001Good evening and welcome to the Denellum Board of Education organization meeting January 6th, 2026. In accordance with the open public meetings NJSA 10 col4-6 at sequer adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising in the courier news and posting notice in the board of education administration building and district schools and filing notice with the burough clerk. I hereby call to order the organization public meeting Tuesday, January 6, 2026 in the Lincoln Middle School Cafeterium, 400 Denellan Avenue at 700 p.m. 7:03. The [clears throat] meet this meeting is broadcast live. For details, check www.denolinschools.org. I'll start with the roll call. Mr. Anderson, >> present. >> Mrs. Condit >> present. >> Miss ibeck is absent. Dr. Gendrono >> present. >> Mr. Sanoi >> present. >> Miss Shy >> and Mrs. Shep >> present. >> Okay.
002So we have a quorum and we'll have additional member in a little while. [snorts] At this time uh will you all please oh sorry please rise for the pledge of allegiance and moment of silence. United States. >> Will you please remain standing for a moment of reflection and respect for our troops serving with throughout the world, our troops who have served and our troops who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of our United States of America. Thank you. [clears throat] >> Okay, moving along. [clears throat] Item number four on our agenda is organization would like to announce the official results of the school elections that took place on Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. With 975 votes, Dr. Isaas Noland Androno III is elected to a three-year term of office with 1417 votes. Nicole Moore
003has been elected to a three-year term. And with 41 votes as a writing candidate, Gregory Mitchell has been elected to a three-year term of office. Congratulations to our three two new board members and one returning board member. So, at this time, let's make it official. We're going to recite the oath uh that every board member is required to recite. Come on, Mrs. Moore. >> I'm going to read and you can repeat after me. >> That's the whole document. >> That's better. Thank you. You ready? >> Sure. >> Here we go. >> All right. I, Nicole Moore, >> I, Nicole Moore, >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support >> the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey >> and the Constitution of the State of New
004Jersey. and that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> and that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> to the same >> and to the governments established >> in the United States and this state >> under the authority of the people. So help me God >> under the authority of the people. So help me God. >> Okay, continuing. I, Nicole Moore, >> I, Nicole Moore, >> do solemnly swear >> that I possess the qualifications >> prescribed by law >> for the office of a member of a board of education >> for the office of a member of a board of education >> that I am not disqualified as a voter >> pursuant to RS194-1 >> pursuant to RS9 19 colon 4-1. >> Well done. Nor disqualified >> Nor disqualified >> due to conviction
005of a crime >> or offense listed >> in NJS 18A >> in NJS18A >> 12-1. >> I made that one easier for you. and that I will faithfully >> and that I will faithfully >> impartially >> and justly >> perform all the duties >> of that office >> according to the best of my ability. So help me God. >> according to the best of my abilities. So help me God. >> Congratulations. You are officially a board member. [applause] Come on down. Bring all your stuff. Unfortunately, our second newly elected board member is unavailable tonight um due to illness. So, we'll work with him to um swear him in as soon as he's able. So, without further ado, we'll move on to our third, our returning board member, Dr. um Yeah. Yeah. Go on up. Dr.
006Isa Null Gendrono III. [applause] You ready? [snorts] >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. All the same stuff she just said. >> All the same stuff she just said. >> There you go. Okay. I, Isaac Null Gendrono III >> I, Isa Nol Gendrono III, >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support >> the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey >> and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey. and that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> and that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> to the same >> and to the governments >> established in the United States >> and this state >> under the authority of the people. So help me God >> under the authority of the people. So help me God.
007I, Isaiah Nol Gendrono III >> I, Isaiah Nol Gendrono III, >> do solemnly swear >> that I possess >> qualifications >> prescribed by the law >> for the office of a member of a board of education >> for the office of a member of a board of education >> that I am not disqualified >> as a voter >> pursuant to >> RS19 194-1 >> RS19 colon Oh, I Yeah, >> RS194-1. >> Yeah, there you go. uh nor disqualified >> nor disqualified >> due to conviction of a crime >> or offense >> listed in >> NJS18A colon 12-1 col2-1 >> and that I will faithfully >> impartially >> and justly >> perform all the duties >> of that office >> according to the best of my ability. So help me God. >> according to the best
008of my abilities. So help me God. >> And welcome back. >> Ah. [applause] All right. So, the board is fully fully occupied now. Uh well, actually, we still have one more to bring on board. [snorts] Okay. Moving on. Um now that we've administered the oath, we are going to move on to the election of officers. So, first I will accept nominations for the office of president of the Denellan board of education. Anyone wishing to nominate someone, please uh raise your hand and Mrs. Kit. Um I wanted to nominate um Miss Shir for president. >> Thank you. And any other nominations? >> Yeah, I'd like to nominate >> Hold on. I think Elise had her in the first Sorry, >> he's heading in the same direction. I'd like to nominate Dr. Gendrono. >> Okay. >> Was
009that your nomination as well? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Are there any other nomination nominations for the president? Okay. I see no further nominations. So, we'll now hold the election. Pursuant to the bylaws of the Dell and Board of Education, the way that this will work is we will vote on the first person nominated first. We'll go around through a roll call and you'll vote yes, no, or abstain. If the first person nominated receives five yes votes, that person will become the president. If not, we will move on and take the vote on the second person. And if that person does not get five votes, then we start again. All right. Okay. So, we are voting on the first nominee who is Shondaanda Shyf. Uh, Mr. Anderson. >> Yes. [snorts] >> Mrs. Condit. >> Yes.
010>> Here. Dr. Gendrono. >> No. >> Mrs. Moore. Yeah, the red one will keep it on. >> No. >> Mr. Senoi, >> no. >> Miss Shy, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Shep, >> no. >> So, we do not have five yes votes. So we will move on to a vote for uh um the second nominee which is Dr. Null Gendrono. Uh Mr. Anderson, >> no. >> Mrs. Condit, >> no. >> Dr. Gendrono, >> yes. >> Uh Mrs. Moore, >> yes. Mr. Satanoi, >> yes. >> Miss Shimp, >> no. >> And Mrs. Shep, >> yes. >> And we do not have five votes. We have four yes votes and three no votes. Double check my notes. Okay. So, the the um bylaw says that in the event no candidate receives a majority vote of the members
011of the board present in constituting a quorum, the procedure shall continue until someone receives a majority vote. So actually I might need to correct myself here. In the event no voting shall take place by the verbal roll call after nominations are closed when more than one person has been nominated the board will vote on candidates in the order in which they were nominated. That part we did correctly. In the event no candidate receives a majority vote of the members of the board present and constituting a quorum. So it's not a majority of the full board. It's a majority of the voting. And in that case the first vote had three yeses and four nos. So that was not a majority. The second had four yeses and three nos. So that is a majority of the
012board members voting president voting. So we do have a president Dr. Jendrono. >> [clears throat] >> Dr. Gingerano, you're now the president of the board of education. Congratulations. Thank you. And for the last time, I can do this. And now it's yours. >> Oh. Oh. Okay. So, >> I have to continue. Okay. >> Sure. Okay. [snorts] So, at this time, looking for motions for vice president of the board of education. [snorts] >> Oh, it um I wanted to nominate Jason Anderson for vice president. Are there any other nominations? I would like to nominate, if I can, if I'm allowed to do so, I would like to nominate U Miss Lee Shep. Any other nominations? Okay. So, uh we call the role for first Mr. Anderson. Correct. >> That's correct. Okay. Okay. So, we're voting for
013Mr. Anderson as um vice president of the Denellum Board of Education. Mr. Anderson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Condit. >> Yes. >> Dr. Gendrono. >> No. >> Mrs. Moore. >> Yes. >> Mr. Satanoi. >> No. >> Mrs. Shy. The Shyf. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Shep. >> No. Okay, there were four yes votes and three no votes. So, Mr. Anderson, congratulations. You are the vice president of the Denon Board of Education. [applause] Okay, moving along to item number six. Oh, sorry, item number seven, uh, adoption of the New Jersey School Board Members Code of Ethics. Um, so we do these one at a time, Mr. Pep, I guess. Okay. So, um, just to read this out, I guess the the whole code of ethics, right? We want we want to read out the co whole code
014of ethics, right? >> That's up to you. >> Yeah. >> So, for item number seven, whereas it is recommended that boards of education um re So, um, excuse me, [clears throat] that boards of education review and endorse the New Jersey School Boards Association's code of ethics each year and afford individual members the opportunity to declare themselves willing to abide by these principles. The following action will renew this commitment. Be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Denell and Board of Education adopts the following New Jersey school board member code of ethics. Number one, I will uphold and enforce all laws, state board rules and regulations and court orders pertaining to schools. Desired changes should be brought only through legal and ethical procedures. Number two, I will make decisions in terms of educational welfare
015of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability, race, creed, sex, or social standing. Number three, I will confine my board action to policym, planning, and appraisal and will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them. Number four, I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well-run. Number five, I will recognize that authority rests with the board of education and will make no personal promises nor take any private action that may compromise the board. Number six, I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools
016for personal gain or for the gain of friends. Number seven, I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools. In all other matters, I will provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members, interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community for its schools. Number eight, I will vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the superintendent. Number nine, I will support and protect school personnel in proper performance of their duties. Number 10, I will refer all complaints to the superintendent and will act on such complaints at public meetings only after failure of an administrative solution. So looking uh for a motion to approve item number seven. >> Move to approve seven. >> Second. >>
017Uh do we need to do this as a role, Mr. Pepe? Okay. Please you please call the role. >> Mr. Anderson. Yes, >> Mrs. Condit. >> Yes, >> Dr. Gendrono. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Moore. >> Yes, >> Mr. Sinoi. >> Yes, >> Miss Shy. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Shep. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. Moving on to item number nine, board appointments. Um, I would like at this point for for uh for number nine for the board of appointments if we could uh potentially table this. Sorry, number eight, establishment of regular meeting dates. My bad. Um, so looking for a motion to approve uh establish or to establish to to approve the regular meeting dates for 2026. >> Move to approve establishment of regular meeting dates. >> Second. >> Open for questions or comments. >> Okay.
018Mr. Py, please call the RO. >> Mr. Anderson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Condit. >> Yes. >> Dr. Gendrono. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Moore. >> Yes. >> Mr. Satanoi. >> Yes. >> Miss Shy. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Shep. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> Okay. Moving on to item number nine now. Right. Because nine comes after eight, eight comes after seven. Um, so for board appointments, um, I would actually like to table this section since we can, uh, uh, put names to titles and bring this up to the next meeting. So, >> yeah. So, you're going to ask for a motion to postpone? >> Yes. Asking for a motion to postpone to next for board meeting. >> Second. Uh move. Yes. Move to table uh item number nine. >> Second. >> Okay. Open for questions,
019comments. >> I think we had this conversation last year. My only concern is the committee meetings, >> right? So, how would you like the committees to be formed for uh later this month? >> Um, procedurally, the committee chairs and the committee members do not need board approval. They only need to be appointed by the board president. So, he can do that outside of the board meeting. >> That's okay. the the only ones that require um board approval are the delegates to the school NJ school boards and Middle Sex County school boards. >> Okay. >> So, throughout the the next week or two, right, figure out what committee assignments board members that you would be interested in um in performing and then we'll convene the committees. >> Okay, sounds good. >> Great. Thank you. >> So,
020any uh other comments, questions? >> Just like to point out also regarding the committees that um since Mr. Mr. Mitchell was unable to be here tonight and hasn't been sworn in yet. He cannot participate in the committees until he swear um he's sworn in. Uh it is possible to do that in between meetings. I can do it in my office. So, we'll discuss how we want to move forward. I asked him to reach out when he's feeling better and we'll make a plan. >> Okay, sounds good. >> All right. So, um Mr. Pepe, can you please call the role on the motion? >> All right. Um Mr. Dr. Anderson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. [clears throat] Condit. >> Yes. >> Dr. Gendrono. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Moore. >> Yes. >> Mr. Senoi. >> Yes. >> Miss
021Shyf. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Shep. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, this motion has been postponed to a future board meeting. >> Okay. Moving on to item 10, president's remarks. Um none uh at this time other than to say happy new year everyone. Welcome to uh 2026. Moving on to item number 11 uh superintendent report. Uh Mr. Ross. >> Thank you Dr. Djano. So we're going to start superintendent report with two presentations. The first is going to be the presentation of the fiscal year 2025 audit. We have with us um our esteemed friend Mr. Ardido who has been the district's auditor for 25 years. at least 25 we'll call it >> 57 years 130 years. Uh Mr. Ardo has been with the district for quite some time knows the district uh inside and out. Ryan
022you can do that. Um and he is here to present the findings of the audit for fiscal year 25 which is the year uh from July 1st 24 to June 30th 2025. >> Thank you very much. Thanks for having me tonight. Actually, I think it was uh fiscal year 15. So, yeah, fiscal year 15, I believe it was. Oh, okay. So, for those who don't know me, I'm Anthony Ardo, partner with Ardo and Company. Um, we completed the audit back in October, November time frame and uh released the report in December. Um, as you know, most years we're waiting and waiting on the state to give us some financial information that we need to bake into your audit report. Namely, uh, postretirement uh, benefit plans for teachers and pension information, which you guys don't care
023about. I don't really care about it either. Um, but to have a uh unqualified opinion and a good audit, you have to have that in your audit report. So, if you go through your ACFR annual comprehensive financial report, the notes to the financials in the middle of it are like this thick. Um, and you'll be wondering where do I get to the good parts at? Not there. Um, they're usually the first few financial schedules. So, I'm just going to go through this presentation. Um, it's very high level. I'll give you a sense of where the district is financially, where it was in the past. Um, and then we'll talk about the audit also. So, this uh shows your governmental fund expenditure pie chart. So, the governmental fund is not only your general fund that you
024base your tax levy on. It's also the special revenue fund where you spend all of your grant money. It's also the debt service fund uh where you make your debt service payments and it's also your capital projects fund uh which you have two big projects going on right now. So down on the left hand side um in the reddish purple uh pie shape there instruction 11 $5 million almost. That's the largest piece of your pie. Uh that's regular and specialed teacher uh salaries also have some purchase professional educational uh expenditures in there and um also direct classroom supplies. So it's very uh uh very sparsely populated with expenses. So you would think well instructions only 28% of our pie. That's just the New Jersey uh chart of accounts. The way they or organize uh the
025expenditures. So as we go across, we'll hit a couple of other ones. Tuition, that's mainly other districts that you send special education uh children out to. Um, above that is support and that that's everything that it takes to support that instruction function. Uh, I mean there's a litany of things in there. library. Um, improvement of instructional services, uh, child study teams, a big one, attendance, health services, related services, extra services, um, guidance, um, staff training, that's all in support. uh general administration, that's all of your board of ed office, superintendent, uh all of your principles, uh all secretarial, your IT costs are in GNA. Um also all of your telecom is in there, as well as professionals like audit fees, all your legal fees are in GNA. Um that comes out to 6.1% of the
026pie. And I'll just let you know, the state of New Jersey is usually north of 8%. So you're doing well at containing those GNA costs. Next to that, plant maintenance. That's everything to uh maintain your physical school buildings. Not only your salaries for your custodians, but your insurance, your utilities, of things of that nature. Transportation is busing. Uh mostly that's special education busing uh million dollars there. Next to that is something called on behalf benefits. Um and in governmental accounting you have to show in your ACFR the expenditures that the state pays for you on your behalf for the teacher's pension and for the teachers retirement plan. So that dollar amount is almost 5.3 million. So that gets baked into your expenditures, but you don't actually pay for that. You don't budget for it. That
027same number is shown as a revenue. So they offset each other. Same exact dollar amount. So it doesn't affect your fund balance. It's in there for presentation because governmental accounting standards board says that it should be. Next to that, at about three o'clock, employee benefits, uh almost 5.4 4 million uh 4.4 million of that is health insurance. The rest is social security match uh that you make for your employees. Um also payroll any other payroll taxes. The PERS pension plan payment is in there. Uh you pay for your uh non-TPAF known as PERS employees pension plan. Um, and tuition reimbursements, any kind of sick payouts are also in employee benefits. Below that, special revenue, that's where you spend all your grants. All your federal grants, your title grants, your IDEIDA grants, the remaining ARP grants,
028that that was the SR3 COVID grants, they're all done now as of se September 2024. Um, that's in there. Um, you had a lot of different grants that came through in fiscal 25. Teacher climate grants, uh, high impact training grants. Um, and one of the bigger ones um that you've had for a couple of years now is uh preschool education aid from the state. That's also spent through uh special revenue. That's $1.4 million of that dollar amount. Uh down at the bottom we have debt service. Those are the two bond issues that you have, the 2020 one and the 2020 one. The 2020 was the big referendum. Uh and that debt service ends in 2035. So another 10 10 years or so. And then at the very bottom, capital outlay 1.5 million. That's the spending
029on your referendum, continued spending um in your favorite classroom. uh project that you have going on. They're they're kind of winding down at this point. So, you'll probably have uh other projects coming on in fiscal 26. Uh these are your expenditures over the last uh five years. Starting with the year 2021, uh you were at almost $19 million. Um, and what we do in this chart is we exclude capital projects and we exclude those on behalf benefits I talked about. Um, we're just looking here at true reoccurring operating costs. Uh, the blue line is your 2021 $19 million operating cost adjusted for inflation. And um the line looks fairly flat, but that's only because of the graphical nature of the actual um uh um expenditures. Needed to have a chart large enough. But as you
030know, um inflation has uh increased dramatically. In 2022, it was 8%, 23 um it was more like four. In 24 and 25, supposedly 3%. Um, so with that, you take a look at your actual expenditures, which is the green line, and you're way above inflation, and you say, "Well, why is that?" Well, your budget was built that way because you're getting a lot more state aid than you did in the past in uh 2020. We'll look at that on the next slide. But going from 21 to 25, your state aid has more than doubled um and uh of course your expenditures are accordingly uh going to be budgeted and spent um in that regard also. So don't let that this chart scare you. If we take a look at the next one, which is revenues
031over the same period, um you could see that orange triangle there is your state aid and from 9 million in 2021 to 21 over 21 million um in 2025. So, the state has given you more money. It's more than doubled. uh you have a new program that came in a few years ago, preschool education aid that's contributed to the increase. And if you take at this take a look at the second largest revenue source, which is your state aid, I mean, I'm sorry, your your tax levy, uh those uh purple bars there. You can see that really hasn't increased. uh the tax levy increases um have been minor and on a compounded annual basis it's only one and a half percent increase over that entire time when you've had inflation at 25% as as you
032add it up over the over the years from there revenue drops off there's really nothing else other than state aid and your tax levy um you have a little bit of grants that black line down at the bottom uh 1.3 million and and the blue bar at the bottom is any other local revenue that you have. Most of that is um most of that million dollars is interest earned. And you could see you started earning interest um in 2024 and 2025. Before that was kind of non-existent. um banks are paying interest and uh in the past you had non-interest bearing accounts but Rich jumped on that um and started depositing depositing that money in interest bearing accounts and you're making a million dollars a year on that now. Uh this chart shows your unreserved general
033fund balance. Uh what does that mean? That's the portion of your fund balance that's not earmarked for anything. You're only allowed to have 2% of your expenditures in that category. And that and that's the red bar right there. So in 2025, you're allowed to have $790,000 of unreserved fund balance. You came in at 2.5 million. Now, how does that happen? you don't spend all of your budget and you bring in revenues above and beyond what your budget was. So, excess revenues under spending. So, you're generating 1.7 million. It's the difference between the uh 790,000 and the 2.5 million $1.7 million of what they call excess. The prior year, you did the same thing. in the last couple years um you did the same thing but to a lesser extent. Um so you're undersspending your budget
034bringing in more revenues generating excesses. Now what happens to this excess? It goes towards your next budget season which is fiscal 27. So the fiscal um excess of 1.7 will be an automatic revenue when you um start doing your fiscal 27 budget. It'll be plugged in there um as a as a source of funds. So you just can't hold on to that. Now this chart shows all of your fund balance components. Um, and if I didn't explain what fund balance is, it's what's left over. Um, after you've collected all your revenues, spent all of your appropriations, you'll either have a gain or a loss, and you add that to what your fund balance was last year. So, this is your new fund balance this year. Um, it's a pretty good picture. Um over to the
035right is your capital reserve uh which is the largest piece uh a little bit over eight million dollars. Um you started off you started off I think it was uh four 4.4 million at the end of last year. You used 975,000 of it for debt service which you can then you added back $4.6 $6 million um of capital reserve. Now, when I say add back, you're thinking, well, how do you how do you add that back? Well, every June, if you remember, you pass a resolution that says if we have any excess revenues or unspent appropriations, we can take that and we can plow it into our reserves, our capital reserve. Um, if you had a maintenance reserve, you could do that or tuition reserve some some uh districts have. Um, but you have capital
036reserve. So, you put $4.6 million into that and you still had the $1.7 million left over from the last slide that we looked at, which is over on the left hand side there. So, these are the components of your fund balance. a total of 12,706. Um the other components are mostly that excess surplus I talked about on the last slide. Um at the end of June 30, 2025, the excess surplus that was generated in 2024 down there at the left at about 7:00 of 1.703 million um still exists at that point in time, June 30th. the following day, July 1st, 2025, you start using that for your fiscal 26 budget. So, it has to be reserved at the end of June 2025. Uh the excess surplus above that is what we went over in the
037last slide. Um incumbrances at the top 46,000 and governmental accounting uh you issue purchase orders and those are the purchase orders that haven't been fulfilled yet. they haven't you haven't received the goods or services. Uh you haven't been invoiced for them, but there's an order out there. So, you have to take those unfulfilled orders and hold them um and reserve for them because the moment July comes around and you start uh going through the new year, you're going to you're going to spend that money. So, you have to have it because it was really the prior year's money. Um so, that's that's what incumbrances mean. And down below is that unrest un unrestricted fund balance that we talked about in the last slide. That's that 2% of expenditures that you're allowed to have unre unrestricted
038$790,000. That's sort of your rainy day fund. um you you're you're probably going to have little problems with your fiscal 27 budget. Um since you had 1.7 million to your of excess to your fiscal 26 budget, you have another you have the same amount 1.7 to your fiscal 27 budget. um and uh you've generated excesses in the past and have always been able to restore your capital reserve. So that capital reserve is going to become important to you as you go forward and plan your projects because you went out for referendum um in 2020. You don't want to do that anymore. You want to fund all your projects in house. Pay as you pay as you go. um save the money yourself instead of going out and borrowing money. Um so all in all uh
039the finances of the district look stellar. Um there's uh you shouldn't be uh prouder as a as a board member for the job that you guys have done over the last number of years. and the taxpayers should be pretty happy looking at that tax levy. Uh those tax levy increases uh are pretty minor. Um so congratulations to board, congratulations to the administration uh for a job well done there. Uh as far as the audit goes, um I'm happy to report this is the second year in a row that we don't have any audit findings or recommendations. So congratulations. continue you folks in the back there. Um, so that's good news. It makes our job easier also um as we go through the audit process. So, any questions for me? Well, it's been a pleasure to
040be here tonight and I congratulate new members, president, vice president. Um, pretty exciting stuff. So have a good have a good evening. Thank you very much. [applause] All right. The uh second presentation for tonight is a midyear update on the district goals. And this is a an update that I think this is the third year that we're doing the midyear update. And just so that members of the public are aware, uh the audit presentation board members as well and the midyear uh district goals update are both available on the website and they were put up before the meeting began. So feel free to I have um some of the amazing people on my team here to help present. Um obviously you hear me talk about uh these items all the time through the superintendent's updates,
041but I felt that it was uh very important for everyone to be able to share the amazing work that they're doing as well. So I have uh Megan Japkin who's our director of curriculum. I have Dr. Tyra Santineello who's our director of special services and uh also Rich Pepe who is our business administrator and they're going to share some of the particular items in their um their sort of areas as well. Um before we bring them up I'm just going to kind of run through some preliminary slides. Um the objectives of this presentation really just to identify what the district goals are. Those are linked there. Uh they're also on available on a couple spots on the website. recognize how the goals serve as the cornerstone to an aligned system of our operations and then
042understand the progress monitoring processes um that we undertake in the district and continuous improvement. [snorts] So these are the four district goals. Um they are general in nature as we've discussed before academic success and data use, student wellness and school climate, operational efficiency and community engagement. And these are really the foundation of our work. So the the goals themselves right set forth this kind of uh the first step in what we have been uh using as a a really aligned system of improvement. Um most districts and ours is still you know we're still in this in this phase and uh working hard at it every day. Um there are a lot of different initiatives that are happening and the question is to what end are these initiatives added or uh you know where where do
043they fit into sort of the larger picture and one of the things that I've been very deliberate about and um my team has done an amazing job on is aligning those items to very specific targets and very specific goals um so that we have more momentum moving in the same direction. This takes time and it took us a couple of years to get to this place. Um, we're in year two of very very strategic goal setting. Uh, it's much better than year one was and that was better than the kind of shooting, you know, shooting ducks in a, you know, I don't know what a good analogy would be. Trying different things, throwing things against the wall and seeing how they whether they'd stick or not. Um, we're certainly beyond that, um, in a much
044more aligned phase. So again, this process goes all the way down to the classroom. Um we're not at the level of creating studentled goals um or even classroomled goals. Um but we have district priorities. We have our school and department scorecards. We have budgeting PD grants and board goals pretty much aligned. Our admin goals uh PLC work um and our PDPs are also aligned to to these district goals. So this is again this will continue to improve as we iterate uh more and next year will certainly be better and the year after that will be better as well. The goal is to really get this down to the students so that we understand what's happening in the classroom as aligned to what the ultimate district goals are. So the way that we've done this is
045through a cascading process where the goal itself is a kind of a general framework. Um it represents important focus areas and those are updated regularly. We talk about those a lot in committees. I talk about them all the time in my superintendent update. We then from those very general goals uh identify specific impacts. So metrics that we're looking to improve in particular assessments or in particular areas whether they're operational or uh in other places. And some of those metrics are formative, right? Meaning that we can check them and and measure their progress throughout the year. Some of them are summitative that we won't know until the end of the year or until the end of a second testing cycle or something like that. Um and so we just make progress uh towards those uh if
046we can't sort of keep a running track of how things are going in order to ensure that the impacts are met uh or intended to be met. We have identified strategic actions that are associated with each of the impacts. So in order to make this outcome occur, what are the steps that we need to take? What are the steps we believe uh we should take in order to reach this outcome? So those strategic outcomes are steps taken by administrators and staff and and students. And these are things that that is really led from the department and from the building. Um a lot of this represents our key priority work. Um which we've we've talked about here at the board table before. Um and we review these actions and progress. um at our admin meetings monthly
047and then also we do kind of a big quarterly review as well. And in order to ensure that the actions themselves are taking place, there's an evidence collection that says, well, we said we were going to do this, let's say walkthroughs, right, to improve instructional uh proficiency. Did we actually do those walkthroughs? What's the evidence of those walkthroughs and what did we learn from them? So every action step has an associated set of evidence that we collect as well. So from the goal all the way down to the what are we doing on the day-to-day the goal is to be more aligned and to have less sort of surprise about oh right now we have to do this random thing right it's these are the things that we're working on let's try to do these
048every day or every week or you know every other week or whatever it might be so with that uh district goal one uh is here so I'm going to just introduce these real real simple uh simply and then I will bring up um I'll ask Miss Drapkin to add um some more detailed commentary on the work that that she largely leads and oversees um as a director of curriculum and instruction. Um and I don't know Dr. Santanelloo if you're going to be No. Okay, perfect. So we have uh there are four schools represented here. This chart only shows three because Faber and the middle school have the same uh goals. Uh pre preschool which um as Mr. Oo mentioned, right, has been a really big uh tremendous amazing growth area for the district um since
049we uh since we uh accepted preschool education uh aid and you know now have universal prek. So there are goals associated with that. Um Faber and LMS are both looking at ELA and math diagnostics uh using I Ready and student performance and student growth. And then the high school is looking at linkit benchmarks in algebra 1 and ELA um primarily at the nth grade. So key drivers are listed on the right, right? Assessment literacy, right? What do assessments mean? What do they measure? What's the purpose of them? Professional learning communities, which we've talked quite a bit about, which is really coming coming, you know, to fruition this year for the first time. Uh our tiered systems of support, which is well established in certain areas and growing in others, data analysis protocols, curriculum review, which
050we're working on, and then continuous improvement cycles. So with that, I will bring up I would love Miss Trapkin to add some commentary. Good evening everyone and congratulations. Um so with academic success and data use one of the implementations that we've started is multi-tered system of supports with that we know that there are three tiered system tier one tier tier tier tier three it is high quality instruction for all students that means the tiered system supports is not just for general education or special education or gifted and talented. It's for all children. All students have access to grade level curriculum. It also implements positive behavior and intervention, ongoing data collection and analysis, and it's a positive and inclusive school culture. We've implemented MTSS down at Faber. We are in year three. Like any program or
051resource that we adopt, it takes three to five years as rearch research shows for programs to be mastered because it takes educators one to three years to really master and learn something. So, we have a strong implementation down at Faber and this year I'm working with the middle school and high school to implement MTSS. We have committees going. They've been meeting monthly so far and by the end of the year we will have that ready to go so they can work on as the MTSS team to deliver that out next year to the middle school and high school curriculum instruction and our professional capacity. So, we're continuing to look at alignment and instructional coherence across the district. So this year we now have alignment in our K to8 literacy and again this is only you
052know year two for three to five it's year one for our K to2 to six to8 so we're it's going to take some growing pains and we will see that growth it just like anything else it takes time to learn it and we're not just going to do it and then abandon it. This is something that we've worked on that we're going to keep around and we're going to continue to provide professional development and we're going to use our instructional coaches PLC and we're going to continue to make sure that our teachers are feeling confident and comfortable when implementing. Now, it's not just literacy right now, right? So, they're changing our science standards. So, we're going to be looking at science resources or what we have and c how can we enhance and leverage what
053we have to align to the standards and how can we make sure that we are really looking at the data and the evidence behind using that. And then we're looking at internal capacity. So, we have our learning experience leaders and what they're really doing is they're going through professional development themselves. They're learning so that way they can feel confident and comfortable working with the staff members. So we're building that capacity within and this is brand new to the district. We just started this in July. So it's new to them as teacher leaders and it's new to us as a district and we're working together collaboratively to make sure that they feel comfortable and they're working with their colleagues and they're leading the charge with their colleagues. So the funding and the resources. So a lot
054of our MTSS and instructional initiatives we've been able to support all this through our uh federal funds title one two and three and then competitive grants. And right now I am overseeing eight competitive grants. We have four in literacy, one in our teacher climate and culture, we have our AP and then we have our teacher expansion. So there's a lot of grants going on and with that we're able to, you know, fund all these initiatives and make sure that there's strategic alignment across the board. So data driven decision making and our meeting structures. So this year one of the goals was to make sure that our meetings at the um from K to 12. It wasn't you know two faculty meetings a month or it didn't look you know one faculty meeting here eight department
055meetings. So we made a clear structure of meetings for our PLC's. We have PLC's going monthly at all the buildings across the district where they're meeting together. and our PLC's. It took some time to roll out, but now teachers are starting to get in their groups. And with that, we're looking at the data and we're monitoring student progress and we'll adjust instruction and interventions. And again, PLC's are new here. So, we're learning the framework and we're making sure that the teachers feel comfortable as they're going through the process. We're making sure in our PLC's that we're looking we'll be looking at assessments, vertical alignment, um, and next steps for student performance. So, our data warehousing and assessment tools. Right now we're using I Ready and Linkit K to8. We're looking at our diagnostic growth monitoring
056and instructional planning. We have our instructional coaches and they're looking at different ways to look at the data and how they can support our teachers. And then we have EXL and link it um at our high school and they're using the data tracking and skill progression through to really target instruction for our high school students. And with the data warehousing, we're looking for systems that can really support and monitor students academic growth and targeted intervention planning in real time. So we're working with a system right now. We're getting everything up so there is one place where everyone can see the data. So that is something that we have been working on. Teachers have not seen yet because we're working on it behind the scenes. The interventionists will start to see it. So that way next
057year everything is in one place. We want the teachers to be able to see a profile of their students that are coming into their classes and what the data looks like previously. So that way they get a sense of their students profile. Our ENL program and multilingual learner supports. So we have strengthened this through data practices. Um we're making sure that the students in our ENL classes are receiving grade level curriculum. In the past students were pulled out for three periods a day. So they are also in class for high quality tier one instruction. Um they're getting SEI supports during that time. We have trained all of our interventionists, our instructional coaches, and down at the elementary and middle school level, we have teachers that have gone through SEI training. We also have at the
058high school, we have teachers that worked very closely with our SEI coaches and have done lesson studies. And then our assessment data for this is really determining our student literacy in their native language. So, how literate are the students in their native language? And that helps us to monitor their development in their native language as well as their language development in English. We're aligning our instructional supports in the content areas. So, one of the areas I have the instructional coaches working on is what does this look like in our content areas for our students? How are we providing scaffolds and how are we providing differentiation? And then we're making sure that we are in compliance with our title three requirements. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Atkin. Um, goal two, school climate and
059culture. Um, we have our impacts up here for the three schools looking at behavior incidents at Faber and uh at the middle school as well as referrals and at the high school. The focus is chronic absenteeism. This is also a focus district-wide. We've been looking at this for the last couple of years. We've been hovering around that 10% mark as you know and had a cap that we had to put in place in the past for chronic absenteeism. Key drivers here uh really looking at building level supports for teachers. We have tiered system of supports which we've talked a lot about on the academic side and the side and you know in various places and in various roles some of these uh these processes are better developed than in others. Um but this is something
060that we are are very much putting into place um structuring out. We have increased counseling support as you know we've added many counselors um and bilingual counselor this year who's done a tremendous job um a lot of staff and student feedback and recognition incentives attendance interventions to improve chronic absenteeism rates and uh continuous improvement cycles. So with that I'd like to offer to uh welcome Dr. Dr. Tara Santanelloo, our director of special services to speak some more about these items. >> Great. Thank you so much and good evening. Thank you for having Miss Drapket and I um very excited to talk about just where the district is going in terms of school climate and culture. Um I have a core belief that students don't learn if they don't feel good. Um and students also have
061to be in school to learn. So the work that we are doing in terms of school climate and culture is truly a team effort from administrators to central office to the power professionals to the lunch aids. Everyone has a role in supporting students feeling good and recognizing students that are are progressing social um socially, emotionally um and behaviorally. Um as Mr. Ross said we have rolled out um a tiered system of support for um SEAL and behavior which includes universal tier one and then referral process for both tier three and uh tier 2 and tier three support which includes school counselor support as well as behaviorist andor our wellness specialist forms. Um, are we a wellness specialist that we had brought in two years ago when we transitioned from our contracted services to in-house homegrown
062um that we use the state model for when developing um an in-house wellness program and we have one at elementary and one at middle and high school um and they provide more targeted um individual counseling to students. So, we really have developed a system where there's data tracking, information, progress monitoring, and then students can move through tiers of support depending on just their needs. Um, all schools are implementing a form of positive behavior supports in schools or PBSIS. Um, Faber is continuing to do their buoy bucks and kindness tickets. I have to say it is like one of the highlights of my week when I get to hear all the students that were caught being kind. Um, it is really awesome to hear uh Mr. Guyer read their names over the loudspeaker or even see
063the students come down to the office to say, "I got a kindness ticket." It really is a proud moment. Um at the middle school they are both um implementing academic incentives for completion of I Ready and um link it uh lessons [snorts] if you will um to kind of see how they're progressing and then al also I mean you can see some of the things just around um the auditorium here students are really visible in saying how they feel and what makes them feel good. Um this past holiday they did a door decorating contest. Um, and students can also earn um, so for example at the high school it's called destroyer dollars where they can earn points if you will. Um, and one of the most popular reward we have is a positive phone call
064home. So Miss Ashley Powell, our vice principal, picks up the phone with the student there and makes a phone call home to that student's parent or guardian. Um, and that that student is again just elated just to hear a positive phone call home. Um, Mr. Akin and Mr. Ross also talked about our professional learning communities and this year we have specifically at the middle and high school dedicated PLC's really looking to understand the themes of chronic absenteeism. So really understanding the problem. So hopefully then make recommendations to the buildings to help remedy you know and and improve just um students being in seats and students being here. Um I talked a little bit about the wellness um with the small group. They're also doing small group counseling with the referrals. They're also doing monthly newsletters.
065Um, and I think a a big shift also this past year is the wellness clinic, the wellness specialist meets with uh myself bi-weekly. Um, but they also meet with the administrators the building to talk about what's going on, what's going on with the students. They collaborate with those school counselors. So, it really is that wraparound level of service. Last year the or last in the for this school year was the year one um both uh Faber and Lincoln were selected to be part of the New Jersey inclusion project. Um, this is a three-year systemic change grant. Um, there is no monetary award given, but the amount of professional development and on-site coaching that we have available to us, um, I really could not put a dollar amount to it. Um, for example, we had our
066site visit from our inclusion close, uh, Laura today at Faber and then when she meets tomorrow at Lincoln. So, each school has sitebased teams, um, with liaison and really pushing what is what does inclusion mean for those buildings? not what is inclusion but what is it going to mean for those individual schools and then those individual teams and how can we increase instruction for all learners um and really make environments available to to students. Um we also have bimonthly statewide meetings so all of these schools that are participating in the inclusion project hop on a meeting and we get to hear from other districts and other schools and kind of talk about what's what they're doing. Um myself, Mr. Tennant and Mr. Tobin um as the administrators are also required and happily participate in community
067of practice meetings and those happen every 3 months I believe we have another one coming up at the end of January where again it's just administrators in a room talking about how can we be better because we need to be for our students so what can we do and really learning from each other um allin for inclusive education which is who kind of helps sponsor the new jersey inclusion project offers professional learningmies what are targeted professional developments they afford four categories, teachers, child study related service, um special area teachers, and administrators. And there's monthlymies. They're three hours um that our staff are and participating in. Um the amount of subs that Miss Lubliner has to get on professional learning academy days is is really astonishing. The teachers want to go, they want to learn, and
068they are turnkey training that information and just helping each other. And it it it really I I've participated in almost everyone that we've had so far. Um, and the amount of knowledge that I'm learning and doing with my fellow admins, it it really is nice. Um, we also were able to purchase this year a Moodle specifically for power professionals on inclusive education. So now we have everyone from administrators to teachers to child study to support staff to power professionals all understanding the same thing when it comes to inclusion. Um, and those are moodles that they are participating in um on professional development days. Last March, there was a broadcast memo that was put out seeking um participation from district districts. Um the topic was partnership to effectively resolve disputes at the local level. Um I'm
069very proud to announce that Denellan was one of three districts selected in the state to participate in this uh partnership. Um, I did ask what the selection criteria was to be selected and the representative from the state indicated that the three districts that were selected had shown the capacity to make movement and make positive change in this area. Um, so I'm very excited about this. Um, the district will be receiving targeted support, training, and technical assistance to really build and work on relationships with families when a dispute occurs because disputes are natural. They are going to happen. The goal is to work at the local level to help resolve them. And this is a partnership with the New Jersey Department of Education, Office of Special Education, and SPAN, the parent advocacy network. So, they will
070be doing on-site visits um monthly um as well as training um for example, we will have the capacity to train for members of our child study team to become facilitated um IEP meeting or IEP meeting facilitators. So, we will be trained in that capacity, which um that in and of itself, I I think is just a a huge step in the right direction when it comes to working with families and working to understand their side and really hoping to resolve disputes. Um looking forward, um hot off the presses, um Ruckers had reached out to us. Um they're seeking partnerships on family engaged literacy for students with disabilities. I don't know much about this, but I do plan to reach out to see if it would be an appropriate fit for our district. I mean, anything
071that's going to put books in the hands of kids, specifically, you know, students that that have um needs is I am game for. So, I'm hoping that I can report something positive on that partnership soon. Thank you. >> All right. So, goal three is operational efficiency. Um we have uh five goals or five impacts identified in operational efficiency. Uh prek we have one goal um which I'm going to invite Miss Trapkin to speak about and then at the district level we have um four goals which Mr. Pepe will speak about. Um in each of these areas uh again we have our key drivers that are associated with us and this is really about improving the internal processes and ensuring that there's good quality control in the work that we're doing. So we'll start with Miss
072Japkin. back. So, Grow New Jersey Kids, what that is is once you receive the preschool expansion aid, one of the partnerships is we enter into Grow New Jersey Kids and Mrs. Van Ross has been hard at work with our instructional coach and our preschool team on the quality rating and improvement system. And what this does is we're actually submitting we're getting ready to submit our information to the state and we have to score a three in all of the areas and above to show that we are um at a high quality preschool and that we align with the state expectations and standards for um high quality preschool. So that submission will be coming in the spring and hopefully we'll have our scores before the end of the school year. So, I'm gonna just lead by
073saying I'm a little bit jealous of Dr. Santanella who got to say one of the most fun words ever. Moodle. >> Now, I got to say it, too. So, I'm going to talk about the business office and and what we've done um because we have a very different kind of impact on the students. Very less direct um but I think still an important impact on how the district functions. Um for the past for my first two and a half years I've uh worked with a team that was doing good work. Um but what I observed was that that work was very process or procedure and compliance focused and I kind of had a vision for something that was a little bit more customer service focused. And so these goals or the goals that we put
074together have to do with what we can do in the business office to make everyone else's work easier for them. And so the first two goals that we had were um actually continued from the prior year which was just becoming more efficient with our processing of invoices and of uh purchase orders. So the goal was to get from a place where we would have POS come in and things would get ordered sometimes quickly, sometimes it would take a while to where we have kind of a routine where things get ordered very quickly every time. And then on the flip side, when the invoices come in from the vendors, we want to be able to make those payments as quickly as possible so that vendors are wanting to work with us and people are are happy
075and getting the things they need. So those are our first two goals and um you can kind of see on that it's a a little small but so far this year we've done a very good job on that process. Um September, October, November, December for the uh the first table on the top is about our invoices. And so that is saying how quickly are we paying invoices? And um when I first got here, we had invoices from prior years that were still popping up and saying, "Hey, we still owe this money." And so we need to get on this. And so now we're at a um [clears throat] a cadence where it's happening much more effectively and quickly. So, as you can see, we went from in September about 74% of our invoices were turned
076around within 15 days u within um 30 days rather uh to we are now up to 95% of our invoices are being turned around within that 30-day period. Similarly, on the side of the purchase orders, we said, well, how fast when when a teacher or an administrator or a staff member is looking to purchase things, how quickly can we get it in their hands? And so we've made some huge strides with this. As you can see, um in four months we missed one one purchase order that did not get ordered within 14 days in four months. And that was not the way it was in the past. So we're very proud of this work. We're going to continue to try and operate in this way, but that's still a procedural focus and not really the
077big vision that I have. So the other things are a little bit more um part of this big vision. BI business office communications. One thing that I have stressed with the business office is when you're interacting with other staff members, whether it be a a administrator, a teacher, a custodian, a nurse, anybody, we should be as a business office trying to help them, trying to make their work uh easier, not making it harder, which it often feels like for many staff members because we're very focused on procedures. So, we've kind of changed our way of communicating. Um, we've had a lot of conversations internally about how do you respond to certain emails so that you can get the point across about a process, but you can still be supportive and help people um get what
078they need in a timely fashion. And I think we're making some big strides on this. We're going to get uh we took a baseline data survey in uh August, the end of August, and we're going to take a follow-up survey at the end of the year and see if we've made improvements as we feel we have. I can tell you just anecdotally that on emails that I'm copied on in conversations that I'm part of that our business office has really done a good job of being um supportive um proactive, which is an important part of of the first two goals. we're able to do the the invoices on time and the POS on time because rather than just wait for things to happen, our team is going after things and saying, "Hey, we have an
079invoice. We haven't heard yet that we received this, so let's ask rather than wait to find out." So like these are the kinds of things where we're trying to be supportive and helpful and I think we're doing a great job with it. Um the last goal that we have here is this facilities life cycle planning guide. So another way that can we can be helpful um to the staff is by giving clear understanding of procedures. So it's not so much about lecturing about procedures or about coming after someone who's not following procedures but rather letting them know what the proc gets pulled in so many directions. I don't know. Sometimes I think he's Gumby. He just gets stretched everywhere. Um, I also sometimes think that we have like one of those electric dog fences because
080he never leaves this place. I I don't know if he gets a shock if he goes more than a mile away, but he's always here. He's always on top of things. He's doing great. But we want to try and make this so that he doesn't have to always be there and that people just can have a resource to know what they need to do to get things done in the schools. You need uh an improvement to a room. You need a um piece of furniture built. You need things that aren't aren't maintained, which we're having less and less of that because our crew has been doing a fantastic job. Um but whatever you need, there should be a process to make it very easy for you to access those things. So that's what we're working
081on now. And um yep, I that's it. All right. So uh goal four is community engagement. And this is really broken out into three uh levels we as we've talked about quite a bit. Uh parent involvement through stakeholder meetings and and other uh types of events. Um student voice and staff member voice. And so key drivers here, proactive outreach andformational sessions on a wide variety of topics. Um communication platforms having everything bilingual uh or in multiple languages. Um student voice groups and board liaison. So we're hearing from our students directly. Um a lot of staff member check-ins. We have formalized rounding um the labor management collaborative which I'll talk about on the next slide as well and then development of key areas of of focus and and needs assessment. So just some of the things
082that we're doing with community engagement um we've had a lot of parent and family engagement opportunities many through preschool many through our title one funds uh many through counseling many through um ENL opportunities um and supporting our multilingual learners. And so a lot of those things, we're also obviously in the the title one um schoolwide stakeholder meetings which have uh parent involvement through community engagement. We um we have our ENL breakfasts and celebrations um which uh began um at the amazing work uh of Miss Japkin. We actually have two of those coming up this month. um our student voice groups which have been established at each of the buildings, labor management collaborative which as you know is a partnership with NJA um to formalize building based decision-m um and shared collaborative decision-m at the sort
083of the lowest possible level. Um the the software highlight which is used to recognize just cool things that people are doing throughout the the buildings and um and commend your staff uh and your colleagues in a public forum. um rounding, which is uh regular check-ins uh with staff members. Just a a basic set of questions that we ask to kind of get a pulse on people uh and what they're thinking about, what they might need support on, who's been helpful. 30 and 90day check-ins with new staff members. This is the the second year of this initiative. Um and this is really sort of the proactive stay types of interviews instead of um looking at uh exit interviews to sort of get feedback about why people are staying or uh remaining in the district. Those have
084been very successful as well. Um, DEA monthly meetings. I meet with the DEA leadership each month to discuss ongoing issues and we have a very positive and supportive relationship and then staff recognition which has occurred in in various ways at each of the buildings. So, with all of these goals and all of the impacts that we're looking at, we have quarterly and annual impact tracking. This everything here looks yellow because the yellow and the the green look the same on this screen, but you can see them better on the presentation which is available on the website. Um m many of the indicators the impact indicators are summitive goals. So when you look about look at fall to spring growth we we can't say that we've met that growth yet because we haven't had those assessments
085but those are certainly on track. We have met a couple of things. We've established the student voice uh um processes. We've established many of the staff member processes. Uh the invoices requisitions. Many of those items are uh are things that we believe we've we've made significant progress on. And then really the only one that is kind of off track at this point is the facilities uh planning life cycle guide. So we go through this meeting as an admin team every quarter um with uh with our partners at stutter. We have our next check-in for Q2 probably in about midFebruary or so and we'll we'll convene again. We're going through the midyear assessments process right now uh throughout January, midterm assessments, all of the I Ready etc. Um so we'll have more data then. Um, and
086that is it. So, [snorts] I'm first of all just very grateful to uh my team who does an incredible job uh each and every day leading their departments and really pushing this work along. I know board members, you've had the opportunity to uh share conversations with them through committees. Um, but I I did just uh I do want to thank them for their their their their words and their the additional commentary that they were able to provide here today. With that, I'm happy to take any questions. Um certainly if you'd like to ask one of the team members a question um I can bring them up as well. >> Sorry to do this but I have a litany of uh questions on here. These are pretty good and I I love the presentation. So that
087was really good and informative. Uh it does leave me with a bunch of questions. One of the things that I look at is um personally my daughters and and students had had uh success with AP classes and it's been very very helpful. Are we looking at expansion of AP classes in order to support our students as they go into college and prepare from like Faber to Lincoln Middle School to be ready for those AP classes? >> And so there's uh there are a couple ways to answer the question. The first is as a small district, we are somewhat limited in the ability to offer all the types of classes that would be offered in a large district. Um the second piece of it is of the AP classes that we're offering, what are the results
088like for for those? are we seeing success in all of that? Um and that's something that we've we've looked at quite a bit. We have relatively uneven results from year to year um across uh our processes. Um Mr. work with the the AP grant has been pl is is going to be looking at these items. Um and one of the things just as you know by way of example is if we're looking at literacy in the middle school, right? how is literacy in the middle school supporting the development of what's happening at the high school and then you know use use of the AP pre- rubric or some modified version of it so that kids are are doing similar types of work throughout the PLC work gets into a lot of that um and as
089Miss Trapkin mentioned a lot of the discussion about literacy or reading orformational tasks that's shared across multiple um content areas and so what's the process of learning in each of these content areas how Can we align those things and support teachers so that they can be supportive so that when the kids get into these classes, it's not the first time they've seen a DBQ or the first time that they've had to write, you know, a rhetorical response or or that sort of thing. >> Yeah. Just to say that um the AP classes have resulted in probably cutting down almost a year of college for for my daughter. So, >> yeah, absolutely. Um I guess Miss Dravkin uh one of the uh questions I guess I can codify or put these two together. Uh looking at
090your uh report and tying data and results to support projected student goals and that kind of ties in with the multiple uh tiered support alignment so that the the current student and community environment can be tied into that. And how does that all work? Because then you have a lot of stuff that's there but not a lot of it's highlighted and shown off to to our constituents. So we have the stakeholder meetings. So back uh so every year the comprehensive needs assessment goes out to the whole community. Um we had a really high goal last year of I think it was like 217 and we put out flyers all over the place. We had QR codes. Um Miss Gimenez and Miss Riggy both our CPIS's were dropping off the QR codes, posting them up. Uh
091excuse me. I mean, I know they were put on like some of the Facebook pages, but the turnout of the responses wasn't very high. We put out a Google form this year for um community and parent involvement to be part of the stakeholder meetings within the district. So that way they can and I know um Dr. Dendrono's on it. And what we try to do with that is that's where the parents can come and see what is happening. We go over the initial goals. We look at the original data and then I'm always looking for input, answering questions. then and those meetings are where we really dive into the data, look at the comprehensive needs assessment. Now, when you are on that committee, there are certain areas when you're signing off on it that we
092do also have confidentiality because there's conversations going on. However, the data is always presented that is public knowledge, but just in case we're talking about specific things. But that is that's why we always send out these Google forms because we are trying to get more parent and family engagement. Um, that's also why we have try we try to have a lot of these title one events or the title three events. So that way we're bringing families in and we're communicating with them and they can actually see what is going on or we're providing them with resources on what they can do at home, what we have available. Did that answer the question? >> Yeah, it it does. And I'd just like to highlight that even though you had a very high goal, it was still
093very successful in terms that people came in and and felt good about it, right? And the feedback was really positive. for the most part it was positive and what wasn't is what we took and we made into our goals and we talked about it as an admin team over the summer. So we looked at those areas and that's where we had to narrow in some of our goals like our chronic absenteeism. We really looked at that. We looked at um where some of the anti-bullying stuff came in. So that's where picking up the NJ4s, that's where getting an additional counselor, having the wellness specialist. So we did look at those little areas and then trying to enhance those practices and make sure that we're implementing it. So that's based off the comprehensive needs assessment. >>
094Thank you. >> All right. I've got a question for Dr. Santanella. Um you provided a quick overview of what incl Oh can you provide a quick overview what really inclusion means at the JPF and and LMS uh levels so that we have a better understanding instead of just a [clears throat] quick blur on that. >> Absolutely. So inclusion is not a place it is an understanding that all students can learn in a learning community. So it's providing a level of universal kind of design for learning UDL in a way that you take a lesson and break it down and maybe it has four different levels or components so that a students who have varying cognitive abilities, physical abilities, social emotional abilities, they can all learn together. So it's making sure that students don't have to
095be segregated to go and learn the same general education curriculum. So it is assist the the project that we're working on. Um, and again I stressed in the presentation, we're really defining inclusion for our buildings, not taking what the global jargon is, is what each building created a vision statement for inclusion, what it means to them for their buildings. Um, we have it posted up on the walls at Faber. We're in process here at Lincoln, but we're getting there. It's it's a it's a process. And it what what does it mean to have our teachers be ready to receive all students not just some students to receive every student to help increase LRE in in special ed we look at least restrictive environment. So we have a number the state likes about 40% of our
096students to be educated in the general education population 80% or more of their day. Our scores were not there. So we were selected because of our scores needed to move in the direction of least restrictive environment to improve those scores. Um, that is a slow process. That takes parental involvement, that takes IEP meetings, that takes everyone being on board to understand that all students can learn in an environment together and that we don't need to continuously segregate um that may be appropriate for some, but moving in the direction and creating this understanding that all students can learn together. >> Okay, two questions. Um could you provide an example of the community practice success or a target that is being done to and what's being done to get there because it was a quick blurb and
097would just like to highlight for the people that are listening uh what what a an example of a community practice success or a target and what's being done. >> Sure. So um for inclusion specifically >> uh when I looked at the slide that's why I wasn't too sure just really the community of practice it was within that slide that's what it >> so the community of practice is for um our administrators so myself um Mr. Tenant and Mr. Tobin, we participate with other they're regional meetings. So we go to the central Jersey meeting. It's down in Manalapen. Um and we go and we listen to other um administrators and we hear what their success stories are. So for example, we um listen to a supervisor of special education and we listen to how they run
098their IEP meetings. So how do you run them? And the they gave an example and then I went back to my child study team meetings that I have weekly and I said, "Why don't we try this? Let's see if this works." They they had a lot of success with it. let's try something to really flip how we're running our meetings and have more of that engagement so that it's not so procedural and that really then ties into parental involvement and making those meetings feel really um inclusive for for the student. >> All right, thank you. And the last question for you was the the partner for effective uh uh partnership to effectively resolve disputes. Now, how was Danella selected as one of the three in the state? So I asked that question to um the
099state representative and what the answer she gave was that the three districts that were selected it was ourselves Mount Olive and Englishman Manal Englishtown Manalapin. Um they evaluated other districts and looked at what as they called it the capacity to make change is how they defined it. Um I think that any district is going to have some level of dispute and litigation. Um so I do not think that that was the gauge that they were using. Um, I do think that it was based on um positive reputation and just knowing that we can enact change and also a willingness to want to do this. Um, I think that anytime you can acknowledge that there's work to do, there's work to do this. We are going to roll up our sleeves and we're going to listen
100to families and try to understand how can we resolve things. We're always going to have disputes. It's natural part of being a human, right? So, how can we effectively, collaboratively, respectfully dispute something? And going through the the the technical assistance and the training for it, I think is extremely appropriate for and we have a a young team. We have some veterans, but we also have a young team and I'm very excited um just about the training um for myself also. >> Thank you very much, doctor. >> Anyone else? >> Uh Mr. Pepe? I've got some questions for you. So, as you walk up to the microphone, can you highlight our capital reserve and how is it going to be utilized for needed uh plans? So, um the capital reserve was depleted pretty pretty low before
101this um presentation today where we're up to 8 million. Um so, it's been a focus since the day I came here. I've been working with Mr. our on um understanding how to generate money to increase our capital reserve. We clearly have effectively been able to do that. Um the one thing to understand is that was June 30th. In this current year with the new project, the preschool expansion project we have um if you remember that project is only partially funded by the state. So we have about three and a half 3.6 million dollars of our money that we need to put towards that. So that plus the debt service that we the money we pull from the capital reserve every year to pay the um portion of the debt service from the 2020 referendum uh
102is going to pull about four million of that right back out in this as of as we stand here there's four million less because we >> so so we're required to maintain at least the minimum for our district right >> there's not really a requirement it's just an understanding that um and Mr. talked about this that when you have things that come up when you need major capital improvements or or if you get to a point where you need to do expansion and build um where does that money come from? >> That's what I want to highlight for our constituents that we're preparing ourselves so that we don't have to go back out for a referendum. Right. >> We are >> at a point where we could be healthy for future planning for needed um
103expansion and things like that. Right. >> That's correct. And that's the goal of our budget every year is to generate money that can be put back into the capital reserve, which we've been successful for the past couple years. Um so that 8 million is going to go down to 40 million, but then in June, whatever we've been able to um save this year, we'll go back in and we'll we'll keep building it up. The idea is um there's not a a specified amount that you have to have, but in thinking of terms of like worst case scenario projects, you know, a major referendum, our last referendum was $23 million, right? So, if we had $23 million in capital reserve when we did that, we could have done the referendum just to get money from the
104state, but not increase taxes at all. And so the more that we have in the capital reserve when we need to spend it um we can then avoid taxing you know or asking the taxpayers for additional money to make those project projects happen. So that's our goal. >> Thank you. And so the last question for you is are we looking for some sort of self-service or automation to increase efficiencies in the areas that you were talking about like invoicing or some of the uh self-help uh or self-service kind of area? Um, no. And I think I'm very proud of the work we've done and I think that if we continue to take a proactive approach to this, it's really a manageable process inhouse. We kind of uh we kind of had a hole. We were
105in a hole when I got here. There were a lot of backlogged things that needed to get cleaned up and um it was a slow process and we started digging, digging, digging. And I have to really give kudos to the new staff we hired this year. Um, we went from a a slow cleanup process to it got cleaned in about five months and we're now in a position where we have very little. There's still things that pop up that we didn't know about. But for the most part, we now have a routine. Things come in, we get what we need, we process it, we move on. And so, um, yeah, I don't know that we need a system per se. Genesis or our our orify which is the Genesis product that we use for financial
106accounting uh has some really great tools that help us with that um filtering reporting um procedural things that we can generate emails to send out. So um I think I think we're doing very well with what we have right now. >> Thank [snorts] you very much Mr. Pepe. You're >> welcome. >> Mr. Pepe, before you step away just have one follow-up question. You mentioned uh uh paying off debt service. Are we paying any other debt service uh before 2020 or is that all are we clear to those? >> So generally speaking when you go to referendum which we did in 2012 and then again in I think the referendum was like 2019 right >> we sold the bonds in 2020. um when you go out for a referendum, the what you're asking the taxpayers to
107approve is number one that the projects are worthwhile so that the state will kick in their debt service aid which is typically approximately 40% of that. Um and number two that this that the local tax uh constituents will pay the remaining balance of the debt service. And in 2012 that's exactly what happened. So every year our local tax levy includes two parts, a general fund levy and a debt service levy. And the debt service levy is based on the schedule that was created when the bonds were sold in 2012. The 2019 referendum, the district, this is before I was here, but the way that it was presented to the public was the district promised that they would not levy the debt service to the taxpayers. So what we've been doing is every year we take
108a withdrawal from our capital reserve to pay what would have been taxed >> so that we're not increasing the taxes for that. So that was a creative way to get the project to move forward without having to increase taxes to the taxpayers. Um so the 2012 one we're still paying uh but we're getting that money from the state. the 2021 we're getting some money from the state and the balance we're paying out of capital reserve. >> Okay. Thank you for clarifying. >> Yep. >> Any other questions from the board members? >> All right. Oh, yes. Michelle, >> thank you all for taking the time to go through this and putting this together and explaining to us. I think it's very helpful to see that this is a process and also where we're at in the
109process and where our expectations should be going forward. So, thank you all for that. >> Thank you very much. Any other comments or questions, board members? Okay, I'll just thank my team once again. Um, and we will move on to the rest of the agenda. Okay, moving on to item 12 on the agenda. Uh, public comments on agenda action items to be voted on only. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that Okay, continue. All right. So, uh just bear with me. I have a couple of items for the superintendent report uh beyond the two presentations. Um first, I want to thank uh and welcome our new board member who is here and our new board member who will be joining us. Um Miss Moore, I know you've been to more board meetings than many of
110the board members have. Um and it's going to be interesting sitting on this side of the table. So, welcome. Congratulations. We look forward to your contributions. Um, this is national uh or New Jersey schoolboard recognition month. Um, the month of January. Um, New Jersey uh apparently has over 5,000 local schoolboard members, which is an incredibly high number, who devote countless hours with no compensation to the oversight and advancement of our children's education. Um they oversee 581 school districts which in turn operate nearly 200 public schools and uh provide educational services to uh nearly 1.4 million children in the state. Um so I just want to thank all of you for the time that you take to serve on the board. Um as a former board member myself I know the dedication that it takes. Um
111it is a somewhat thankless job um in some ways and then it is a very incredible job um because you get to set policy and oversee the work that's being done in the district. So thank you all for for your service as board members. Um just providing a construction update construction work um as board members know as favorite parents um community members are aware um the work over winter break was very successful. Um we did complete the asbestous abatement project. Um all of the details about that and the testing results, the full report were put online um last week. Uh wooden walls were constructed within the construction area to basically close off the area that will be worked on by the construction workers. Um and dayshift work is actually going to begin Thursday. Um the
112construction team took off uh yesterday, today, and tomorrow, right? um because they worked basically Christmas Eve, uh New Year's Eve, like they worked throughout the winter break to ensure that the project could get done for us. So, um we'll assess the noise, personnel, traffic flow, any other kinds of things as the project goes on, but we'll see how Thursday goes. Uh the staff members are aware, so I sent them kind of a heads up. Um and then obviously we're going to continue to uh conduct all of our air quality monitoring. We're also exploring other solutions. One of the things that I learned about for the first time in this project is uh negative air pressure um uh vents. And so this is the process that's used during the asbestous abatement. It's basically a giant fan
113that runs through a hepailter and then out the window um so that any dust or in this case asbestous material uh that might be in the air, any fibers get uh taken out of the building. Um and so we had a conversation about couldn't we just have something like this for regular construction dust. Um, and so we're looking into that. Nor Eastern, um, actually has their their own machine. We also may be purchasing our own. Uh, but in any case, that would help. Also, we think that the dust will be pretty controlled within the construction area with the wooden walls and plastic sheeting. Um, but you know, any steps that could uh improve the safety or continue uh to to sort of focus on that will be helpful. Uh as part of that uh as
114I mentioned last meeting we are also piloting a new visitor management system called visitor aware. Um this is the system that scans an ID takes a picture. It runs basically on an iPad um which is on a kiosk. You put your face in front of it. It takes your picture um and then you scan your ID the front and the back. Then it runs your information through a number of uh federal and state databases. uh national sex offender uh registry, government watch watch lists, uh active legal injunctions. Um and then once you've done that once, when you go back, it recognizes you. Um and then you don't have to do that again. So it says, "Oh, welcome back, Dan." It's called visitor aware. Um so we're going to be piloting this with our construction workers.
115Um and construction teams, they all have to go through the types of background checks that are required anyway. Um, but in this case, they will also uh at the end of the the the sort of ID process, it also prints out a little sticker with your picture and your name on it. And so this will uh be done with them as well. The construction workers are going to be wearing armbands, orange armbands that will have the their name on them uh as well. We figured that that was easier than the lanyards because it's, you know, they're they're doing manual work and, you know, people would probably tuck the lanyards in, etc. So they'll have the land the armbands they'll be visible orange uh to be able to be seen sort of on the cameras and
116all of that. Um some of the the construction team leads um our you know construction superintendent and other folks will also probably have uh the lanyards um and on Thursday Mr. Young uh will be there to help facilitate the process and ensure that all the construction workers that come on site um are scanned and identified properly. So exciting. You you know we were going to move in this direction anyway. Now we have the perfect use case for it. Um I mentioned uh just briefly the ENL midyear exit breakfast. This has been something that we've done for uh is this the second year? This is the third year. Um I might have to write a speech in Spanish again which would be uh I'll sort of fumble through. Um but uh on the 15th for the
117middle school and the high school and on the 27th for Faber. This is a just an incredible event. As I've talked about in the past, parents come, kids are uh kids have shown proficiency in the English language. And again, I think what I mentioned last time is there are parents crying um at this event because they're so happy that their children have learned the language, have demonstrated proficiency, and it's a real sign of kind of social um mobility or social potential um in a lot of ways. And so, um, we're very excited to to provide that support for them. Um, and the mid-year process also allows students to to spend less time out of the classroom and more time with their peers so they can continue to improve their uh, understanding of the English language.
118Um, I am, uh, also very proud of Miss Drapkin. Uh a couple days ago we received news that she along with um Melissa Van Ross who is our supervisor of early childhood education um and Allison Taminsky who is a middle school teacher um will be have been selected to present at the NJSA NJPSA women's leadership conference um in mid-Marchch. They're presenting alongside Evelyn Swift who's a principal um who's done a lot of professional development work for us. Um uh the session is called inside out leadership strengthening systems through empowered voices. Um and it explores how schools can cultivate sustainable growth and leadership by identifying the unique strengths of individuals within the organization. So it's it's really about kind of identifying the strengths within and how do you bring those voices to the top and then
119how do you really you know uh promote that more broadly within the organization. So very excited to see that presentation and congratulations to Miss Drapkin, uh Miss Van Ross, and Miss Taminsky. Yeah, [applause] we have uh uh an update on the the four grants. Uh as you know, um we the district received all four of the comp comprehensive literacy grants that were uh released from the state. Um and finally at this meeting, we actually get to accept them. We've we've known for about two months that we got the grants. Um, and we've been in the process of working uh already with the funds, but now we actually get to accept them from the state. And there's a uh technical assistance on the 15th for each of the grants. Just as a reminder, the coach grant
120is a five-year renewable $150,000 per year grant um that supports a K12 literacy coach. The impact grant is $100,000 to support the adoption of high-quality instructional materials um plus professional development which we're looking at uh in grades 9 through 12 through the learning leadership team uh literacy leadership team. The RISE grant is a $50,000 grant uh which is focused on intervention um primarily in grades 6 through 12. Um, we're going to be continuing professional development with arts and letters and other professional development as we've talked about with literac literacy supports um, in other content areas. And then the Lyft grant is a $40,000 family engagement grant uh, for families of zero to three year olds. So we've we've pushed now at universal prek. Um, so we have, you know, room and support for every three-year-old
121and four-year-old in the district or in the in the community. And now this is about pushing down even further to zero to three for early identification and support and reading materials and that kind of thing. That's going to be led by our uh community parent involvement specialist Beatatric Gimenez. So those four grants are moving forward um with uh board approval tonight and then the the support that we have on the 15th. Um the uh I wanted to just bring to the board's attention and to the public's attention that on Thursday it seems um it's anticipated that Governor Murphy is going to be signing a bill um that has now been approved by the Senate and the Assembly that will require the Commissioner of Education to develop statewide guidelines on the student use of cell phones
122and stu and social media for students in K in grades K12 during school hours on school buses and at school sanctioned events where students are under school supervision. So, there's been a lot of talk about this and actually when Tammy Murphy came to visit the school, she mentioned kind of this being as a a sort of a lame duck um uh maybe triumph or win for uh for for the governor's office. Um and obviously the legislators were very supportive of it um based on the votes. Um and again this is about the the governor the the legislature is looking to the department of education to develop these guidelines. So the guidelines have to be uh really community built. So there's got to be a lot of stakeholder stakeholder education. So there there will be outreach
123from each of the uh the associations NJPSA school boards um the board state board of education you know other groups. Um and the guidelines have to provide age appropriate and grade level differentiated guidelines um concerning limiting and prohibiting student use of cell phones and student social media platforms. Prohibit prohibit non-academic use of cell phone or social media during classroom instruction. Um be consistent with the state and federal law including accommodations provided in a student's IEP, educational plan, or student health plan. address permitting student use of cell phones in the case of emergency or in response to perceived threat of danger. Uh address smartphones, cell phones with only text or voice and other relevant devices including smartwatches. List options that may be used by a school district for cell phone storage including locked pouches and cell
124phone lockers. provide guidance to a for a school district to establish network-based restrictions to prevent the use of or access to social media platforms and detailed protocols for communicating the district's policy concerning student use of cell phones and social media platforms to students, their families and teaching staff members is an incredibly incredibly comprehensive list of things and probably every um superintendent IT person uh is a little bit worried about this business business manager. Um there are a lot of expenses associated with this. There's a tremendous amount of time and work associated with this. Um we don't know what the guidelines will be, but certainly the legislature has made a firm statement that of their beliefs. Um and we'll see what the commissioner comes out with. Um that's going to probably take 6 months or so.
125um that might be in effect during the next school year or it might get pushed to the following school year because everyone will be out of budget season and you know won't have purchased uh yonder pouches or cell phone lockers or wherever whatever it might be. Um this also requires the board of education to adopt a local policy consistent with the commissioner's guidelines that for us would come through uh Strauss Esme um and that would be very uh much in line with what the guidelines state. So, more on that as we get more information. Um, district school calendar. Uh, the goal again is to uh approve this at the end of January. Um, I wasn't able to do any work over winter break on it, but we'll talk about this early this month. We'll discuss
126it in committees. I will discuss it with the DEA and then we can discuss it again. If we can come to an agreement, if the board can come to an agreement in January, then we'll do that and otherwise we'll push it to February. Um, but certainly the feedback that was provided at the last meeting and the feedback we'll discuss during committees will be helpful as well. Um, and then the last thing I wanted to just mention is we're in a new year. Um, and one of the uh things that uh pieces of feedback that I've heard, and I think this is a a very good sort of conversation for the board just generally, is um the need for more board engagement with uh staff uh community staff member associations, let's say. Um the as we've
127moved away from as we've moved towards a much more structured board approach one of the things that I think has happened is that the line between where you are as a board member and uh where teachers are where the associations are right we try to keep that very tight because procedurally and from a policy perspective it has to be at the same time um there is a need for kind of continued engagement between the board and the associations. Um, and more than uh just every 3 years during negotiations process. And so one of the pieces of of feedback that I've heard quite quite a bit is that the associations would love to to have more engagement with the board um as a body um and board members as individuals, right? not to not to discuss
128particular issues, you know, and sort of circumvent uh formal processes, but more as represented members of the community um to really understand what's happening in the school district and not let other people uh represent what those folks are feeling. Um so this has been a a a good conversation that that I've I've had. I think it's a you know I had another discussion about it today and I think it is something that procedurally I think we have to figure out how exactly that works. Um but I I think that you know the there's a sort of the large scale procedural part of it which is going to figure we'll have to figure out some process for and maybe that's you know presidents uh vice president coming to committee meetings and you know interacting in small
129groups with board members um or something like that. But I think there's also the sort of the softer version of it which is you know when you're when you're involved as board members when you uh when you go to a school event um as a parent, right? You can be be there as a parent and take off the board hat for a moment and interact with folks. Stepping away recognizing again you're you're always you're always a board member still, right? But just that level of interaction I think is something that um that uh would would help kind of bridge some of the potential gaps in understanding and some of the perceptual things that that we've heard about. So this is a piece of feedback that that I'm sharing. I think it's a great idea. I
130think it's something to be conscious of because I think there's always the tendency to be my tendency is always to be very very tight in terms of the procedures and sometimes that might mean uh stepping away a little bit from the the human side or whatever it might be which is again the you know the a really good connected piece of it. So I'm sharing that feedback. Um and that's the end of my superintendent report. There's no enrollment report today. Next enrollment report and student report will be presented at the end of the month. And thank you, Miss Trakin and Dr. Santella. Have a wonderful evening. Get home safe. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ross. Moving on to um item number 12, public comments. >> Do have a clarification. >> Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> Yeah.
131Uh it was mentioned about the uh filtration of the um uh area uh where the construction is for the negative uh pressure. Just to clarify so that people understand what uh was said that the air um that the negative pressure ensures that the confined construction space doesn't allow any particles to escape outside of that space. Uh what it does is that the air that the fan pushes out of the school, remember it's going out of the school, is heavily filtered. So none of the particles does escape the the confined space. All that air in the confined space is then filtered, pushed and captured in a hepailter. So that any air that is pushed out is already cleaned of the particles. Just for clarification. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the other important part of
132that is that uh in an environment where there's no air circulation at all, particles would fall to the floor. Right. And what this allows is that when there are any airborne particles, it takes it it flushes it out through the hepailter and outside of the building so that it doesn't the hepailter captures it. >> The hepailter captures it, right? The air goes out through the building. Um and uh and that allows for that as well. Yeah. Thank you. >> Any other comments or clarifications or questions? Okay. Uh now moving along to item number 12, public comments. Agenda on agenda action items to be voted on only. Uh the board invites public comment from members of our community in accordance with board policy 0167 and agenda action on agenda action items to be voted on only.
133Public comment sections are intended to provide an opportunity for members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest. The board and the administration will take notes during the public comment but will not provide substantive responses to questions or concerns raised by individual speakers. If necessary, the superintendent may provide a brief response after the entire public comment period is completed. The board appreciates and welcomes feedback from the community, but is not at liberty to engage in a back and forth dialogue with members of the public during this portion of the meeting. Prior to making your public comment, please state your name and municipality. Please note that all statements must be directed to the presiding officer. Please come to the microphone at this time. If you would like to make comments on agenda
134action items to be voted on only. Prior to beginning your comment, please state the action item to be voted on that you would like to comment on. Last call. Okay. Moving on to um item number 13, board policy and operations reorganization. Uh looking for a motion to approve 13A through V is in Victor as a block. >> Motion to approve A through B as a block. >> Seconded. Open for questions or comments. >> I just want to um thank again Mr. Pepe for putting together this is the organization agenda. Um one of the notable items is item N which is the approval of the cooperative pricing systems. Um this is more options for us when we purchase things to get lower prices. Um and Mr. Pepe's been very proactive in finding uh new co-ops that
135we can take part in. So thank you for that. >> Any other questions? Any comments? I'll also just add um since we have our uh burough council representative here um item U and item T are both related to the district's partnership with the bureau. Um obviously the theou regarding um the DPD's live streaming video access was something we were able to put together last year um and set all the technology up to allow the patrol cars to have access in the case of a significant emergency. And then our shares shared services agreement for uh for for the SRO. Um as as board members, as you know, this has been a process we've been really going through to try to have a full team in place. And now with the district security coordinator coordinator and a
136guard and an SRO, I think we're in great place. Um and Sergeant Level's been phenomenal. So thank you. >> Any other comments, questions? Okay. Mr. Pepe, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Anderson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Condit, >> yes. [clears throat] >> Dr. Gendrono, >> yes. >> Mrs. Moore, >> yes. >> Mr. Sanoi, >> yes. >> Miss Shy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shep, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Wonderful. Moving on to item number 14. Uh, board action items under A for education. We do not have any action items there but under B for personnel uh we do. So looking for a uh motion and also we also have uh under C as well under operations. So looking for a motion to approve 14 B and C essentially. Um move to approve items 14
137B uh A through C. >> Second. >> Okay. Open for questions or comments. Um, I just have one correction to the information on the table for professional staff travel. Uh, which one is it? Number four. The date is actually at January 15th and not January 16th. So, we'll fix that in the minutes. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Mr. Mr. Pepe, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Anderson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Condit, >> yes. >> Dr. Gendrono, >> yes. >> Mrs. Moore, >> yes. >> Mr. Senoi, >> yes. >> Miss Shy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shep, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Wonderful. Moving on to item number 15, old business. Is there any old business from previous meetings that we'd like to bring back up or other items to discuss from
138previous meetings? >> Yes. Um, Mr. Go ahead. >> I am still not comfortable with uh even though we get this several days ahead with the personnel and operations and um what's the third one? and education being lumped together as a vote. I think it should still be separated. >> Thank you, Mr. Anson. Any other comments on that or anyone want to offer an opinion on that as well? Okay, moving on to item number 16, new business. Any new business that anyone would like to bring up? Last call. Okay. Uh moving on to item 17, president's remarks. Um um nothing more for me to add at this time. Um item number 18, public comments. Any issue, any topic. The the board invites public comment from members of our community in accordance with board policy 0167 on
139any issue or topic. Public comment sections are intended to provide an opportunity for members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest. The board administration will take notes during the public comment, but will not provide sub substantive responses to questions or concerns raised by individual speakers. If necessary, the superintendent may provide a brief response after the entire public comment period is completed. The board appreciates and welcomes feedback from the community, but is not at liberty to engage in a back and forth dialogue with members of the public during this portion of the meeting. Prior to making public comment, please state your name and municipality. Please note that all statements must be directed to the presiding officer. Please come to the microphone at this time if you'd like to make comments on
140any issue or any topic. Kakup resident of Dellin. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak again this evening. I would like to begin by sincerely thanking you for listening to the voices and concerns of the community members at the last board meeting. Your decision to postpone the vote of the superintendent's contract renewal did not go unnoticed. And I want to acknowledge that many in the community appreciated being heard. However, tonight I'm here to say that listening must now be followed by action. The community is watching closely to see whether this postponement was truly meant to allow time for reflection, investigation, and thoughtful consideration on whether or whether it was simply a pause, hoping that concerns would face with time. This is the moment for you as board members to demonstrate through your actions
141that you're taking the concerns raised on December 16th seriously. I would like to use my time to offer some concrete suggestions. I do not do this to sound arrogant or to overstep, but because I firmly believe that you owe it to this community to make an informed decision based on evidence, facts, and the li the lived experiences of those most impacted by your vote. It is clear that the superintendent has presented a strong list of accomplishment ones that understandably impressed each of you. He has done that again tonight when he did the presentation of the midyear goals. But I ask you this, how many of these accomplishments have been examined beyond what has been presented to you? How many of you have looked closely at the processes behind me them and more importantly at their
142actual results? By postponing the vote, you have given yourself the time to do exactly that. Before the next board meeting, I urge you to take the following actions to ensure that your decision is based on true data, not just well-prepared talking points. And again, you witnessed that today. We all did. First develop and administer service to staff, students and community focus on specific initiative that the superintendent frequently sites as successes such as the implementation and use of Lincoln and I ready. Survey the staff and older students not just on whether these tools exist, but on how they're being used, how effective they truly are, and what impact they're having on teaching and learning. Second, ask staff direct and specific questions. Not whether they feel supported by the administration, but whether they feel supported by the
143superintendent himself. Ask whether they feel empowered, if they feel included in decisionmaking process. Ask whether they feel they have professional independence when it comes to instructional choices and the electional materials. Again, we heard that from their voices today, from the central admin voices today during the presentation. Please, in the next two weeks, take the time to ask the staff if that is true. Third, I strongly encourage you to speak directly and in person with elementary teachers about the arts and letters program. Ask them about their experience with scripted lesson plans. ask ask whether they believe this approach truly benefits students. Fourth, seek honest feedback from both staff and students about supplemental programs such as the urban assembly or the instructional program. Ask if they're effective as or meaningful. I want to be very clear tonight.
144Your role as a board member is not to validate a narrative that has already been crafted for you. Your role as a board member is to verify it. And again, you do have the next two weeks to do that. As I conclude, I want to remind you that your vote should rely on evidence gathered from all stakeholders, not merely what you hear from the superintendent as many families, students, staff see a very different day-to-day reality. Finally, I remind you of this and I really have noticed over the last few months and maybe years that you all need to be reminded of this and this is probably one of the reason why I decided to also not be part of this board back in the year ago. The superintendent works for this board and ultimately for
145this community. The board does not work for him. I urge you to take this time wisely, ask the art question, seek the full truth, and make a decision that reflects the voices, experiences, and best interests of the entire district. Thanks for your attention. Have a good night. >> Thank you, Mr. Kek. >> Any other comments? Okay, last call. Okay. All right, then. So, we move on to item number 19, executive session. Um, so the Dell Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall within specific exceptions to the open public meetings acts 104-12B. Confidential matters discussed by the board during this executive session include items related uh to individual privacy, collective bargaining agreements, as well as personnel. Anything else we need to any other topics? Uh, individual privacy, collective bargaining
146agreements and personnel. Okay. And pending and anticipated litigation. Um, any discussion that does not need to remain confidential will be made public as soon as it's practical. Minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists. All individuals who may be discussed in executive session have been adequately notified. Action will not take place after the conclusion of the executive session. Okay. Um um um so under the exceptions I do want to add eight just in case. That's a attorney client privilege just in case we need to if the discussion goes in that direction be sure we're covered. Okay. Um still uh action will not take place after the conclusion of the executive session. Um so uh may I have a motion to move into executive session? >> Move
147to go to exact. >> Go to exec >> and second. >> You guys second. >> Okay. Um all those in favor >> I >> opposed. Okay. Um so for the public we will be adjourning from executive session after that. So I will uh we will see you next time. Our next meeting is 2 27th of January. Uh Tuesday night uh start time is 700 p.m. General session uh starts at 7:30ish. Um but we will see you then. So thanks everyone and uh see you then.