand act that superman would do it's a small yet impactful act that will allow you to help somebody as much as superman can and john lewis was a civil rights activist and politician and congressman of georgia he famously said if not us then who if not now then when so whenever you find yourself as a bystander of a situation you must do three things number

036one breathe just breathe in and breathe out number two assess your safety and number three think of john lewis's quote you have to do this if not you then who thank you [Applause] i just want to say thank you so much for hollback for educating us on the 5ds and also teaching us the history of anti-asian hate incidences and what is going on recently and even in the history and um over here we actually have there's going to be a lantern festival in montclair on friday so if you are willing to help the aiapi community or even anyone that just experienced racial justice it would be great if anyone would like to show their support it is sponsored by aapi montclair there will be food trucks there it will be family friendly it will be

037a great time and last but not least here is our bibliography with all the credible and reliable sources we used so does anyone have any um comments or questions before we wrap it up i think the biggest thing is we just want to thank you for um getting up there and doing the presentation it takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy and it also is a uh you know it's a big deal to get in front of everyone and talk about something especially when you uh your community is being being victimized thank you thank you very much thank you [Music] she's not my favorite great job i'd like to um i'd like to congratulate lawrence it's quite an accomplishment so congratulations and i'd like to thank all of you this is absolutely

038phenomenal what you presented to us tonight not only is it the truth but you've educated all of us and those of us who are watching at home and tuning in you're educating them so i congratulate you thank you sir and i look forward to the good work that you will be doing as we move forward so thank you very very much and congratulations to the family you've raised wonderful children thank you in january of this year dr thomas mccarrick of van gaar vanguard medical group reached out to me to offer his support in vaccinating all 256 staff members of cedar grove public schools over the next several weeks dr mccarrick and dr julie patel were in constant communication with me on vaccination delivery dates and the organization and facilitation of the vaccinations staff members of

039cedar grove public schools took advantage of the service starting in march this act of community and kindness moved our district forward providing safety peace of mind and good health enabling our staff to continue to serve our students the act also enabled staff who were homebound the opportunity to move back into the classroom to engage their students and provide new opportunities cedar grove public schools is proud to partner with vanguard medical group and honored to work with such courageous individuals that have put others above themselves without you we would certainly not be where we are today therefore the cedar grove board of education presents to you a resolution in honor on this day the 19th of the 19th on the month of may in the year of 2021 and to accept this i'd like to call

040up dr gorman i'd like to read i'm going to present to you i'm going to present to you a resolution that will be adopted tonight by the board these are for dr mccarrick and dr patel it says in recognition of the distinguished service rendered by vanguard medical group verone new jersey during the covent pandemic whereas in response to the rapid spread of covet dr thomas mccarrick julie patel and the vanguard medical group provided medical services to help protect the staff and students of the cedar grove school district district staff and whereas with a limited supply available the vanguard medical group extended the opportunity for all staff to receive the covid 19 vaccines and whereas the medical group vanguard medical group offered covet 19 tests with rapid results and whereas out of state travelers of the

041cedar grove school district including students were furnished with documentation on return to work school status now therefore be resolved that the cedar grove board of education extends their gratitude and respect for the medical care put forth by vanguard medical group and whereas on this the 19th day of may 2021 the city grove board of education will vote unanimously unanimously to adopt this resolution so i want to thank you for this uh this recognition tom mccarrick and i uh inherited the school physician positions in the mid 90s from bob bader and danny burbank now a few people who have been great here might remember them so when we started we were in cedar grove we spent our first 16 years in the canfield office park and we had a very lively presence here back then we

042reached out to the board of education because everybody was sort of you know sheltered in place we weren't coming to the school we are thrilled that in our present location and with our big staff that we're able to you know do this kind of help we're doing a lot of vaccines for children now we've got a lot of pfizer vaccines for anybody who's 12 and up so if you know anybody who's looking for that reach out to us they're going like [Applause] hotcakes thank you very much uh good evening everyone thank you to superintendent grosso board members parents students teachers staff public for inviting right at school to present my name is andrew cohen i'm the regional director for right at school my partner sorry my partner julie lyon is joining us virtually i am

043local i live in new jersey uh i say central new jersey you'd say probably way south in mercer county my wife is a teacher at the katzenback school for the deaf for the last 20 years i have three school age children education is what i do and what i believe in my entire professional career has been spent supporting children and families and districts with partnerships like this about 11 years ago now our ceo mark rothschild walked into his child's after-school program and saw her eating doritos watching a movie and he thought i can do this better and he has worked tirelessly over the last 11 years to do just that as you can see our vision is to bring exceptional affordable extended learning programs to as many students parents and schools as possible it has

044really been in the last year as we've worked closely with districts across the country to support them heavy focus on the social emotional urging social emotional learning and to close achievement gaps our program we provide before school programs after school programs break camps days off we have a special program for our middle school which is really focused on on uh you know the developmental needs of those children at that age a lot of leadership development we have an academic component obviously a heavy focus on completing homework physical as well as as i mentioned the social emotional learning we also really focus on peer learning community service children can be junior educators as they learn how to lead their peers i won't spend too much time on this slide it shows you know our pricing as

045we look to to provide care here uh we are a big believer in flexibility so you will see here one two three four five day rates families can change that as their needs change so they can choose five days and then you know if something happens with their work especially in this day of of working remotely they can change there's also drop in available as well and so families can choose close to the last minute if they really need care to have their child with us we have a heavy focus on on hiring training so as a regional director i support all of our programs in the northeast each of our programs has a local area manager that local area manager spends all their time working with the district with administration with principals with teachers

046and really spends time in our programs observing coaching training and developing each location each school each of the three schools would have an on-site program manager they are responsible for managing the program before care after care obviously in close partnership with the area manager and then depending on the number of children in each program we have educators who support we follow new jersey child care licensing so it's a 1 to 15 ratio and we follow that at all times heavy focus on training and coaching our team it starts with an on-boarding process for all of our new staff which is done through our online learning system then an in-person training for three days and then as i mentioned ongoing training these are just some of the topics we cover we follow again new jersey child

047care licensing guidelines for background checks and clearances and we make sure that that is followed impeccably we will be hosting a parent form for parents who are interested this will be done virtually as you know we've sort of moved into a virtual world hopefully but we've seen actually an amazing increase in participation by offering this so it may be something we even continue ongoing after that our contact my contact information area manager's contact information will be there for anyone with questions or concerns at any time and as the regional director i will also spend time um especially as we sort of get underway uh with the district to make sure that we address all questions concerns thank you [Applause] oh that's the wrong one before i start i just want to say great job again

048to our our student presenters tonight uh love seeing you put your education to action so good evening board of education mr grosso uh parents uh who may be watching are in attendance thank you for this opportunity we're we're really excited to be here tonight to talk about steam what we're what you're going to hear from tonight is really the culmination of about five to six months worth of work by by our theme committee standing beside me and you'll hear from just about everybody in just a moment but we're going to present tonight on steam pathways at cedar grove high school and hopefully by the end of the presentation you'll have a better understanding of what that means steam pathways are going to have the greatest impacting on our rising freshman class and then all classes

049moving forward i want to quickly introduce our cedar grove district steam committee we have myself dustin barrett principal at the high school jody inglis um the vice principal at the high school miss janine barboza supervisor of math science and business we have uh dave koster who's our steam teacher here at the high school and doing some great work with our high school students right now miss erica slota currently our middle school counselor um who was a very valuable member of this steam committee but will also be joining us at the high school next year as a high school counselor we have mr michael tedesco who is our intro who is our computer science teacher here at the high school uh mr vin muffery teaches all of our physics courses especially our higher level physics courses

050it was an outstanding addition to this committee and then jeremy lugameno who was our steam teacher at the middle school so we really what i believe is we tried to put together all of our st our greatest steam minds throughout the district in one room and we met at least once if not twice a week for the past five months and worked on putting together this presentation this program that you'll hear about tonight so what is steam steam is an interdisciplinary area of study which integrates the five disciplines science technology engineering art and mathematics steem allows students to build and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills by collaborating with peers through the process of identifying and solving real world problems steam education is at the heart of every medical breakthrough computer enhancement infrastructure design

051and etsy shop quite frankly steam is everywhere we look it's in everything we do um every day you know throughout as we proceed through our week now what is a pathway so that's theme what's a pathway a pathway can be defined as a sequence of courses focusing on a specific area of study much like at the college level you would think of a college major or a college minor where you're focusing in your honing in your studies on a particular area of interest high school pathways connect curriculum to careers or aries areas of student interest through course scheduling portfolio development and real world experiences some of the benefits of a pathway are that they provide a themed approach to high school education allows students to demonstrate a commitment to an area of interest and allow

052students to exhibit depth of knowledge in a sit in a selected area of study so why join steam now i do want to point out that we are piloting the steam pathway in the school year we were also in talks with the art department and the business department towards working about working towards pathways in those areas as well we chose to go with steam because we had the foundation in place we had we're doing some jeremy's doing some great work down at the middle school with our steam students dave is doing some outstanding work at the high school mike and vin and some of our other science and math teachers are doing some outstanding work so we had a platform that we could build from according to the u.s bureau of labor and statistic steam

053jobs are expected to grow at a rate of 8.8 percent between 2017 and 2029 creating nearly 800 000 new jobs in 2019 the median annual wage of steam occupant occupations was eighty nine thousand seven hundred and eighty dollars which is more than double the median annual wage of non-steam occupations at forty thousand and twenty dollars as of 2019 women comprise just 27 percent of the steam workforce the u.s department of education just invested 554 million dollars into steam education and finally according to code.org there were 11 036 open computing jobs in the year 2018 with an average salary of one hundred and eight and one hundred and eight thousand and twenty eight dollars yet that year there were there were only two thousand and two college graduates with a computer science degree what does that

054all speak to it speaks to a high demand for stem for for the stem workforce for college graduates who are entering the college workforce in a low supply job opportunities and job opportunities making well above the average income at this point eric is going to talk to us a little bit about what do college colleges look for in steam applicants good evening uh in taking a look at some of the resources out there and getting some information as to what colleges are actually looking for there was a ton of information that really helped to guide this committee so that we could see that students were really going to be in a way better position by having a program like this first and foremost students are going to be able to take a really challenging course

055load and that's what something that colleges definitely look for in their applicants they want to know that the applicants are challenging themselves especially in the areas of math and science next colleges really want to see that students are involved in steam activities some of these activities already exist we have the robotics club 3d printing club robotics tournaments esports and many more to come colleges also look for students who are able to put together a compelling steam story through a digital portfolio this portfolio basically consists of steam work and accomplishments that students achieve throughout their high school careers some positive personal qualities that um that colleges look for are students who know how to work as a team are they working well with others are they working as a tour a goal that both students have

056or the entire group has and how are they communicating within that group to achieve these goals next is resilience they're looking for students who focus on accomplishments and i've learned a lot from the steam committee and i've learned that failing is a good thing when it comes to theme and when you fail you learn you build yourself back up and that's something that colleges are looking for how many of these students were able to build themselves back up in a way where they were successful in the end and in learning something next is that the students are passionate and they're looking to have fun they're not afraid to try new things and they are completely passionate about what they're learning and changing the world for so it's a better place applying can definitely be competitive

057but building your steam story is something that can definitely make you stand out okay good evening um so we started thinking about the steam program and we started talking to a bunch of different colleges and we were hearing all these things um and then we start with then as steam teachers we kind of thought to ourselves you can spend hours creating the perfect lesson right that you think is going to be great and you presented it to students and within a minute or two one of the students says well why don't we do it this way and next thing you know they came up with a lesson that's a hundred times better than anything you could have created and it took them about 30 seconds so we said why don't we ask the students if

058we're going to engage with students uh we make we need to make sure we have some good student um uh choice and student voice in there so uh on april 13th we put out a survey to the seventh and eighth grade students uh in the school it went out to all the students and from that we we received 72 um different results from students and we simply asked three questions our questions were is steaming area that you would like to pursue in high school to kind of find out from the response we were getting is this someone who even is interested in steam what areas would you be most interested in and then what steam related topics would you like to explore in more detail so these were our results um we had 62 percent

059of students said that maybe they'd be interested in 20 said yes so we were really excited about that but even the maybes was exciting our students know what steam is they they they start in fifth grade in the middle school and they go from fifth grade to eighth grade they go through a lot of different things um but is it something maybe they can do in the future so we looked at the results and we saw that um a lot of the results were things that we were already doing in the middle school right we do 3d design every student does 3d design we do robotics we do engineering design computer programming we're doing and then the really exciting was one was cyber security because that's not something necessary we really go into a lot

060but it's something that students were saying they were interested in um some of the other things you'll see that students were institut interested in were drones uh product development that one was exciting especially i know some people over here are super excited to see product development uh climate change and renewable energy those are other things that we cover cryptocurrency i was super excited to see that because i think that we have a real opportunity there to start getting our students interested at a young age in that as well as video game and app development and space in the universe so really our goal was just to have um see what the students wanted and with this we were able to really then break it down and see what we want to do in the future

061so this was a great part of our entire presentation okay so the next question that we wanted to investigate was how can a stem pathway help students and we came up with a few different ideas number one is that we would provide careful scheduling for the students who are participating in this cohort we want to help them build the most challenging schedule that we can so that they do stand out and so that they're challenging themselves and they're learning as much as they possibly can before getting to the college level next we have really dedicated teachers i've learned that from this committee in general they have an expertise in the content areas relative to steem i learned a lot just from being on the committee so i know that our students are really in good

062hands they also can assist with building a digital portfolio if we investigate what colleges are looking for then we can definitely help the students build that portfolio so that they're in a really great position when it's time for them to apply to various schools next is that we have many people who are interested in being club advisors and they are constantly talking about creating new opportunities for students to pursue um i've been learning about the different clubs that the high school has to offer in terms of um that are steam related and again by being on the committee a number of those opportunities of new opportunities were mentioned and we're hoping that they can come to fruition within the next you know few years next is exposure to content areas um students can build their

063interest in various areas so this pathway allows them to be exposed to different topics different classes and they can take from those classes what they find to be the most interesting different topics and such um and this would help students you know more to solidify what they think that their major might want to be a lot of students go into school and they say to themselves i'm going to go undecided or i'm going to have a general major and it takes them a couple of years to determine what they are interested in by having this exposure to the various content areas students are able to really have more insight as to what area they'd like to go into and once they get to the college level they might be able to select a major sooner

064rather than later and last but certainly not least not least students are able to collaborate with students that have similar interests you know we have students who enjoy band to enjoy sports and having students who are looking to who are all interested in steam and steam related topics is really great because as we've learned students learn from one another they learn from making mistakes they learn they learn from collaborating and this is really going to give them a wonderful opportunity to do so good evening everyone i am very excited to be talking on behalf of the group about the behind the scenes all the many steps that we took to allow the steam pathway to come to fruition i will tell you that this list here the schools we reached out to the colleges universities

065networkings it's actually just a small fraction of the conversations and meetings we had um but it's interesting to know all the multiple angles um that that we considered when putting this together i do want to bring your attention on this list of schools to the stem academy in orange new jersey about a month ago we had a zoom session with dr tina powell the k-12 math science supervisor in orange school district who shared her incredibly inspiring story of how she built a stem school from the ground up and the thing i want to add with the schools is when you are bringing in a new program new opportunities what do you do you look and see what school districts are doing it and doing it well and this was absolutely a school district that was

066doing it well she shared with us the the beginning stages the panels the experts she brought in the the courses the programming the schedule it was very very informative and she also credited a a group called project lead the way with the success of her program and i'll mention that in in just a couple of minutes we've reached out to montclair state university their prism program which is the network for math and science teachers allowed us to connect with inventors and engineers in the state of new jersey including harry roman a renowned inventor he has 12 u.s patents and he is a member of the edison innovation foundation one of the things that he spoke about in our meeting was really getting rid of the silos of education which we've been talking about it's been

067a theme where you want to blur the lines between the disciplines and that's what steem does he spoke specifically about taking engineering and blending it into the areas of business manufacturing and more so it was all very very interesting the other resource that we will be tapping into a little bit more is our own graduates who are in the field of engineering and also studying engineering they are able to provide us with a lot of feedback constructively about how cedar grove prepared them but also some things that we might want to consider down the road now i have to tell you two days ago i had a conversation with a graduate recently she's she's i think she's still in her freshman year actually she's one of only four females in a cohort of 30 who

068are in a physics and biology program with the intention of all pursuing a master's degree in biomedical engineering and i asked her i said what's your ultimate goal and she said first i really just want to help people and mr lugameno stresses a lot and as did the other teachers that stem is humanity right so i was so taken back in touch that she said that but she said i also want to design and develop prosthetic organs i said wow this is the future we are here and i thought of her and i said if we have a student who just graduates cedar grove high school and she's there imagine how much further we can push our students if we start this at at a younger at in the younger grades in middle school and

069then we continue in the steam pathway so it was it was impromptu conversation but i was so blessed that we had it so in the last few years cedar grove high school has brought in several dual enrollment opportunities for our students to get college credit for a variety of subject areas and so with the steam pathway we would intend to expand our partnerships with other universities specifically njit which is another we spoke to several representatives from this this college and they shared with us information about what their dual enrollment looks like specifically in the 11th and 12th grade and the last group that we spoke to very recently about a week ago was project lead the way this is an a non-profit organization that supports staff and students k-12 in the areas of engineering instruction

070in the elementary world it's called launch in middle school it's gateway and then when they get to the high school the pathways break into three branches computer science engineering and biomedical this is a renowned program that is absolutely something that we would want to consider down the road when we are taking this stem pathway and building up steam right it's going to build up steam and we're going to take the students to the next level um so this is something that we could consider for you know the whole whole district a lot of things on the plate but i think that all of the the contacts and the communication that we had was really to just find and research the best opportunities for our students so that when they leave here they are the ones

071that are going to make the world a better place thank you all right so now that you have an understanding of um the direction that we're trying to go i wanted to i want to spend some time and talk about what is this going to look like at cedar grove high school the actual nuts and bolts of it what you're looking at right now excuse me is a progression chart uh for four years for a cedar grove high school student who wants to join the steam pathway currently the vast majority of our electives at the high school are full year electives um in their five credits what we're going to ask is that students who join the steam pathway they're they're going to enter into two semester electives these are going to be foundational electives

072steam engineering and steam intro to computer science freshmen have room to take one full-year elective that will be their elective for fresh for for that year in sophomore year students will determine if they're going to go through the engineering sequence of the steam pathway or the computer science sequence of the stem of the steam pathway students in engineering uh in sophomore year will go on to engineering two and junior year they will go on to engineering three students who go the direction of computer science will move on to steam ap computer science principles in their sophomore year and then onto steam ap computer science a in their junior year all steam pathway students will come back together in their senior year for a course that we're calling steam product design which is the capstone course

073and mr muffey will talk about that in just a moment where students will have the opportunity to do field experiment experience and develop a product and i'll let mr muffery speak to that a little bit more as uh miss barboza was speaking we're actively looking right now at dual enrollment opportunities especially down the engineering sequence because students who do the computer science sequence have the opportunity to earn college credit in those ap courses in sophomore and junior year through high scores on their ap exams so we are looking for dual enrollment in the engineering sequence but also in computer science as well because there is a possibility of doing due enrollment in ap courses all right so hand it off to mr koster to speak about engineering good evening everyone how you doing hi um

074so i know that you're looking at the steam team i took that from mr baer the steam team uh up here but uh what those of you at home and those of you on this side of the auditorium may not realize everyone sitting on that side of our term could be joining our steam team because it's because of the board of education making significant uh investments in the stem education in our district is the reason that we have this so this is more of a return on your investment is what i feel like and i'm just very very thankful that you're giving the students this opportunity and you're giving us the opportunity to teach these really awesome courses uh so i'm going to be teaching some of the um the steam education courses steam education

075uh engineering one two and three but i'm not gonna go into the details of what's in each course because as you're gonna hear uh many times tonight steam stem is very very fluid it's a bit of everything and thankfully in the last few years we've put those things in place that we can offer our students the opportunities to do things like um investigate the engineering essentials talk about the engineering design process and actually go through that design process the technical complete with technical drawings prototyping 3d modeling and printing that's kind of like what the students are doing in our engineering wine classes but those students who are going to join our pathways are going to take that to the very next level and what we're going to do is we're going to then go into

076more of a manufacturing our invent our invention versus innovation studies and then really get into those career opportunities when i ask my students who wants to be an engineer i see almost all the hands raised so i said okay what what do you have to do to get there and that that that's the end of that conversation so we want to make sure that the students know exactly what they need to do what their responsibilities are how to put themselves in the driver's seat additionally some of the things that we want to accomplish through this pathways we want i want to add a lot more of the coding aspect mr mr tedesco and i are going to be able to work with students in semester courses so they may have just had his coding class

077they could add that now to uh our engineering course which we currently have available for the students to take advantage of but i would say about a handful in each of my classes takes advantage of those opportunities we're going to release infuse the principles and elements of design i have to thank our very very patient art department for helping me through that when i'm teaching my stem design especially mrs bentley has been a remarkably generous with her time and her resources so that i can bring in some of those design concepts into my stem design classes and if you uh have an opportunity to to look at the art show out there you'll see a lot of my engineering students entered the art show this year uh from invitation from ms german and miss bentley

078so i thought that was very very cool we're going to infuse more of the science and mathematical concepts really get this into a steam more than just an engineering we're not going to work in silos and something that mr tedesco and i feel extremely passionate about and that's encouraging the participation for the underrepresented populations specific specifically our female populations we go out and we actively recruit students for our classes i remember three years ago making a lot of phone calls to a lot of mothers and saying i need you to get her to sign up for the class and i was very thankful for uh for the cooperation with the parents and doing that so i want to pass this off to mr dodesco so we could talk a little bit about the computer science

079pathway good evening everybody thank you for having us tonight to make this presentation uh and thank you uh to the vision of the board of education uh for four years ago uh starting up a computer science class in the high school i don't have a job without that and i am forever indebted and it's actually something that i just absolutely love um extremely passionate about computer science and steam in general uh so it's really neat to be here and try to boil down what i do what i've done the last four years into one slide this is gonna be great uh so students taking the computer science pathway uh they'll be exposed to a lot of different things computer programming of course is one of them everybody walks in thinks that they're going to code

080the next madden game or something like that but they slowly learn that you know it's a step-by-step process we develop these skills and by the end i am always blown away by the projects that the students turn out software engineering is going to be a focus specifically for the steam pathway as well game and app development those are just some things that i saw on the middle school survey and i was like cool we do that already i'm excited about that cyber security is uh one of the bigger ones that is a field that is that has so much demand and not enough um talent being turned out by the uh by the colleges they um there's so many open jobs and so many jobs that have such high starting salaries you know i was

081able this year in my advanced topics class to start a cyber security uh unit and just seeing hearing feedback from the students and telling them you know kind of you know on you know to the side like hey you know we're thinking about starting the steam path like no this is what i wanted to do my whole high school career so exposing them to that hopefully that'll send them as they go into uh higher education down that pathway but i'm really excited that we can actually have you know dedicated classes to start introducing these things to the students and also animation they you know animation such a big key of uh computer science and steam in general obviously with the arts i always get asked about the languages so i just threw that in there

082uh python javascript java those are the three mains that we'll be looking at but i always leave it up to student choice and student choice really kind of goes back into what we look at as well because steam is constantly changing like mr koster said it's in it's oh it's fluid we don't know um what the next big technology is so our classes will have room for that open-ended aspect of computer science we had no idea when i started a few years ago mr ligamento cryptocurrency was what was that you know it's like this is something interesting uh and now it's an emerging thing with bitcoin and dogecoin it's like a doge coin so and what it's going to look like in two years three years even next year i we don't know so leaving

083open to student choice uh just in terms of topics is is key as well but also with languages i love leaving things open to the students that you know you give a student a couple of concepts and then they they can really run with it i've seen students just go home and like i give them like a little assignment and then they go home and they start doing some research and they start playing around with some things and all of a sudden they're returning to me something was like i don't even know how to grade this it's just like this is so beyond what i was looking for it's incredible so student choice is going to be key i think i would believe in all of our steam pathways here and obviously um they're going

084to be developing these things i think we have some returning champions from my uh back to school nights through the years here uh sitting with us in the board for sure uh 21st century skills is something that i always harp on they're going to learn things in a steam pathway that are so key uh even if they don't pursue computer science even if it's not something that they're going to focus on you know in their adult life they're going to learn skills like critical thinking problem solving reasoning analysis perseverance planning adaptability that comes from nothing that you ever do in these classes ever really goes the way you want it to and that's good you know we want them we ms probably mentioned before we want them to fail you know like this is this

085is a good thing uh because it makes them better people you know you have to constantly be thinking on your feet using your imagination using your creativity your artistry there's so many students that have come out of their shell like that i've seen taking some of my classes that i didn't i wasn't sure how they would take to a computer programming class and all of a sudden they're designing these incredible animations and graphic uh creating different sprites for video games and i'm like wow like and they're so super pumped about what they're doing um and also as mr koster mentioned fostering creativity collaboration and inclusivity inclusivity uh being the key uh one there uh we want to make sure that these it's i i've sat in a bunch of computer science summits through the years

086and they always talk about how it's a how it's a boys club and so many issues in computer science particularly with facial recognition things that impact our lives daily they're underrepresented by different genders and minorities uh in particular facial recognition it was uh there wasn't there was a problem for a long time where it was misidentifying people that were african-american and sometimes in some cases not recognize them as human that's not that's nobody's fault it wasn't done maliciously but it just there's not enough representation there so a main focus for my next few years in the high school and i'm again i'm extremely happy to be teaching this and being able to bring this to other students is to make sure that underrepresented populations are included in this steam pathway and they can unlock new

087opportunities that maybe they never considered before and on that note i'm going to step away and give it to mr muffery thank you okay so the capstone course is kind of the culmination where they'll get to use all the skills that they've developed and all these nice courses we've heard about tonight as well as math and business and all the other things to solve a problem and actually do something real with what they've learned what they'll experience is pretty similar to what i did for 10 years as an engineer and industry uh two years in luxury sport fishing yacht design and manufacturing eight years in high rise elevators major difference is they will not be collecting a salary but you'll have the whole thing they'll identify a problem they'll have to kind of figure out

088a solution for the problem have to refine that solution based on feedback from you know manufacturing um you know product testing you know things like that they'll have to do the market studies produce you know the marketing as far as trying to to sell it to people you know aesthetics logos all the cost accounting that goes with it and it's going to be profitable things like that so it's it's the whole engineering process you would expect to have you know but just it's you're not getting paid for it although we get enrolling up if they did okay uh some of the potential for this i mean it's wide open right here in orange we had a school where they redefined a a pediatric cochlear implant and that was the stem academy that mr barboza talked

089about they did that there's a custom wheelchair for a toddler out in missouri they did another school took e-waste and kept it out of the waste stream so all those precious metals didn't get just buried and all that heavy metals didn't pollute the water by making 3d printers out of it so i mean there's there's great things that can be done these students can do wonderful things here in cedar grove they just need to have the opportunity and we just need to give them the support and we'll see great things happen okay so after hearing about this um you know we're hoping that students are interested in now signing up for this steam pathway as i said we will be piloting this program with the rising freshman class tomorrow we're sending a condensed version of

090this presentation out tomorrow morning it's already recorded mr koster is going to splice it up for us and we'll send it out ms slota will send it out in the morning there will be an enrollment form attached for current 8th graders the deadline for them to complete the form is next thursday the 27th at 3 p.m students who indicate that they want to join the steam pathway they will be dropped from their previously requested elective and we will instead add steam engineering and steam intro to computer science there's also an opportunity and the forum for students to select i'm interested but i need more information ms sloda will then reach out to those students and their parents and help them make a final decision on scheduling so again if the question is scheduling related please

091reach out to ms sloda at the middle school if it's anything other stem related any one of us um you know you can certainly reach out to with questions mr crosser we'll touch on how else we can get involved so even though even if you decide not to join the stem steam pathway which you should really uh join uh there are some opportunities that you can still uh practice some of these skills and have a lot of fun here at the high school we have a 3d printing club which i can announce tonight that we're actually going to have a parents night with the 3d printing club we're going to have a night event where we're going to go over a live night event where we're going to invite the parents to have it out

092on the tv talk about the different types of 3d printing that we have available at the school and allow them to send in files to get printed and sent to their house so i think it's going to be pretty cool uh that's that's something i'm just announcing for the first time tonight uh we had a robotics club and how do you do a roblox club virtually well we found out we found out how to do that and we competed in two seasons of our robotics club did amazing our first one and our second one we are in the top 20 on the east coast uh for uh for the march ones so i was very very proud of the kids uh uh the um board is sponsoring an esports club which we're very interested and

093we're very excited about uh starting that but also including those esports in our um in our cycles and our electives as well and then there's intersclassic robotics competitions which didn't happen this year live but we have uh plans to join some of the um the in-person robotics competitions through not only the robots club but through the engineering robots ii course and then um last year we made a ton of props the stem design classes and the engineering robotics class i think we had a whole month where we were just making swords and peter pan uh gears and everything i mean when you have a steampunk peter pan it's right up our alley so we're always looking for other opportunities uh and uh teachers are coming to us all the time uh history classes are going

094over some famous inventions and a student asked if they can like build a cotton gin in our class i said yes you can come on in so we're always looking for ways of getting kids excited about the program bring them into the stem lab so again thank you very much for your time and i really do appreciate all the support that you've given this program [Applause] last i just want to again thank the board of education mr grosso for continued support of steam at cedar grove high school and i want to thank individually personally thank you know our steam team here i've learned so much from the past five months from you guys about this field and just your passion i think the hardest problem we had was keeping our meetings to one hour because

095there's just so much passion in in one meeting so thank you all thank [Applause] there you go get underneath there the backdrop [Music] [Applause] [Music] yes [Music] watch the chorus [Music] so i was listening to the presentation and i must have jotted down i don't even know how many notes um because it was such a great presentation so just a couple things i want to say as mr tedesco had said it was only five years ago that the only computer class or anything in steam related um we had one class five years ago and it was intro to um computer programming so that was pre mr tedesco um i think my record okay um and in all actuality there was more being offered at steam in the middle school than there was at the high

096school and uh that didn't seem right because you had all these amazing opportunities at the middle school and then you got to the high school and there was nothing so uh so it's amazing that uh that what we have done in just you know five years so my daughter has actually had the benefit of having each member of the steam team in all actuality and she's a far better person as a result of being with all of them she fails better as a result i think of all of them as well um it was interesting i was actually on a college tour today with my daughter and uh they talked about the capstone project and that's the culmination of what they do in their senior year and they talked about these interesting projects that they

097do every year and uh and it's just you know you talk about this now and it's just so incredibly relevant um and it was interesting because there was one story about how they were saying like in one year and i'm sure i'm gonna mess this up with my daughter but they were talking about how they made a hand that moves and as mr costner knows my daughter's like oh yeah i'm doing that with an adreno thing now and i've built it and it can move and and i it was just amazing and that's all because of the experiences that she's gotten from all of you that you know she could step up and and talk about things that they're doing in college that she's doing here at cedar grove high school um and then one

098other thing i just wanted to point out you talk about um calling the moms and getting people to to you know try to be part of the programs on the on the college tour we went on today i don't know maybe there were like 10 students and we were excited because we actually got to go on a tour which you know is new um and i looked around and i said to ellie i said do you notice anything about the whole group that you're a little bit different than the entire group and she looked around and she's like i'm shorter so really what it was she was the only one who identified as female in that group so uh so we still have a little ways to go but uh but it was you know

099pretty amazing so i want to thank all of you because we wouldn't have been on that college tour and we wouldn't have been talking about engineering or the amazing things the projects that she's doing if she hadn't had each one of you so thank you and she's going to completely not be happy with me for mentioning any of this i just left i was going to say i remember us having this conversation um you know five years ago we were talking about that and how to figure out the budgeting and how to how to make it work and that that had it that had to be switched up it was an interesting time i actually mentioned on the college tour today you know being on the board that every year we've tried to add an

100additional class just to keep you know the momentum going to keep the program going so the students have something new to advance to each year so and now this this is great you know i actually told my daughter i'm like you're a little head of the curve you should you know you should be about three years younger and you'd just be getting in so so anyway thank you we really really appreciate it i do have one question what happens if you don't start as a freshman and you decide sophomore year you hear from your friends this is cool right i took it freshman year right and oh this is right have you missed the boat right yeah have you missed the boat already right mr bayer and that's um i think there will be opportunities

101you know next year we're gonna be rolling it out we're phasing it um so i believe there will be opportunities for students to join we don't want to turn kids away this is about right like inclusion right we want more kids and we want to you know bring kids in we don't want to be pushing away so we're certainly not looking to do that we have to talk about are they going into the freshman courses and kind of building up from there you know the idea is to get them to the capstone because that's the culminating course so we would want to find a way to where do we start them off so that they are prepared so when they get to that capstone project they have all the tools that they need yeah not

102in over their heads i don't think the answer is no i think the answer is yes it's just how and we have the next year so to figure that piece out very good i just got a message from her so i'm just going to stop talking now we're going to move on [Laughter] i think there's a superintendent update right that's it that's it i i just have to say this i mean this has been a pretty phenomenal night you know watching what has taken place here and i i have to share with all of you when i'm watching you up here talking about all these these different areas this is truly what collaboration is and this is truly what caring for kids is about and providing opportunities you've heard me say this so many times

103about opportunities for children and this is very exciting because you're watching everybody that came up to this podium tonight had an area of specialty and you didn't work in isolation you're working collaboratively together and quite honestly that is the only way that we move forward so when we talk about progressive and providing opportunities this is all because of you so i have to tell you i am extremely impressed uh i cannot wait to see where this is going to go because i gotta be honest with you while you're talking about this i i was interested in in just being part of that and looking and seeing like wow where is this going to go as a student i would have totally gravitated gravitated towards this so i commend you all for your work and i

104know this this i know this work is not easy work and i know this is um i like the fact that you talked about failure that is extremely important in our society failure is always looked upon as if it's the end of the road for us but quite honestly it's just the beginning so i really commend you all for that i thank you for that i'm really excited to see what you're going to do in in the coming months and years ahead so thank you very very much um i have a i have an update so i'm going to go through um through several different areas i'll give you a covet update and there's just a lot of new information that has just come out recently this week um and as recently as four o'clock

105today so on may 17th the governor governor murphy placed in into effect executive order 241 eliminating mass requirements in outdoor spaces to clarify this executive order and what it means for public schools the following is stated individuals in outdoor public spaces are not required to wear masks regardless of their ability to maintain six feet of distance from other individuals or groups and regardless of their vaccination status paragraph one of executive order number this number 163 is hereby rescinded so paragraph 12 of executive order 239 and paragraph one of executive order they are hereby suspended that they conflict with the provisions of the order regarding masking outdoor public spaces employers and entities are permitted to impose stricter requirements regarding mass squaring and outdoor settings for employees customers guests etc the provision executive order 239 requiring six

106feet of distance between attendees at an outdoor gathering with certain limited exceptions remain in effect number two of that order in addition for purposes of paragraph one of this order outdoor this is in quotes outdoor public spaces do not include child care centers other child care facilities youth summer camps and public private and parochial program preschool program premises in elementary and secondary schools including charter and renaissance schools which continue to be governed by executive order 149 175 237 and applicable standards issued by the commission of the department of health so as provided in executive order 192 all individuals shall continue to wear face coverings in indoor workplaces subject only to exceptions that have previously existed therefore masking of individuals on school property will remain in effect until further noticed that i felt that's a lot

107of numbers and a lot of orders but that it's important for us to understand because i've received a lot of questions i know the principles have received a lot of questions about what does this decision mean as it was uh shared out this week it was clearly stated with those provisions and you can also go on to uh the new jersey department of well then under the governor's uh page under executive orders and and look at that i will also be sending something out to our um our families and our caregivers uh detailing that that out as well in the arena of extracurricular sports new jersey department of health provided a document including the revised policy on outdoor masking that applies to extracurricular sports activity activities even when they are performed on school property existing

108requirements and recommendations for masking in k-12 settings such as classrooms gym classes activities during school hours that remains in effect high school sports activities under the jurisdiction of the new jersey interscholastic athletic association the njsia must abide by njsiaa protocols which shall consider njdoh guidance social distancing shall be followed by all athletes when not actively participating in activity coaches referees trainers and spectators in both indoor and outdoor settings regardless of vaccination status athletes were not actively participating in activity coach um i think i just read that thing sorry there's so much here okay minimum masking and social distancing standards for outdoor extracurricular activities and outdoor events on such prop on school property including outdoor graduation ceremonies and other end-of-year school events are governed by paragraph one of executive order number 241 on may 17 governor

109murphy lifted the travel restrictions on all individuals entering new jersey as of today the new jersey department of health has provided school guidance on this issue as follows unvaccinated students and staff should continue to follow cdc recommendations for quarantine and testing after travel if they test positive they should isolate and follow covet 19 exclusion criteria outlined in the njdoh recommendation for local health departments for k-12 schools students and staff currently quarantining under the now rescinded travel advisory should be permitted to continue doing so vaccinated students and staff returning from pre-arranged domestic travel on or after may 17th of this year should no longer be asked to quarantine but should self-quarantine for cova-19 symptoms and isolate and get tested if symptoms develop so it's a lot to swallow but that is exactly what has come out

110today we were waiting for guidance uh when this when the 17th rolled around and we we received the order from the governor uh local health departments were unclear as to how this was going to move forward therefore that information came to us today through the department of health school guidance which last document that came out was march 23rd so this is our most current one based on masking and travel again i will be placing all this out to the community in a communication and i'll be putting out my monday phone calls that everybody loves to receive in their homes uh pride month in a continuing effort to have each of our students see themselves reflected recognized and acknowledged in our instruction our staff will be provided with an information and resource document on pride month

111which is which is observed throughout june june is a time to celebrate our dynamic lesbian gay bisexual transgender and questioning plus lgbtq plus community raise awareness of quality services and foster a dialogue to promote healthy safe and prosperous school climates and communities for all in 2019 new jersey became the second state to pass a law requiring public schools to incorporate an lgbtq inclusive curriculum into their classrooms tonight the cedar grove board of education will take a progressive step in moving equity and diversity forward in our school community tonight the cedar grove board of education will make a historic decision to publicly acknowledge our lgbtq plus community and all those who will in the future be part of our public school community tonight the cedar grove board of education will take a step forward in solidifying

112that cedar grove public schools are a welcoming and safe place for members of our community that belong to the lgbtq plus community and how we celebrate the differences in our community that makes cedar grove public schools a better place for all of our students and staff i'll give you a little bit of a selkin edac update on june 20 on june 2nd the social emotional learning committee will share a survey with our families and staff about the needs in the area of mental health and social emotional learning the survey will be available to all staff and families to help guide the district in a direction that will enable progress and address specific needs within our community the survey will be available through an email invitation on june 9 the edac will share a survey with

113our families and staff and students about their needs in understanding in the areas of equity and diversity this survey will be available to all to help guide the district in a direction that will enable progress and address specific needs within our community this survey will be available through an email invitation i just want to say and i i've shared this with each of the groups our social emotional learning committee and our equity and diversity advisory council they are brand new this year uh they're they consist of many individuals that have that come from many disciplines uh they include parents they include staff members uh it includes a group of stakeholders that care immensely about the well-being of our children and our staff and our community as a whole i cannot share enough as we come

114towards an end of the school year how impressed i have been with the individuals that have participated in the work that we've been doing i'll just keep on going buzzing see how's going on um but i will share this and i share this in each of these meetings for the past five months five meetings the individuals that have been part of this have taken it upon themselves to look into curriculum to understand what we truly are about as human beings what we truly need in our district and they've divided themselves up into subcommittees that have been able that they have been able to detail out specific needs at specific levels i have to share with you that the work that has been done in five months is work that looks like it was done in

115two to three years it is unbelievable the investment that everybody has made and the empowerment that they have taken to really dedicate themselves to this so for all of those from all of the people that are involved in this the edac and the cell committees i commend you for all of your hard work your dedication and i i look forward to what we will do in the future and how this will truly truly affect all the students that walk through the halls of of our cedar grove public schools so thank you very much i i would also like to uh just share with you um from our uh high school liaison uh what is going on currently at cghs so uh um it shared that they're wrapping up their second week of ap digital testing

116and as you may have seen when you enter the art when you've entered this auditorium the the art and design classes are holding their annual art show in the lobby and tomorrow cghs will be holding their awards ceremony outside of the auditorium this friday the seniors will will be participating in our first ever cornhole tournament which will be sponsored by the asc in the cgea and finally next monday the baseball team takes on verona in the rivalry game at yogi berra stadium thank you and i've been part of both the uh the edac and the uh and the cell committees and it's it's amazing in the short amount of time how much we have accomplished because when we were interviewing for new superintendents you know one of the things you know that we talked about

117or one of our our top needs and and obviously equity and diversity were uh were you know a year ago you know things were a little more difficult and that became a huge focus for us and it should have been a focus all along but you know sometimes it takes an event to bring things to the forefront and you and you recognize you know where you're lacking in all honesty so you know when mr grosso started we said that that's something that we really needed to focus on and it was important and we wanted to move the district in the right direction and i think we've we've been able to do that we're not done we got a lot more work but i think we've made some you know some pretty good steps so thank

118you alrighty moving on um from the office of the business and 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 and executive minutes of may 4th b2 is a motion to approve the budgetary transfers to the month of april b3 is a motion to approve the treasurer's report b4 is a motion to approve the board secretary report and b5 is a motion to approve the board secretary's certification to the citadel board of education pursuant to the code that no line item account has encumbrances and expenditures which in total exceed the line item appropriations in violation of the code any discussion no no roll call please mrs dechara yes mrs amiga yes mr spandoria aye mr schoener aye mr

119dye yes under bills can i have a motion for b6 it's almost second b6 is a motion to pay the following list of bills that were in our packet uh any discussion no no no no roll call please mrs de chara yes mrs miga yes mr splandoria hi mr schoener aye mr dye yes i'm gonna break up um the items under business so under business can i have a motion for b seven through b nine summer second b7 is a motion to approve the contract with right at school for a before and after school enrichment program that was discussed this evening b8 is a motion to approve entering the national school lunch program for the 21 22 school year and b9 is a motion to approve the submission of the school security grant through the

120securing our children's future bond act any discussion no no roll call please mrs de charro yes miss amiga yes mr spondoria aye mr schoener aye mrs dai yes can i have a motion for b10 so moved second whereas june is a time to celebrate our dynamic lesbian gay bisexual transgender and questioning community raise awareness of quality services qual quality services and foster a dialogue to promote healthy safe and prosperous school climates and communities for all and whereas in 2019 new jersey became the second state to pass a law requiring public schools to incorporate an lgbtq plus inclusive curriculum into their classrooms and whereas all children and youth should be able to attend school in a safe and inclusive environment free from discrimination and civil rights laws contribute to such environments and whereas the lack of

121awareness and understanding of issues facing lgbtq plus children and youth has contributed to higher rates of school dropout academic failure and school disengagement and whereas policies that specifically mention sexual orientation gender identity and gender expression are associated with students feeling safer lower levels of bullying decreased incidence of harassment related to sexual orientation increased teacher staff interventions and a greater reporting of incidents and whereas board policy 5756 prohibits discrimination in its programs and activities based on sexual orientation gender identity and gender expression among other characteristics and whereas the rainbow flag also known as the lgbtq plus pride flag serves as a symbol of lesbian gay bisexual transgender and questioning pride and lgbtq plus social movement and whereas flying the rainbow flag throughout the month of june further symbolizes the district celebration of diversity and support for

122the lesbian gay bisexual transgender community now therefore be it resolved that cedar grove school district recognizes the month of june as lgbtq plus pride month and will begin the implementation of flying the rainbow flag at its buildings all of them during june to inspire equity create alliances celebrate diversity and establish a safe environment in our schools and community and that this resolution be distributed to every school in the district i just want to commend my fellow board members and mr rosso for doing this this is a really big step for our district and we are better for it and i'm extremely proud to be part of this [Applause] and it's it's long overdue so thank you any discussion no no no except just to echo what you said this is the great thing rule call

123please mrs de charro yes mrs miga yes mr spandoria aye mr schoener aye mrs dye yes can i have a motion for b11 through b14 so moved second b11 is a motion to approve the below resolution in recognition of the distinguished service rendered by vanguard medical group verona new jersey during the covid pandemic b12 is a motion to approve the location agreement with cherry tree hill media llc b13 is a motion to approve horizon healthcare staffing as sub-nurse agency and b-14 is a motion to approve the extraordinary aid application any discussion no no no roll call please mrs dechara yes miss amiga yes mr spandoria aye mr schoener aye mr dye yes um from the office of the superintendent of schools under personnel can i have a motion for s1 through a lot of s's

124i'm still going s-21 so move second okay s1 second reading be it resolve at the board hereby affirms the superintendent's decision an hiv investigation involving the student number listed from april 19th for reason set forth and the superintendent's report to the board and directs the board secretary slash business school business administrator to transmit a copy of the board's decision to the affected students parents forthwith be sorry s2 is a motion to retroactively approve the resignation for purposes of retirement of phyllis spinelli s3 is a motion to retroactively approve christa matera to oversee math strategies s4 is a motion to retroactively approve physical education coverage by michael mousav and randy nelson s5 is a motion to approve gilbert lee as substitute custodian s6 is a motion to approve gabrielle greedus mms school drama production s7 is

125a motion to approve jessica shoemaker as a cghs girls varsity basketball coach s8 is a motion to approve gina testa high school guidance counselor s9 is a motion to approve jessica tunath reading specialist s10 is a motion to rescind motion s6 on may 4th s11 is a motion to withhold increment for employee number listed s12 is a motion to re-employ and set salaries for the tenured professional staff members shown below uh s 13 is a motion to re-employ and set the salaries for the non-tenured professional staff members shown below s14 is a motion to re-employ and set the salaries for the tenured secretarial staff below s15 is a motion to re-employ and set the salaries for the non-tenured secretarial staff members shown below s16 is a motion to re-employ and set the salaries for the

126custodial staff members listed below s17 is a motion to re-employ and set the salaries for the paraprofessional staff members listed below s 18 is a motion to approve the fall coaches for the 21 22 school year s 19 is a motion to authorize attendance at the following events s 20 is a motion to approve the following leaves of absence and s21 is a motion to approve nick friends ransom sorry tech designer drama stipend for the amount listed any discussion no no no all right well we have a number of people coming and going so good luck to all of those people so roll call please mrs ditchara yes miss amiga yes mrs fondoria aye mr schoener aye this is dye yes under curriculum can i have a motion for s22 so moved second s22 is

127a motion to approve the following courses for the 21 22 school year uh any discussion no just excited this is amazing absolutely just excited roll call please mrs dichara yes mrs amiga yes mrs pandoria aye mr schroeder aye mr dye yes i just want to say it's not often that we're actually smiling up here so yeah uh under contracts can i have a motion for s 23 that's a really long one yeah i think yes so moved second s23 is a motion to prove the following contracts for special education students as recommended by the director of special services for the 21 22 school year any discussion no no no no roll call please mrs detera yes mrs miga yes mrs pandoria aye mr schoener aye mrs day yes at this time the board of education

128offers members of the public an opportunity to address issues regarding the operation of the cedar grove public schools in this section we allow public comments on all school related matters our regulations allow 40 minutes for these communications again 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 to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate this portion of the meeting is meant to hear public comment not to have a

129dialogue between the board and the person speaking the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful 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 as i stated earlier all statements will be directed to me as the presiding officer and no

130one may address board members individually please be reminded that if your statement is too lengthy abusive obscene or defamatory will be interrupted 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 meeting you will be asked to leave the meeting the board reminds those individuals who take this opportunity to speak to speak to identify themselves by name addressing and group affiliation if applicable every time you address the board and to limit your comments to items directly related to the operation of the school district okay and after all that we have one person wishing to speak this evening and that would be mr cannella so i believe it was in october of 2019 um when i addressed the board after i

131had made a request from the previous administration to um pilot a curriculum program and and the administration had told me that that i was here and we were here and um before i spoke i put on this hat to remind you that i wear many hats so today i'm here speaking and again i don't even think i said my name uh chris cannella um i'm here speaking today as a staff member um and the advisor to the gsa um and last time when i spoke with this hat i i was a bit upset that that we didn't move forward quite fast enough fast forward a year and a half and i think you're almost catching up um i i can't express how much i what happened tonight really means to me um as an educator

132as an advocate for lgbtq education as an advocate for these students and as a gay man um i you know for the first time i really feel here i feel noticed i i think our students are going to feel seen and it really makes me proud about what happened tonight and i want to thank all of you for making that happen and for um again catching up uh and and moving this district forward it means a lot for somebody who's who's spent their career here spent their life here um i'm approaching 23 years i came out here as a teacher when i first started teaching i was in the closet i would i i didn't even know i was out to myself and so much has happened in the time i've been here but today

133is probably one of the proudest moments i've i've been as an employee as to be associated with this district thank you um there is one thing just a mild criticism uh of the resolution uh lgbtq i'm happy i'm ecstatic lgbtq the q stands for a few things questioning yes also queer and i'm more than happy and i will ask my gsa kids as to why um and maybe i'll i'll ask if if it will extend the invitation for them to come and explain that and maybe a little bit about uh what it means and why we have pride month so maybe i'll i'll bring them if they're uh open to it in june so again thank you thank you thank you thank you absolutely thank you very much and we'll get it right completely eventually

134i think okay we're getting there all right i think i think that about wraps it up for this evening a lot of great things happened you know we've done some good we've heard some great things that are happening and and we continue on our next meeting is in june and then that's it for the school year wow that's all i'm going to say i have to tell you it's it's been a it's been a long year and tonight was a great uh you know as we wind down and wind up it was a great night a lot of fantastic things were presented tonight and uh it was a good night and despite you know the world being upside down and things being put on pause and things being completely different than they had been i

135think we you know we accomplished a lot and we did last year just from the presentations that we saw from the students you know from the new steam team i mean there's still a lot going on and uh think about what all you guys can do like in a normal year you know so and yeah and a big goal of ours obviously we've told the super this because we talk to him all the time is when we were looking for a new superintendent there was a lot of things that were very important to this board and uh goals that we wanted achieved and we really have hyper achieved them in just a short period of time but don't worry we'll come up with more yes absolutely we definitely uh i think about mr grosso sitting

136in that chair and us i share space socially distanced exactly screaming questions adam i have to commend those students that came up here and spoke they spoke so incredibly well for public speaking in a year of a pandemic where they haven't really even spoken in a classroom much that it's most impressive what this those kids were able to do tonight i thought like i can't imagine at their age getting up and doing that yeah you know so um kudos to the teachers and the parents and everybody else who just uh this is like a love fest tonight but i seriously just have to thank our teachers and our administrative staff and i mean it's been a it's been a year it's been a year so thank you so much for your dedication to our kids

137it's just thank you oh one of the other things i just wanted to mention is also lawrence winning the uh and being you know getting the unsung hero award is uh it's uh it's it's bittersweet also because i've attended them as a representative of the board of ed prior to the pandemic and it's a really nice ceremony where all the essex county students every school who who's an unsung hero you go you went to east orange school district and they do this really fantastic presentation you get to get up there and really be recognized and um i think the the great thing about him young man that he is is that hopefully he'll take this and it'll even he'll even improve even more as he as he goes along but i think it's a wonderful

138honor and it's just unfortunate that uh he couldn't get all those little things that come along with it yeah um i don't know for those of you that aren't familiar with lawrence he's a great kid he really is i mean i've gotten to know him through uh from when you know my son was in the theater and then doing the photography for the theater and through uh jen foose and he's he's absolutely deserving of that he's a he's a remarkable young man he really is and one more thing as we are like entering the end of the year and we are entering um our awards and recognition and scholarships and for all of our kids i just want to keep that positivity going this is for the kids they've had a tough year and let's

139just support them all the way we've got a great month ahead of us all great things coming down in the next four weeks it's all about the kids and let's just make it great for them thank you i'm struck by one thing miss miga that you uh you said about the the presentation and how it took a lot for you know the students to come up here and one thing that they said that you know really sort of stuck with me um was the slide where they talked about that you can be the bystander or you could intervene and um i'd like to think that you know as a board we've always been supportive but as i think about you know some of the things that we say so we're supportive about that you know

140have we just not been bystanders and i'd like to think tonight that maybe we did a little more to intervene so uh so i appreciate that so on that note let's go home can i have a motion to adjourn so moved second roll call please mrs dichara yes mrs amiga yes mr pandoria aye mr schoener aye ms dai yes good evening everyone the meeting is over have a good night