Dunellen Board of Education Meeting - 12/16/25

001to order. Good evening everyone. In accordance with open public meetings NJSA 104-6, 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 regular public meeting Tuesday, December 16, 2025 in the Lincoln Middle School Cafeterium, 400 Denellan Aav at 7:04 p.m. This meeting is broadcast live. For details, check www.danellonsschools.org. Moving on to item number two on the agenda, uh, which is the roll call. Mr. Pepe, could you please call the role? >> Mr. Anderson, >> present. Mrs. Condit, >> present. >> Ms. Ibeck, >> present. >> Dr. Gendero, >> present. >> Mrs. Howard, >> present. >> Mr. Senoi, >> present. >> Miss Shy, >> present. >> Mrs.

002Shep, >> present. >> Mr. Walker, >> here. >> We have quorum. Fantastic. Moving on to item number three. Uh, executive session. The Denellan Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall within the specific exceptions to the Open Public Meetings Act CJSA 104-12B. The confidential matters discussed by the board during this executive session include items related to individual privacy, collective bargaining agreements, and personnel. Any discussion that does not need to remain confidential will be made public as soon as it is 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 take place after the conclusion of the executive session. So may I have a motion to move

003into the executive please? >> Move to go to exe. >> Second. >> All those in favor I >> opposed. Okay. We will be back in about uh 30 minutes. Okay, we are back. Hello everyone. So, moving on to sorry little closer here. Moving on to >> Yes. >> So, before moving on to our next agenda item, uh looking for a motion to return to public. >> Move to return to public. Second. Second. All those in favor? >> I I >> opposed. Okay. Now we move on to um item number four on the agenda, the pledge of allegiance and moment of silence. Please stand. Flag is there. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice

004for all. Will you all please remain standing for a moment of reflection and respect for our troops serving 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. Moving along to item number five, uh, student recognition. I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Ross. Thank you, Dr. Jendano. Thank you all, uh, families, wonderful students, and, uh, the many parents that are here. We're very excited. The student recognition is something we started uh a bit ago and each month we recognize students at each of the grade levels who have made a positive contribution to the school community and their classroom and to their peers. We have our administrators with us here today uh who will speak on behalf

005of each of the schools. And this is a big photo op opportunity. And so um we'll sort of explain we're going to bring out the um the step and repeat and uh each of the administrators will come up and the kids that are being recognized will come up. They'll hold their certificates and then we'll take a brief moment. Parents, you can stand up, come into the hall into the aisle. Um you know, whatever advantage you want to get a good a good photo. Um and then at the end of all of our recognitions today, we'll provide about a 10-minute break um where you can take pictures. um with uh the step and repeat which is two-sided and you know all the different family configurations etc. So welcome thank you so much for being here and

006we will start with Dan Allen High School and I'll bring up uh Mr. Lynch. All right. Good evening. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for coming this evening. Uh, it's our privilege to announce our students of the month, grades 9 through 12. Our first student of the month in grade nine, Alex Cruz. Congratulations. You can stand right over here. Alex has had a great transition to the high school here and to Denellan come to coming to us from Planefield. And talking to his teachers, they've been overjoyed with him. Uh he's such a kind individual, works hard in his classes. He's gotten fantastic grades so far. So we're very happy to have him here with us in Denellan. And our ninth grade student of the month, Alex Cruz. our 10th grade student month, Alyssa Foy. >>

007Congratulations. >> Alyssa, a great student to have here at the high school as well. She's very heavily involved in the drama club which has been fantastic and she's worked very hard with the technical crew and she is going to be the main person hopefully next year with the uh lighting crew. So, she's getting trained now and will be transitioning and taking over. And it's been a joy to have her and get to know her. And it's also been a joy to get to know her mom one day because somehow Alyssa lost that phone in school and we were looking all over. So mom was more than happy to have her ultimately find that phone again. So that was my first big experience. So uh 10th grade student of the month, Alyssa Foy. Our 11th grade

008student of the month, Lydia Salgado Fernandez. >> What can I say about Lydia? She's been a outstanding student here at the high school. She has grown immensely over the last few years. uh teachers speak very highly of her. Uh she had a tough act to follow with her older brother when he graduated here at the high school. And I know she doesn't always like those comparisons. Uh but she's been great here. She was a c a crucial member of the uh coach Johnson soccer team this past year that had 10 wins. So uh we're looking forward to her returning next year with the soccer and as a senior next year. and our 11th grade student of the month, Lydia Salgado Fernandez. And our 12th grade student of the month, uh, he's a great individual and

009I just really like saying his name, Johnny Espinosa Sanchez. another fantastic individual who had a lot to uh live up to with his older sister graduating here at the high school. Uh he's a fantastic student, gets incredible grades. He's a member of the tennis team and always every day one of the best dressed students here at the high school and he's always got a smile on his face which we're always appreciative of. So, our uh 11th our 12th grade student of the month, Johnny Espinosa. Congratulations. >> Feel free to stand uple. All right. Thank you, Mr. Lynch. Next, we're going to bring up Mr. Tobin from Lincoln Middle School. This is all very loud. If I do this, All right, good evening everyone. Nice to see everyone out here to celebrate our students of the

010month for this past month. Uh it looks like all our students are here, which is also great news. First, we will start with our sixth grade student of the month. If you can come up, Oliver Ramirez. So, our teachers are always in charge during their team meetings in putting together a synopsis of what qualifies this student as a student of the month. So, for Oliver, the teachers commented that he always completes all of his assignments. He volunteers regularly in the classroom to help out. He's also very helpful with his fellow classmates. Uh he's understanding of the concepts and works hard to do so. He completes his work with enthusiasm. Uh and he follows directions and is respectful of the rules. All right. So congratulation again to Oliver Ramirez for sixth grade student of the month.

011Our grade seven student of the month is Eileene Paucar Carrera. All right. Eileen's teacher says that she puts 100% effort into all of her work. She's very conscientious about the quality of the work she turns in, which is evident during class. Eileen made the honor role for the first marking period. She is polite and respectful to her peers and her teachers and always has a positive attitude in class and is willing to work with others. Again, congratulations to our seventh grade student of the month, Eileen Powver. Congratulations. And our eighth grade student of the month is Celeste Gomez Bonia. Celeste teachers commented that she is respectful, motivated to learn, eager to help others. She consistently shows her work, writes neatly, and sets a strong example for her peers each day. Celeste shows interest and enthusiasm

012in her classes, takes pride in her work, and always does her best. She's a leader within her group, always working hard to make sure everyone is successful. She advocates for herself and her academics and is respectful and friendly to all. Again, congratulations to Celeste's eighth grade student of the month. And congratulations to all three. Again, feel free to come up to the front, grab a picture. Perfect. All right. And last, but certainly not least, I'd like to invite Mr. Mr. Tenant up to talk about our Faber students of the month. Mr. Tenant, >> baby talking about controlled coming up here for student of the month. Gonna love that. >> Good evening everybody. Thank you for coming out for student of the month at Faber School. Very excited to celebrate the students effort and everything they've

013done to make Faber a great place. Our first student up is prek Amy Zang. Amy, come on up. Amy >> Amy, I know. Stay right there. Hold that up. Perfect. Amy is Mrs. Keane's class and Amy's uh Mrs. Keane says, "She has grown so much since she began with her last year. She's now one of the students who others look up to to seek guidance from. She's becoming so independent and is very bright. We are so proud of her in our classroom. Clap it up." Next up in kindergarten, Joanne Jojo Robinson. Come on up. Stay right here. Joanne Robinson is an excellent choice for student of the month because she's consistently shows kindness, effort, and a positive attitude in a classroom. Jojo is always ready to learn, follow directions, and sets up a wonderful example

014for her classmates. Her enthusiasm for learning, and respect for others makes our classroom a better place. Clap it up for Jojo Robinson, please. Next up in first grade Lucia Coransza mates when they need it. She is a very helpful and kind student and is a pleasure to have her in class. Clap it up for Lucia, please. For second grade, we have Christian Carter Walker. There he is with the Eagles jersey on. Congrats, Christian. Well done. >> Christian Carter Walker is a leader in the classroom. He is a hardworking and motivated student who is eager to help everyone that is in need. He is always kind and respectful. He makes great choices even when those around him make it difficult. He is extremely empathetic and and very mindful of how his actions can affect others. Overall,

015an exceptional student and a pleasure to have in our class. Christian Carter Walker, Miss Balado's class. Third grade, we have two students of the month. First, we have Amy Oido Garcia. Amy, Amy, stand there. Amy is one of those students who truly brightens our classroom the moment she walks in. Her kindness, positivity, and gentle spirit are felt by everyone around her. She is endlessly helpful, beautifully organized, and ask the most awful questions to show how much she cares about learning. Amy's heart, curiosity, and steady reliability make her the student who deeply deserves this recognition. Clap it up for Amy. Our next student of the month for third grade is Simon Moore. Where's Simon? Well done. >> Simon always comes to school ready to learn each day and does his best in everything. He loves to

016help his friends and teachers with tasks around the room and always has a positive attitude. He loves to learn. Congratulations, Simon. Clap it up for Simon. Fourth grade, Henrik Duda. Henrik, come on up. Henrik's extraordinary student. Beyond maintaining a perfect homework completion rate, which I never did, and the vocabulary test average 100%, again, something I never did. He brings enthusiasm and curiosity every day. He is self-motivated student with endless interest. Not limited to but including geography, morphology, Egyptology, and poetry. Wow, that's impressive. He has the true soul of a detective or puzzle master, making fascinating discoveries and solving every challenge his teacher attempts to throw at him. Beyond academics, Henry is all around reliable person who is kind to everybody. He's the first one to tidy the classroom, help a friend, and a true true

017role model, a bright light, and a genius and a wonderful friend. Clap it up for Henrik. Great job, Henrik. Fifth grade, Sophia Garcia Martinez. Sophia, congrats, Sophia. Sophia is incredibly well-rounded student, one who's dedicated to her studies and is also confident in herself. She's an absolute delight to have in class, always taking time to help her teachers and fellow students. She is kind and friendly to everyone and models what it means to be a good student each and every day. So lucky to have her in class. Thank you for the two years in a row. Sophia, clap it up. And our last student of the month, Adella Justinto Morales. Adella. Thank you. The special area teachers are pleased toward Adella as a student of the month. Adele's a cheerful presence in the classroom. She works

018well with others and always willing to help lend a helping hand. She's eager to learn and engage with subject materials. Her strong performance across the highlights strong performance across grade levels and highlights the understanding and capability making her a valuable member of the classroom community. Adella has a wonderful sense of curiosity and truly enriches her learning experience. Her eagerness to explore new topics and ask questions shows her enthusiasm for learning. Congratulations, Adella. Good job, Della community. Clap it up for favorite students of the month. Come on up for pictures. All right. So, if everyone would just uh sit tight for one second. Typically, after the student recognition, we would uh take a a pause for photos. We're going to do that. Um, but we also have a very special uh event tonight. We have two

019board members that we're honoring for their service. This is the last meeting that they'll be serving. So, we're going to honor them and then we'll stop for everybody. Lots of pictures and and all of that. So, uh Dr. Gendrono read the resolution. >> Okay, you got it. >> Okay. So, uh just so you we are at agenda item six, the first resolution A. So be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Denellan Board of Education recognizes and thanks Lisa Howard for her service to the Denellan Board of Education and the Denellan School community. Whereas Lisa Howard has always been mindful of the interest of the Denellan Board of Education and has worked tirelessly to advance the quality of our school. And whereas Lisa Howard has faithfully and with honor, integrity, and great distinction

020served the Denellan Board of Education as a board member for the last nine years. be resolved that the Denellan Board of Education formally acknowledges and extends its profound appreciation to Lisa Howard for her service and dedication to the Denellan Board of Education. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And then we'll have words. >> And then uh moving on to B. Be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Denellan Board of Education recognizes and thanks Dave Walker for his service to the Denellan Board of Education and the Denellan School community. Whereas Dave Walker has always been mindful of the interest of the Denellan Board of Education and has worked tirelessly to advance the quality of our school. And whereas Dave Walker has faithfully and with honor, integrity, and great distinction served the Denellan Board of Education

021as a board member for the last four years. Be it resolved that the Denellan Board of Education formally acknowledges and extends its profound appreciation to Dave Walker for his service and dedication to the Denellan Board of Education. the first and the second. >> Okay, so these are uh motions. So looking for a first and a second to approve uh six A and B as a block. And if we if I don't mind uh maybe Mr. Walker and Mrs. Howard first and second Oh. Oh, they're conflicted. Uh >> yeah, we can't. >> Okay, fine. All right, then. First and second. May I have a motion, please? >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> Open for questions or comments? >> Forget the questions. Uh comments. >> I'd like to thank you both for your service and guidance

022in my first year of serving the board. Appreciate all of your help. Thank you. I don't think um anybody who hasn't sat in this seat could possibly understand what nine and four years respectively can look like serving the board. uh you both have bought a tremendous amount of guidance and expertise uh from your respective areas in your profession and I think that has tremendously supported the board in just guiding us and offering us different points of view. So thank you both. We'll miss you >> Dave. We go back to when I was coaching a daughter in soccer as a little one and now uh you've actually given me there's been many times where I called and ask for guidance on things I didn't understand and you've always been patient and explained it. Lisa, go back

023to Princeton that long weekend. We've been on the board for almost the exact same amount of time. Um, I wish you guys the best. >> Sure. So, Mr. Walker, Dave, we met four years ago. Um, and I think we were in what was it? Uh, one of the science rooms in the back. And, um, I know we've had a we've had a a wonderful four years. and I've honestly loved debating issues with you. Um, I know that we don't necessarily uh land on some of the same topics and that's perfectly fine and that's perfectly awesome because it provides different perspectives that I I know I didn't see and I hope I shared somes that you didn't see and we came to a really great discussion doing that and it reinforces to me the fact that

024we can have great civil discussions and not necessarily be agreeing on these things but still walk away as friends and have, you know and and continue our conversations and learn from each other. And for that, Mr. Walker, Dave, um I am very appreciative. I'm very happy for you. Uh I thank you for the time that you spent on the board. I thank you for making me a better board member and uh I will I will certainly miss you. >> And Mrs. Howard, Lisa, uh we go back to the Denellan rugby days. >> Yes, >> that's right. where our where our kids were uh throwing that uh what's it called? The rugby ball. >> The ball. Okay. Around and that's when we first met. And but I I wasn't a board member yet, but I think

025you were at that time. And um I I appreciated the the words of encouragement from from you and and also Mr. Anderson at the time to join. Um I think the I think you said, "Yeah, it's only going to be a 45minute meeting." Or was it was it Mr. Anderson? I don't know. >> Yeah, it's only going to be a 45minute meeting. It'll be it'll be nothing. It'll be okay. You'll be cool. Um and I I went in, you know, knowing um you uh had the confidence in me to move for into this role. um I took it and I have grown immensely um from our conversations, from the work that we've done together and we've been through a lot of sticky things here um in this in this on this board. Um thank you

026for for for being you and helping me be better. I I'm I'm I should have written this down and I'm sorry that I did because I have a tendency to mumble, but um I wish you best in whatever what your next chapter is. Um I'm sure I'll see you around the town. And uh please don't be a stranger. And that goes for you too, Mr. Walker. You know, would love to hear you on the other side of the microphone if that's all right. >> So, you can't make any promises. >> No promises. Okay. Um, I'm just going to I'll I'll add uh for those of you that don't know, I'm I'm very proud that there's such a big audience for this um occasion because um to serve nine members as an elected board member, unpaid

027volunteer um continually giving of your time and your energy and knowing that when you go to the grocery store, someone's going to ask you a question about the schools or when you're at the soccer game, someone's going to ask you about the schools or or something of that sort. Um it really is tremendous. Um, four years is certainly uh no no easy shake either. Um, but uh Dave Walker and Lisa Howard have been tremendous leaders on the board. Um, Dave has been the chair of the facilities committee. Um, for those of you that don't know, Dave is a director of facilities in uh, uh, uh, Springfield um, Township and um, he brings to the board a tremendous expertise in buildings and grounds and everything that's related to that. Um he has been just an incredible

028wealth of knowledge and he's also led many of the negotiations uh processes that the board has undertaken. Um and uh Lisa has uh has been the chair of the education committee for many years. Lisa is a a world language ESL supervisor. Um and she has a very forwardthinking vision for what education is and can be. Um and she has been a real uh champion of the work that we've been able to do. um since I arrived in 2022. Um and it's certainly not without uh without both of their supports that where that we are where we are now. Um so I'm very grateful to both of you. I wish you the best in your retirement from the board. Um I know there's a lot a lot else going on in your lives. Um but there's

029no there's no pension. >> There's no pension. Thank you to your families and and obviously thank you to the families that are here um celebrating them and um and allowing them to have spent so much of their time away um you know in service of of the kids and the staff of Denellan public schools. So, if we could give them a huge round of applause, PLEASE. >> OKAY, last call for comments. All right, Mr. Pepe, can you please call the role? Oh, okay. >> You want me to call? >> Yes, please. Please call the role on the motion. >> Okay. >> Accepting the the um >> recognition. >> The recognition. Thank you. >> Right. So, a yes vote means you recognize these board members and a no vote means you don't recognize them. >> I

030don't know who this is. >> Uh Mr. Anderson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Condit, >> yes. >> Ms. Ibeck. Yes, >> Dr. Gendrono. >> Thousand times. Yes. You're only allowed one vote. >> Oh, Mrs. Howard. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sinoi. >> Yes. >> Miss Shyf. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shep. >> Yes. >> Mr. Walker. >> Yes. >> The board does recognize itself. Very nice. >> All right. At this point, we're going to take about a 10-minute break. We're going to pull the um step and repeat out to the middle. Parents, students, thank you. students, congratulations on the amazing recognition that you received. Parents, thank you for being here. Um, take some pictures, take some photos, and uh, we'll see you next time. Thank you. >> Thank you. which is the appointment of student representative. So, let

031me go ahead and read this um resolution out loud. Be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Denelan Board of Education approves Lisa Marie Nves to serve as the student representative to the board of education for the 2025 to school year. Uh, may I have a motion, please? Welcome. Now your speech. No, just kidding. Okay. So, uh, moving on to item number eight, president remarks. Uh before I begin my remarks, I will uh yield the floor to our student representatives uh for them to give their reports. So uh I'm not sure who is going to go first. >> Go first. >> Queen's going to go first. The floor is yours. >> Good evening everyone. Um I have the following updates for Lincoln Middle School and favorite elementary school coming from Mr. Tennant and

032Mr. Tobin. Um, according to the LMS principal, the school has recently had a lot of successful events and academic capability. On December 2nd, 137 students were recognized at the honor roll assembly with strong family attendance. The PTO also hosted the winter dance on December 5th, which gave students a chance to enjoy food, music, and spend a lot of time together. The choir and magical also performed well at their concert on December 11th. The principal also shared that classrooms in math and ELA have been updated with roundts and stools to better support small groupoup instruction. Miss Deianne visited LMS for the second time to work with teachers on effective small groupoup strategies. Students are also continuing to engage in hands-on learning, including a grade 8 physical science lab where students made ice cream from scratch. In

033addition, LMS staff are focusing on inclusion and student voice. School representatives met with Faber School and the New Jersey Inclusion Project to plan ways to provide a more inclusive learning environment. Teachers met after school on December 8th to continue developing professional learning communities aimed at improving student performance. The student voice group also met again and discussed incentives, group work, and school policies such as the dress code. Students were also offered incentives for completing I Ready lessons with rewards including gift cards and a chance to earn a special lunch. Overall, these updates show that LMS is continuing to focus on academic growth and student engagement. Looking ahead, the LMS band will perform at the winter concert on December 18th. In in January, NJ4S will present programs on anti-bullying, violence prevention, and stress anxiety management for students

034with parent session scheduled later in the month. As for Faber, the principal shared that on Wednesday evening, December 10th, the fourth and fifth grade band and choir delivered an impressive winter concert. Mr. Guyger and Mrs. Ferguson led a very successful performance and the students did an excellent job. It was also shared that on December 15th, the environmental student advisory group will be meeting via Zoom with Ruckers University to discuss the progress, success, and student experiences with the school's a aquaponics and hydroponic systems. In addition, Faber has partnered with bright and beautiful therapy dogs. According to the principal, the therapy dog team support students by providing comfort, companionship, and emotional support. This week, the the therapy dog Flockcore will be visiting classrooms at Faber. The principal also noted that on December 16th, kindergarten students will be

035taking their annual trip to DHS to watch the Polar Express. Students will be leaving Faber at 8:30 a.m. Overall, these updates highlight continued student engagement through arts, hands-on learning, and social emotional support. Thank you. Um, good evening everybody. I'm here to report the high school's um, extracurriculars. So, in the past month, the drama club had had a very outstanding show, Hamlet. Um, it was very successful. Uh, the National Honor Society induction ceremony also occurred. Uh, and so so did the National Art Honor Society induction ceremony. The choir concert I was informed that it was one of the most in uh unified performances yet. So very great. Um the magicals are also h had already had one runout concert uh to the non hotel and they are planning to have two more coming up uh the

03618th and 19th to the Rotary and for the Denellan seniors. Um the drama club also host hosted a uh movie night to fundra for their club. Winter sports have already started up. Uh boys wrestling, basketball and track club photos and senior slants have been completed for the yearbook. Uh breakfast with Santa was a successful uh community service uh event that happened this past Sunday. Spirit week is currently happening. They're getting the students riled up for winter break. Um, band concerts have also occurred today. We just had our bilingualism tests, so hopefully we can get some students that are sealed in bilingualism for their diplomas. A lot of seniors. Um, Miss Toad is happening this Friday. Uh, in school concerts will be happening uh during the half day right before break and so will Oixo. and

037basketball cheer, a new program that is occurring, uh a new club is being um there's a lot of excitement surrounding it and their first uh production will be during the 22nd. Thank you. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Let them say we're gonna let them go. Sure. >> All right. We're going to we're going to let our student reps go uh just as it gets late in the evening. Thank you very much to both of you. Wonderful updates as always and Lisa Marie will see you back next year. >> Queen as well. >> Thank you both. Okay, moving along to uh item number eight. president's remarks or we're continuing on I should say item number eight president's remarks. So I do have a few to speak uh about tonight. So good evening everyone. Welcome to

038uh December 16th the Nelan Board of Education meeting. This will be our last scheduled meeting for 2025. The next time we will meet again will be at our reorganization meeting on Tuesday uh January 6th right here in the LMS cafeterium. Please join us as we will be swearing in one reelected board member and two newly elected board members. For those joining us here for the first time, the Denellan Board of Education is the governing body of the school district. We donate our time out of a deep compassion for our students. We are parents and community members just like you and work to make decisions based on what we believe will best help all of our students be successful. The board meets once per month here in the LMS cafeterium for a public meeting that covers

039school district updates, an update from our student representatives, like we just saw, student recognitions like we had just witnessed, important presentations, and school district business that keeps our schools running well. The full agendas of our meetings are posted the Friday afternoon prior to the board meeting on the Denellan School District website along with past agendas and attachments. I invite you to join us in our monthly discussion. But if you are not able to join in person as life does get busy, you can catch the streamed meeting either live in real time wherever you are or in playback afterwards on your personal device when you're able. As always, the meeting agendas and approved minutes are archived on the district website at www.danellinschools.org so that you can review them at your leisure. So, I would like uh

040to underscore uh how proud we are of our students who are recognized this evening. Um, congratulations to them on their great accomplishments and I've also like to underscore uh thank you again and farewell for uh Mr. Walker and Mrs. Howard and for the wonderful service that you guys have done for the community. I'm deeply indebted to you. a couple notable meetings and I think some of these were already covered but a couple to mention that were not um since our last meeting on on November 18th. On November 19th there was the title one stakeholders meeting for state favor school. Um, and this is important as this allows Title One money to be used not just force certain groups within the school, but across the entire schools, meaning that all students are able then now to

041benefit from the monies that are uh in those title one funds. Um, and that has been actually it's the first meeting of the year. However, I think it's been going on for like at least two years now, something like that. Um on November 24th, the Title One stakeholders meeting for Lincoln Middle School occurred. Um and then on December 2nd, the Title One stakeholders meeting for Donellan High School uh occurred. So um as we move forward, uh this allows us to open up funds for all of the diff all the kids in all of the schools. Um, I did have the uh opportunity to uh to participate and be part of uh other events such as the DHS fall sports awards on November 20th. There was also the National Honor Society induction ceremony on 19th of

042November. There was a TCJ honors chorus and honors wind ensemble on the 23rd of November. That was at uh the College of New Jersey. There was the DHS honor role assembly that occurred on the 25th of November. The Lincoln Middle School Honoral Assembly recognition on December the 2nd, the National Honors, the National Art Honors Society inductions on December 3rd, the Lincoln Middle School Winter Wonderland Dance that occurred on December 5th, the Faber Winter Band and Choir concert on December 10th. Um, the DHS and LMS winter choir concert was on December 11th. And we have our DHS and LMS winter band concert coming up this Thursday. As I mentioned, I had the privilege to attend most of these events and I'm so very proud of our students and a great big kudos to all of our

043teachers, staff, administrators, parents, friends, to everyone who made these men these events tremendously successful. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Staying healthy, healthy kids means healthy schools, which means a healthy community. Bottom line, we encourage you to take the common sense, proven precautions like washing hands well, covering up when sneezing, keeping sick kids home, keeping current with vaccinations to minimize the spread of bacteria and viruses that can really impact our school year. As I do uh at every um board meeting, I mention monthly celebrations. In December, we're celebrating uh the universal human rights month. On December 2nd, we celebrated international the international day for the abolition um of slavery. On December 3rd, we celebrated the international day of persons with disabilities. Uh this this Thursday, December 18th, we'll be celebrating International Migrants Day. And on

044December 20th, we be celebrating International Human Solidarity Day. I mentioned these monthly celebrations to underscore how important diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are to our lives and the world around us. With diversity, we're able to welcome and appreciate different views and perspectives and how that makes our lives richer and stronger. Equity is important so we are all playing on the same field by the same rules. Inclusion is key. So there is equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone. And with belonging, you feel you are part of something, a group, a community where you are accepted, valued, and comfortable. You fit in and are an important part of the whole. These things have an unbelievable impact on our community, especially our kids. Open, honest, and genuine communication that is respectful, positive, supportive, fair, and most

045of all, kind goes a long way in strengthening a community. With that said, I'm going to pivot to address the 800 lb gorilla in the room. The board is voting on the renewal of Superintendent Ross' contract this evening. And as required by NJ Law, there is a public comment section for you, the public, to comment on the superintendent's contract renewal. I understand from a petition recently circulated on social media that there is a recommendation for the board to not renew Miss Superintendent Ross' contract based on quote consistent repeated and corroborated complaints across families. The petition quote reflects district-wide concerns including lack of transparency and lastminute decision-making, unsafe planning around asbestos abatement, discipline failures and unchecked bullying, absence of effective instructional systems, systemic denial of special education services, disregard for private evaluations, failure to implement evidence-based

046litery, Y and numeracy programs, poor nutrition quality despite shared vendors with neighboring districts, and inadequate special education facilities at the secondary level, just to name a few. With the outcome goal of this petition to quote, restore lawful, effective, student centered leadership focused on literacy, numeracy, safety, and compliance. I don't typically make it a habit to comment on social media or even comment on social media um because the the the real work has to be done here in the boardroom. What struck me most about this petition were the gross inaccuracies, the misrepresentations, the strategic omissions of information, and frankly the vague and rather misguided accusations. Indeed, there are some good discussion points that we as a collective partnership between parent, community, and school district should and will explore further. But this petition to me reads more

047like a deliberate character assassination than a sharing of concerns or complaints. The melodramatic hyperbolic nature of a petition which manipulates and represents information that is driven by an anonymous poster on social media which by the way we all know is reality, right? Presents as suspicious and bring brings into mind malicious intent masked as legitimate concern to lure unsuspecting parents and community members to join. Indeed, there are concerns that parents and community members have about a variety of issues in the district as we all have different perspectives. However, we do meet here as a board every month, occasionally, more often than that, to hear comments and concerns from parents and community members as a standard and beneficial part of the board meetings. And in between those board meetings, board members, the superintendent, administrators, and teachers are

048accessible and willing to discuss concerns, compiling a litany of accusations into what appears to be an AI generated petition only presented at the meeting when the superintendent's contract is being voted on and not during any other meetings or through many of the other opportunities to expressed concern is also highly suspicious and begs the question of whether there is a hidden agenda by the anonymous poster or others that unsuspecting petitioners who have signed the petition may not be aware of. Please consider that before jumping into each allegation. Let's clarify a few points that were incorrectly stated or misrepresented. Number one, the new superintendent contract starts at 205K, not 250K with 3% increases every year. I am convinced the 250K initially noted as a typo in the social media post was meant to incite and inflame parents.

049Two, the claim that Mr. Ross would be getting a $20,000 raise is egregious. and patently false again aimed to incite and inflame. The reality is Mr. Ross started in Denellan in 2022 at a salary of $180,000 with a 3% with 3% increases every year. His salary today is about $197,000. A new contract starting at 205,000 is an $8,000 increase or roughly about a 4% increase. This is well within increases that other superintendent in New Jersey uh see. Number three, to put into context a $25,000 salary for a superintendent in New Jersey, in case you weren't aware, among 32 school districts across the state of New Jersey with similar town characteristics and student, including student size, in 2024, which is the last year of available data from the New Jersey Department of Education, the average superintendent

050salary was $216,000. and with a median salary of $215,000. The lowest salary of those 32 school uh similar school districts was $180.5,000 with the highest salary reaching up to $260,000. And in our neighboring Middle Sex School District, their superintendent made $215.5,000. 20 215 $500,000 last year. This is all publicly available information. Remember, these are last year's numbers and they only go up from there. The $25,000 salary we are talking about would then be, just to put it into context, the bottom third, the bottom third of superintendent salaries among those 32 school districts with si similar characteristics. I wanted to be sure we were all working with the same facts as we move along in our discussion because facts are important. So, let's get into the accusations. Please be aware I'm going to try to keep

051these as succinct as possible as there are a number of items on the agenda board agenda requiring attention and this is only one item and a good deal of board business will still need to be completed before this evening concludes number one we spoke of or mentioned lack of transparency and last minute decision-m with a recent start of construction at favorit to support the free universal prek for all eligible denel and students. There were some shifting timelines being negotiated between the district and the contractor due to the lack of clarity from the new New Jersey Department of Education on dispersement of funds to support the project. Communications could have been smoother, but that information was shared as soon as it could have been shared. Superintendent Ross understands that more heads up would be helpful for

052the community and has taken steps to ensure this will take place. Please note that it was Superintendent Ross who slowed the contractor down by not agreeing to allow them agreeing not to allow them to access the cafeteria prior to winter break. Superintendent Ross insisted and Mr. Pepe, our business administrator, communicated to the contractors that they need to provide at least one week's notice moving forward for any new tasks that would impact students, staff, or the community. Please also note the universal prek construction tab that was added to the denellonschools.org org website which answers frequently asked questions, shares all of the construction all of the construction updates and also provides all of the construction documents in case you are interested in the details of the construction project. That's all there. Please also note on district happenings

053as well as school building happenings are communicated weekly every Friday. Every Friday in Mr. Ross's at the helm recurring newsletters as well as in weekly building newsletters shared by building principles at Superintendent Ross' direction all through parent square which superintendent Ross just so you know brought to Denellan over a year ago to facilitate and ease communications to the public. I strongly encourage you as parents and community members to take advantage of the plethora of communications available at your fingertips and to not hesitate to reach out to the schools or central office if you have any questions. We are open to discuss. As for the accusation of lack of transparency, all of the work the superintendent does is manifested in the agendas and minutes from all of these board meetings dating back to when he first

054started in Denellan in 2022. To put it into context, before Superintendent Ross came to Denellan, bimonthly meeting agendas were 10 pages or less with details and board meetings uh with little sorry with little details in board meetings running for I don't know 45 minutes to maybe an hour tops. This is in sharp contrast to current board meetings where we are lucky if we finish within three hours as agendas are routinely over a 100 pages. In fact, if you want to take a look, tonight's complete agenda is 143 pages, 11 pages for the agenda items that we're going through and 132 pages for all of the accompanying details and supporting documents. This is all available to the public all the time. We have had agendas that have exceeded 1,000 pages because there was a lot to

055discuss. And yes, I read them all as I do every agenda. In fact, on the website, you can go back to 2019, even before Mr. Ross started in Denellan, and see the stark contrast in communication and transparency. These are facts that you can easily validate validate at your leisure, not conjecture, facts. And please, I encourage you to do so. Number two, unsafe planning around asbestos abatement. Of course, the word asbestos, especially in the context of schools, is unnerving. Indeed, timelines for asbestos abatement in the Faber construction project did shift, but the safety and well-being of the kids and staff in the building has always been and always will be paramount. Not only is the contractor doing the work, monitoring air quality during construction, Superintendent Ross and his and his team hired an independent third-party contractor

056completely separate from the northeastern contractor to monitor and provide oversight on air quality and safety with regard to asbestos abatement and constructions. And to answer the question that you already have in your head, no kids will not be in the building when asbestous abatement will be worked on over the winter holiday. Number three, discipline failures and unchecked bullying. Fortunately, oh sorry, unfortunately, bullying in Denellan and many other school districts in New Jersey and across the country is not new. what we knew to be the way when we were in school where pun punitive consequences like detention or suspension were the norm and were punishment. It turns out giving those students those consequences often did not address the issues underlying the causes of the bad behavior. What those consequences did do was teach kids that when

057you misbehave, you get a vacation from school. And even worse, you take away valuable days of instruction where students can learn to be better students and be better people. By following Superintendent Ross' lead in increasing district capacity with respect to counselors, interventionists, community specialists, behaviorists, and other roles targeted in this endeavor to help children, especially at the middle school. We give the kids a better chance to get past the bad behavior, including bullying, and give them a real chance to succeed and break that cycle. If you're wondering why change what isn't broken, that's what we did back in our day. I challenged that to say that after learning from mistakes, we now wear seat belts when we ride in cars, don't we? And by the way, did you know Superintendent Ross started the monthly recognition

058part of the board meeting that you you saw tonight to recognize students doing well? Elevating students, exhibiting great work has gone a long way to improve on behavior. Mr. Ross started this a little over two years ago. Yet another positive change to yet another positive change to improve self-esteem and morale among our students and improve the climate and culture of our schools. To come back to this point, when the petition claims there are discipline failures or specifically bad mouths LMS, this is insulting to our administrators, teachers, and staff who are there and represents a completely false picture of what it's now like now like to be in the building. Intervention is a massive investment Superintendent Ross and the school district are has made and are making and it has gone a long way to change

059the climate and the culture at Lincoln Middle School as well as our other schools. Number four, absence of effective instructional systems. This accusation, this is absurd and out of touch to think we haven't systematized student progress. A large amount of what Superintendent Ross, the board, administrators, and teachers talk about is curriculum, curriculum, curriculum, assessment, multiple tiered supports, intervention, and ML support. Now, it is true that Denellan currently does perform below the state in many categories. However, the district is now at about a 50 a 58% in terms of economic disadvantage in the student population which we know is under reppresented as folks don't typically like to report that and as well that 58% is well above the state average of 38.1%. And if you are not already aware, the data clearly show the strong correlation

060between wealth and performance. You may not know if you haven't been keeping up with the weekly communications and discussions at board meetings that our growth scores have been tremendous with Faber School achieving the third highest growth in English language arts of any school in Middle Sex County and top eight in math. This means we are trending up. Let me say that again. This means we are trending up and the goal is to significantly outperform our district factor group peers that are schools much like ours. This was conveyed in a presentation earlier this school year at this board meeting right here and that presentation is available on the website also if you would like to know more. Number five, systemic denial of special education services and disregard for private evaluations. The IEP or individualized um oh

061my goodness, IEP process has been and continues to be implemented effectively according to laws and best practices. It's important to understand the context here that at times identifying the least restrict restrictive environment can result in a decision that is not what individual stakeholders, parents, case workers, teachers expected entering the IEP process. So it is plausible that those stakeholders who were disappointed, even frustrated by the outcome they did not like would be disgruntled and have a motive to seek other means to get payback for their perceived injustice. No IEP has been ignored and let me say that again. No IEP has been ignored. Fact. And even though there may be stakeholders who have individual concerns about their children, Superintendent Ross and his team have used a wealth of best practices and support from the NJ Department

062of Education to build what is an increasingly inclusive learning environment for all students. Number six, failure to implement evidence-based literacy and numeracy programs. Superintendent Ross has brought multi-tered systems of support to better catch kids who might fall through the cracks as well as tools like I Ready and Link to evaluate kids where they are to give their teachers real time data and feedback that they can act on to help kids improve. That came with him as a district. Until Superintendent Ross came to Denellan, we did not spend a dime on title 2 funds for professional development. For those who may not know, Title 2 funds are federal grants for schools focused on improving teacher and principal quality and effectiveness through professional development, recruitment, training, and retention. aiming to boost student achievement and ensure all students,

063especially those from lowincome backgrounds, get access to great educators. Title 2 funds pay for things like instructional coaching, leadership development, and even some class- size reduction. So in other words, Superintendent Ross directed monies and resources to help teachers and principal principles become better teachers and principles, which in turn helps our kids become better students. Number seven, poor nutrition quality despite shared vendors with neighboring districts. This is not an accurate statement. Mashios. Our food vendor follows all nutritious guidelines from the federal government. Full stop. Number eight, inadequate special education facilities at the secondary level. The special education department is compliant with laws and seeks to meet all students needs in the least restrictive environment. I will say as parents and as a community, you have a right to express your opinions. I will even go a

064step further and say that is it is our duty, and I say our because I'm a parent as well. It is our duty as parents and district officials to provide constructive feedback to make our small town school district successful. I know Superintendent Ross, the board, the administrators, directors, teachers, and staff want to hear your concerns so we can work together to solve for them. In some, I think amongst the accusations, there may be some concerns that we can work through together as a school district and community, but we need a dialogue, not a petition. And to reiterate, the timing, quantity, and vagueness of these accusations reads more like someone or a group of people with a hidden agenda trying to disguise it as legitimate concern with dramatic effect with the hope of dragging unsuspecting people

065into their personal vendetta. And as for Superintendent Ross, since becoming our chief school administrator in 2022, the Denolan School District has been moving forward after having been stagnant or moving backwards for many, many years. The work Superintendent Ross has done has been transformative for the district and that's evidenced in all of the presentations that we've presented here at this meeting. With the progress he has made, our sights should be set on continuing to make bigger and bigger leaps forward to help students become the best versions of theel of themselves that they can be because at the end of the day, we all want the same thing which is what is best for our students. We look forward to dialogue with you on that and thank you everyone for your time and listening. Moving on to

066superintendent report, Mr. Ross. >> Thank you, Dr. Jendano, and thank you for your kind words. Um, I'm going to get into some responses to the uh petition as well, but I'm going to uh just start with a couple of other very important items. Um, first, I do want to again congratulate um Mr. Walker and Mrs. Howard um for their amazing service on the board. I also do want to welcome Nicole Moore and Gregory Mitchell who are both in attendance. Um, Mr. Mitchell, where did you go? Oh, there you are. If you could stand up. And Mrs. Moore, if you could stand up as well. Let's give them a nice round of applause. Thank you both. Uh, Mr. Pepe and I had the opportunity to meet with Mrs. Moore and Mr. Mitchell uh last week and

067talk about kind of the onboarding process, what it's going to what the board cadence is like, um the committee structure, some of the ethics and other related items. And so our next meeting, which is January 6th, right, uh 2026, we will be swearing uh Mrs. Moore and Mr. Mitchell in. We're very excited to to bring them on to the board. Um and congratulations to both of them for their election victories. Um we're going to move to construction. Um, this is the second month that we'll be discussing construction. I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Pepe to present construction update number two and then I'll provide some additional comments as well. Uh, and just so that you're aware, construction update number two will be posted on the website is posted on the website. >> Uh,

068it it will be after I present it. >> Will be posted on the website after it's presented um along with the first one which is already there. Mr. Pepe. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Ross. So, our um preschool facilities project construction update number two. Uh first project background. This will be the same every um update. Just some information for people who may be new to the conversation. The Nellum Board of Education is committed to providing full uh free full day preschool to all Denellan families. The first step involved submitting an application to the NJDOE for preschool education aid known as pea uh funding which was approved in the fall of 2023 and allowed the district to begin operating a pea funded preschool program in January of 2024. In June of 2024, the district applied

069for the preschool facilities expansion grant uh and was awarded a three point uh 3,463,300 uh grant to offset the cost of the current preschool expansion project. Uh recap of the last update. So, on update number one, there is a uh construction, just so you know, there's a construction up um construction information web page now on our district website that has copies of these updates along with other information, including um the bid documents and um an FAQ page that has a lot of questions that have been asked with uh responses that are helpful and also a link to um add to that, add new questions. Uh so the timeline the from the last update the timeline included a special board meeting to award the construction contract and four preconstruction meetings involving representatives from the district the

070architect construction manager and contractor. General updates were provided regarding food service during construction considerations construction manager level of engagement and the tenative project timeline. So that's what was in the previous update. And so moving on to this update, I'm going to start with a timeline of things that have occurred since the November 18th construction update number one. On November 19th, uh Mr. Ross sent an email to the district staff with an introduction to the construction project. On November 20th, Mr. Ross sent a follow-up email to the district with information about asbestous abatement. November 20th also uh was the date of our construction progress meeting number one. And a construction progress meeting is when the contractor, that's Northeastern Interior Services, comes to the district to meet with the architect, our construction manager, and the district team

071to talk about the project, to give us an update of what's happening, what's coming next, and for us to give feedback and also direction if there are things that we need them to do differently um or to reconsider. So that those meetings happen every other week, and so the first one was on November 20th. November 26th, the district hosted a baseline schedule review meeting with the architect and construction manager. After the meeting, feedback from on the proposed baseline schedule was provided to Nor Eastern. So, Nor Eastern gave us their preliminary schedule of how the whole contract would be played out. We gave them we met with the architect and the con um construction manager and came up with feedback and they're we're waiting for them to revise the um baseline schedule. based on that feedback.

072So that was on November 26th. Next thing I have is December 1st, the district team met to discuss food service during construction as well as arrival and dismissal procedures during construction and relocation of staff members during construction. And so we met to come up with solutions to those topics. December 4th, our second construction project progress meeting happened with the architects and the contractor and the construction manager. Uh later on in in the day on December 4th, Mr. Ross sent an email to Faber staff with an update on the outcomes of that construction progress meeting. The next day, December 5th, Mr. Ross sent an email to Faber families with an update on initial construction work. Uh December 8th, Mr. Ross sent an email to Faber staff announcing the launch of a construction information website, as I

073referenced earlier, and invited them to Q&A session for staff members. On December 10th, Mr. Mr. Ross sent an email to Faber staff to provide information regarding asbestous abatement, stage removal, and student meals. December 10th, Mr. Ross held an optional meeting at Faber uh for Faber staff members to ask questions and share concerns about the project. Mr. Pepe, Mr. Haynes, Mr. Pettinger, and the Faber administration were also there to provide support. Uh, also on December 10th, Mr. Ross sent an email to Faber families with an update on the construction information website, asbestous abatement, stage removal, and student meals. On December 11th, Mr. Ross updated the frequently asked questions section on the website. December 15th, a representative from the New Jersey Department of Labor visited the site to inquire about the speestous abatement plans. He met with

074Mr. Pepe and Mr. Haynes and left his contact information in case we had any future needs for his assistance. Uh and those are the things that have occurred between the last board meeting and as of yesterday. Um so as you can see there's been a lot uh mostly in this phase. We a lot of that was communication more than actual things occurring because that's where we are in the construction project. There are things happening though and we'll get to that in a second. So some general updates. Um one is the project timeline which I alluded to earlier. An initial schedule was submitted by Nor Eastern on November 24th, 2025. The schedule was re returned to Nor Eastern with requested requested revisions on November 26th, 2025. Those revisions are based on the um discussions of the

075architect, construction manager, and the district. The following steps will be taken during the month of December. Prior to winter break, the following work is scheduled to take place, and some has already started on evenings and weekends only. Right now they are only doing second shift work which means that they're not doing any of this work while the classes are in session during the day. Um so here are the the things that are happening right now uh or about to happen if they haven't already started. Installation of protective exterior fencing and scaffolding and interior barriers. Demolition of spaces that do not require asbestous abatement. demolition of the stage and uh beginning of installation of temporary utilities to ensure there will be no outages of gas, electric, heat or water during construction. Uh then we get to

076winter break. The work that is scheduled for winter break is the erections of barriers. These are full barriers. The barriers that are in place now are just temporary barriers really meant to just keep people from going into those spaces. Um but they're going to be putting up full barriers which are going to have two parts to them. a wooden barrier that prevents you from going into the space or even seeing into the space. And then in addition to that, there will be the um required plastic barriers for when the abatement happens to contain any um dust or any any materials inside that area. Um the asbestous abatement is scheduled to begin uh the day after, you know, um the day that winter break begins and hopefully will be completed before the end of December. continued

077demolition of the areas that do not require disbesus abatement. If they haven't completed that by the winter break, they'll continue that work. And also um finishing up the installation of the temporary utilities so that when we come back in January, there's no no loss of heat or um anything or water or anything we need in the rest of the building. Okay, so that that's a look at what's happening now and coming up in the near future. Um we'll be um continuing to share this information in the construction updates so that the public has an idea of where we are in the project and what we've completed and what we're going to next. Um some other general uh updates things spec or these are more specific updates I should say. First asbestous abatement work. Um asbestous

078abatement is very common in older facilities. The type of asbestous being abated in our case is nonfryable and does not require the building to be shut down. All safety precautions are being taken in accordance with the law and prevailing best practices. The area being serviced will be fully enclosed with full plastic barriers and an independent environmental consultant will be on site throughout the process to ensure safety procedures are followed including ongoing air sampling during the abatement. And just to clarify, when I say independent environmental consultant, that means it's a consultant that we the district hired separate from our contractor. So, Nor Eastern has their asbestous abatement company that they're using to do the work. We're hiring a separate company to watch them do the work and test and make sure that they're following all of

079the safety protocols and to make sure that the U area is safe before people come back into it. The next update is on food service. So, food service during construction. Meals will continue to be provided in the Faber cafeteria through the month of December. Beginning on Monday, January 5th, when we return, meals will be provided in the Faber gym. Temporary protective flooring has been purchased and will be placed over the gym floor for each each morning and removed after the last lunch period. So, the gym will uh continue to be available for ba uh basketball games and practices. and the flooring is to protect the floor from being damaged from tables and chairs and and students moving around. Um the next update, Faber arrival and dismissal. Mr. Tenant sent a revised arrival and dismissal letter

080to parents to Faber parents and staff on Friday, December 5th. Um the next is before and afterare. Our aftercare pickup has moved to door B which is on the horseshoe. Um, when this report is posted on the website, there's a link here to see an image that shows you exactly where that door is if you're interested. Um, but that has already taken place, so they will be using that door. Next is the parking and staging area. Construction projects typically require a staging area for dumpsters and temporary storage of materials. For this project, the staging area will be the lawn between the north side of the building and the staff parking lot. This area will be fenced in and locked. Approximately 10 parking spaces will be reserved for construction vehicles. And to alleviate this, we've added

081additional temporary parking behind the building um which will be there throughout the duration of the construction project. And actually the number of spaces that we've added are more than the number we're losing. So it's actually helped the parking situation. Um next and my final update uh is construction management. So, I've mentioned the construction manager a couple of times. The construction manager is a third-party vendor that provides a service to the owner of the project. That's our the district um where they have ex um expertise in the area of construction and they watch what's happening and they participate in the meetings. They provide guidance. They provide um support in helping make sure that the contractors are meeting the uh requirements of the contract, making sure that safety precautions are in place, making sure that we are

082following all of the things that we need to do, I'm sorry, need to do to make the project successful and safe. Um so we have decided to uh or we are asking the board to approve to engage Greyhawk, which is our construction managing company. We've used them one time before and had a positive experience. Um, we're looking to hire them for the expansion project as our construction manager. They're already, even without being approved, they're already because of our prior relationship, helping us out a little bit now with some um guidance and help. Um, but we once we approve them, we'll be bringing them on for a full-time for January through midappril. That's kind of the the um main phase of the construction where they're going to be here at all uh five days a week

083and then it will back off to about two days a week after that through the end of the summer and then we'll kind of revisit and see if we need further assistance from them depending on where the project is when we get to the end of August. Um, so that's what we're asking the the board to approve and um looking forward to working with them and I can tell you that they have already helped us navigate things that we maybe didn't um know how to push the contractors to do what we need them to do without causing additional issues for our our um students and and faculty. So, they've already been providing a good um they've already been very helpful with this process and we look forward to continued working with them. And the final

084uh section of my construction update each month will be change orders. For those of you who aren't familiar with construction projects, there's always things that happen as a construction project moves forward where there's things that we didn't know about or changes in um direction. And if there's a cost associated with them, there's a document called the change order that the contractor will submit. The architect reviews it, the construction manager reviews it in our case, and then uh eventually we get approval for the change orders. Since we're still at the very beginning of the project, we have no change orders to the state. So there are no change orders. And that is the construction update. >> Thank you, Mr. Pepe. Um I'm going to just talk a little bit more about construction. Uh, one of the

085pieces uh of information that was included on the petition was uh that I have been withholding safety details. Parents are forced to involve OSHA, the DO and the state. Um, this is uh reckless language um at a minimum. Uh I will say I received two emails from parents uh prior to last week. I received one email from uh a parent on Sunday that I responded to on Monday. I received my fourth email about this uh project from a parent at about 4:45 this afternoon. I have been extraordinarily transparent with staff. Um I have been extraordinarily transparent with parents. When I have information to share, I have shared it very clearly. I have held us, my team to a very high level of responsibility with regard to communicating with parents, sharing information, making that information visible.

086We have updated the frequently asked questions. I have met with the DEA to hear any concerns that they have. They have represented staff concerns well. We met with the staff on uh Wednesday of last week and it was I thought a very productive meeting. We heard from four or five staff members predominantly. They gave us some very good feedback and some of that feedback was definitely sort of rooted in a concern, right? And that's okay, right? The point is that if we don't know what people are concerned about, we can't help provide, you know, some assurances for folks. So, where we are right now, right, the information is on the website. There's really no more information that we can provide other than all of the regular updates that we that we will provide. Um the

087asbestous abatement is occurring during winter break. There are a lot of questions about asbestous. I didn't know uh just how concerning asbests was. I've been in districts where asbestous abatement has occurred during school. All the proper safety protocols have have taken place. I've never seen this type of uh reaction and and that's okay. Um but with that reaction has also come a response from the district which I think is well well above and beyond um what could possibly be expected. We will have our own independent uh asbestous uh environmental what's the name of the company environmental connections company that will be on site as sort of the ombbudsman for the contractor subcontractor. So there will be a contractor, a very experienced New Jersey Department of Educated, a Department of Labor certified asbestous abatement contractor. They

088will be doing the work. We will also have the same type of company uh that is working for us taking and monitoring daily air samples alongside the work of the contractor to ensure that plastic safety barriers are uh are are implemented properly to ensure that negative pressure for uh the asbestous is flowing outside in pipes that are appropriate for that asbestous to be removed from the building. um to ensure that the cleanup of materials and the suits that folks are wearing go into the double line plastic containers that they're supposed to go into so that none of that tracks through the building. Right? So all of the daily air sampling will be done. There will also be a final report. The final report will be published on the website. Um we are hopeful although we

089still don't know exactly how many days the asbestous abatement will take. We're hopeful that the uh the completion of the abatement is by the end of of December. Um because we want to make sure that we do test the air that we have a final clear already a clean uh air quality test. We can put that on the website and then we can feel comfortable about moving forward. Um obviously before anybody returns to the building um we will do we will have all of that air quality tested. Um and so there, you know, we're not going to put people into a hazardous situation. And no, right, if we don't open on Monday, it's not a big deal. Um if we have to keep closed on January 5th because we have to keep closed because there's

090some unforeseen unforeseeable event, then so be it. Um but we're not going to rush this to bring people back. Um the idea that OSHA or the Department of Labor uh or the state has to be involved is absurd. Um but of course, we welcome their involvement. Department of Labor came and we had a very nice conversation with them. We said, "No, we're not abading the asbestous right now." They said, "Oh, that's great. Um, here's my number. You know, let us know if there's any concerns. If OSHA comes, they will see that we are fully compliant and that our contractor is using all the best practices that are required by law." This same type of outrageous uh language and accusations has occurred um in the realm of special education. And I will say, and I'll get

091to more, uh, but we've had the Office of Civil Rights for multiple states, uh, be copied on messages regarding district practices. We've had the Department of uh, the Office of Special Education in New Jersey involved in our in our work. Uh, we've had an investigation, we've had mediation, we've had other things, and despite all of that, the district has never been found to be out of compliance. So when I see language like this, I don't mind the language if it's coming to me. I mind the language when it's put into the public, right? When you see, oh my god, OSHA has to be involved because of of the schools, right? People that aren't paying attention are going to be like, oh my god, that's terrible. What did they do? Right? The reality is nothing nothing's

092been done. Nothing incorrect has been done. And if something is incorrect that that needs to be corrected, my first the first year that I was here, I think it was the spring of 2023, something like that, the Department of Labor came because the contractor that we were using was not using uh was not providing certified payrolls. This was for the preschool expansion project, the preschool at the back of Faber. This was the project, I think it was started in 2020 or 21. Um, we had a stop work order and we said, "Yeah." I was like, "Yeah, of course." Like, "We're not following the law. We're going to stop." They said, "You have to stop." We're like, "Of course we're going to stop." Right? We got on the contractor. They made it right. They c they

093they fixed their mistake. And once it was fixed, we we went on from there. Right? We're not going to take health and safety lightly. And we're not going to cut corners. And you know, I'm very comfortable with answering every single email that I get thoroughly and dutifully um and in a very responsive timeline. Um and to that point, I did get an email and I'm going to respond to it uh right now in writing because I did tell this parent that uh I was not able to provide a written response. So, this parent asked a couple of questions and I'm going to answer them. So, uh we recently put up the bid specs for the project. There are a number of areas where asbestous is listed. The question is uh is the asbestous abatement happening

094in all of these areas? The answer is yes. Uh when we when you take down walls, when you take down ceiling tiles, when you look at pipes more closely, uh we've done an assessment of the asbestous that existed in this area and then you take down some cinder block walls and some other things, you can find things. So yes, there is asbestous uh on the joints of some of the piping predominantly in the hallway uh sort of you know around the bend if you walk in straight to Faber right uh if you walk till about the tea. Uh there are also asbestous ceiling tiles and asbestous tiles that are used for some insulation. Um those will all be taken down. Um where is it being tested? Um yes uh the air quality will be tested

095everywhere. Um obviously the highest concentration or the biggest concern is going to be where the construction is occurring. Um we'll be testing that regularly. We've done a lot of air testing actually already. We have I think a very good relationship already with the lab. Um but uh but as I mentioned, we will provide the final air quality testing on the website. If we note that there's any concerns with the work of the contractor, obviously we'll we'll take steps to uh remedy that work and ensure that uh that there's, you know, no further issues. Um I don't anticipate that happening. But um what exactly is the evacuation plan if the air quality is less than acceptable? There will not be anyone in the building until the air quality is acceptable. So we don't need to evacuate

096folks. Um I see you plan to provide monthly updates. Lots can happen every month etc. So um yes we will be providing monthly updates formal monthly construction updates at the board meeting. Right. I want to make sure that there is a formal process of construction updates. However since the last construction updates I've sent many messages to staff members. two very thorough messages to uh parents posted them on the website. My messages will not be monthly. The board's monthly construction update will be monthly so that there's a very clear process and procedure that occurs. Uh lastly, there is uh what's what's the reason that this work cannot wait until the summer? Why did the work not start last summer as originally planned? So, this this project was actually uh approved in June. Well, I guess the

097we got we applied for the grant in June 24, right? And we got the grant in November 24. We had an original design for the project which was going to put the project where the central office is. So, if you go down the left side of Faber, there's door H, right? If you go upstairs there, there's second four classrooms and then there's um there's offices in the back. the after after the project was approved by the department of education um the facilities office our contractors came in or sorry our architects came in and they reviewed the site and did a little bit more investigation and determined that the offices are actually cantalievered from the ceiling. So there is no actual floor of our offices. There's not like a construction level floor. There's actually it's all

098supported from the ceiling. And so what was determined at that time is that if the project moved forward in that way, we would have to redo all of the first floor and all of the second floor above and be and below um where the offices are. So that would be all of the kindergarten classes basically up to the hallway. Um that would have been a tremend I mean we we couldn't have done that project because it would have displaced five, six, seven classrooms um and as well as our offices. And so for the next couple of months, we we went around the building trying to find locations where we could fit these classrooms. We want eight classrooms for preschool, right? We have universal prek. We're relying on outside providers right now to to uh to

099bear that. We're very happy with them at this point, but Faber needs more space, right? When you know, we we are expanding. And with all of that we we eventually then did come to the project uh that we currently have and that is where we are. In terms of timelines we have um uh the the grant period for the three what's the 3.4 million um from the state that that is that's being provided uh is the end of September 2026. Um and so we don't really know exactly what that means in terms of timelines. What we're anticipating is that we need to have shown significant progress by the end of September. And so then for us to wait six months to do this during the summer, right, doesn't make sense in terms of the of

100the project. So we've found, I think, a very suitable solution. We have managed to create a solution that uh that keeps all students uh all classrooms intact, right? It does not displace any student classroom. It did displace offices. it will be inconvenient for the hallway. We did have to move the meals, right? These are things that happen. Um, but we're not, you know, kids are not learning in trailers or TCUs, right? We found a very good solution for this uh in my mind. Lastly, there's a picture circulating. This is a picture that was taken Thursday afternoon uh from the Faber uh the the front entrance of Faber. Um as a parent was leaving, they took this picture. Um it shows um part of the hallway barrier uh open. Um this is about 4:30 or so

101in the afternoon. Um the hallway barrier is a barrier that is designed to prevent students and staff from walking through. It is not a dustsafe uh secure barrier. That's not its intention. I made that very clear to staff members. I probably didn't make that as clear to parents. Um this was the day when the genie lift was being used to remove ceiling tiles to ensure that there was better access to the asbestous that was being abated. Um and that's why uh that was there. There's a question about plastic bags. I don't believe that's there. There are no plastic bags in the ceiling um that that are covering anything. It's actually just wires. Um Dave uh Pettinger made a big mess there and um you know he's got a lot of wires. the wiring actually has

102to be um bundled when they do the asbestous abatement. This is a question that I asked the contractor. If you think about um you know uh an office building, right, you have a drop ceiling. The reason you have a drop ceiling is that there's just miles and miles of cable or wires, right? When you remove the drop ceiling, if you're trying to seal things off, it's actually very challenging because of all the wires. So, what they do is they bundle the wires and then they go over and under it and they wrap things and they tape it. They make it very secure. Um, but it does present sort of a hazard. So, one of the things they did in the hallway is they actually took the ceiling tiles off early, right? That's why we closed

103the hallway so that they could make a plan for the wiring so that they could determine a an overall plan for the asbestous abatement. So, I thank the the parent who wrote that email for her questions. I'm very happy to answer other questions as they come up. Um, with that, I'm going to move on from construction to talk about goal setting and progress monitoring. So uh the progress monitoring work with stutter occurred on 122. Um most of you I I'm not sure are aware of any of this work. Um you know having uh uh the the the work that's being done in the district on the key priority areas. So uh at that meeting we reviewed all the impacts that were set uh and the progress made through Q1 of this year. We have six

104core priorities. I'm glad that you're all here to hear them. Uh PLC's is one of them. Uh multi-tered systems of supports. walkthroughs, chronic absenteeism, curriculum implementation, and staff feedback. Basically, everything that we're doing this year fits into one of those six categories. Um, the PLC's work, professional learning communities for those of you not in education. Um, basically data datadriven uh teams that collaborate to find solutions for uh for student performance. December 4th was a big training for the PLC's. Um, this was the sort of gradual release of the PLC's to the staff member teams. folks at each of the buildings are selecting their datadriven topics for collaborative action. So, that's going very well. This spork is being led by our learning experience leaders, which is um uh teachers in the district who are being paid

105a stipen through the teacher climate and culture grant, which is a $125,000 grant that the district received from the Department of Education. Um we are one of very few districts in the state to have received the grant. We've used that really as a way to um to promote teacher leadership. There was a second grant which was $62,000 which we were also awarded and that's really what's paying the LEL's the learning experience leaders. The second big framework or key priority idea is multi-tered systems of supports and what that is is a very structured way to uh to preempt uh student intervention needs uh by providing t highquality uh learning environment in the tier one environment which is whole class. Um and this is both from an academic perspective and also from a a behavioral perspective. We're

106at different points of sort of evolution here. Um at Faber, our academic uh MTSS work is very very strong. Um we have been doing this work for for many years. Um it's a very strong academic program. You've probably heard your kids talking about I Ready and Linket and some of the other things, right? Interventionists are using the student data tracker to track student progress. Um there's also a lot of talk about high quality instruction. We've had a lot of um instructional coaches, Danna Opataskki, um Up the Bar, uh which is uh a service that provides support for teachers to to meet the needs of multilingual learners. Um and that's been uh work that we've been doing for for many years at Faber. Now, behaviorally, this is the first year of the really structured uh MTSS

107uh program. This is uh Nancy Coer who is our district behaviorist and Margaret Gamble who is one of our school counselors is working with Felicia Moody who's our assistant principal. Um this is really about understanding how do you promote positive behavior and positive culture within the classroom the f the first and foremost before needing to respond to negative behaviors what are you doing to support the positive so they're using a similar type of Google form similar type of tiered system process and then when students are still struggling from that we have a really robust set of supports right we have our school counselors we also have our school-based wellness counselors uh uh um um what are they called specialists um who provide an additional layer of support. I'll talk a little bit more about that

108as well. LMS and DHS are kind of at the beginning stage. They've never really had an intervention model. We introduced an interventionist to LMS this year. Um as you know, we also uh reduce the leveling to try to make the classes uh smaller sizes and much more heterogeneous. That's been going extremely well based on the staff feedback that we've heard. Um the academic work uh is again as it in its beginning stages. We're working with a consultant who is going to be working uh with the TSS teams at both of those schools to narrow their focus. Um and the work is being led by the assistant principles Ashley Powell and Lauren Caulfield. Um being overseen by Megan Drakin who's our director of curriculum and instruction. Um there she's going to be meeting with them monthly

109to discuss their progress. And then there will also be uh monthly meetings of the TSS teams. Uh we are focusing on sources of data and a clear path to intervention. Um as I mentioned the middle school has a new interventionist this year. Um our uh ENL which is English as a new language. Our ENL teachers at all levels have been pushing in to provide support and small groupoup instruction has been the the priority of that. Um we've also had folks from the middle school come down to Faber because Faber is really much more advanced in this work. Um kudos to the fourth and fifth grade teams especially who showed extraordinary tremendous amounts of growth as Dr. Jendrano mentioned on last year's state testing. Um but this is about as systematized as you can get. So

110um that's that's where we are with that work. Um our third uh key priority is walkthroughs. Um the team has uh completed over 550 walkthroughs. This is from 11 administrators. Um, and this is going into classes with a an understanding of what you're looking for. So, what we're looking for is we're really looking for highquality uh whole class instruction. We're looking for small groupoup instruction. We're looking for differentiation. Um, and we're looking for the use of assessment. And so, we've sort of set those categories up for ourselves. And we meet monthly to talk about kind of the findings from this. when faculty members when sorry administrators do these walkthroughs they complete a Google form and that really just collects data right what are we seeing what can we focus on what do we need more

111assistance in chronic absenteeism is a big issue uh especially in high poverty districts or medium poverty districts um we have been meeting uh with the principles we we're tracking this now on a weekly basis rather than sort of like hoping that our numbers are low um they are too high Oh, someone just uh >> Ryan, did you uh did you fall asleep on the on the on the kn the knob there? Um so, chronic absenteeism, our tier one interventions is really looking at what can the counselors do to reach out to parents to uh to talk to them about the importance of attendance, getting to kids school to uh at school on time. Uh our fifth is CR uh curriculum implementation. Um the the idea of uh the lack of evidence-based literacy programming is uh

112again that's one of the ones that um is to me just a it's absurd. Um when I arrived in the district, the district was using fontis and panel and sort of a weak version of teachers college um workshop model. There was no evidence-based literacy programming other than foundations um and um ma'am Ma'am, was the door locked or was it was Dave? Can we check the doors, please, and just make sure that they're good? Thank you. Um, so, uh, Megan Drapkin, uh, if you have any questions about, uh, evidence-based literacy, evidence-based programming at all, please email her. She loves to talk about this stuff. She is probably the foremost expert on this this work that that I've ever worked with. Um, we expanded foundations. Um, we have now a very robust word study program. Um, in

113the upper elementary grades, we implemented Heggerty. Um, and now we're using using a highly rated uh, evidence-based core resource in grades K through eight for ELA programming and other other supports. So, just I mean that's just not even one to talk about. Um, we also have a very strong dyslexia screening process as part of our tiered system of supports. Um, we've also added Wilson support and Wilson instruction uh for students who were not identified earlier. I will say this is a this is endemic of uh of high school and middle schools especially um there are too many students who have who were not identified through the dyslexia screening process at an early age. We're finding students now in the high school or in the middle school who can't read, right? they've gotten by through word

114memorization or through queuing or through just kind of being a being a good student, right? Um, but with the use of I Ready, we've actually been able to identify signs of dyslexia which we can then screen using the tests of dyslexia screener. So, we've identified students since since you know last year, students at the high school and students at the middle school who we've provided additional Wilson support to. Wilson is a a type of um what's the what's the uh what's the Orton Gillingham um multiensory multiensory reading support uh program. Uh so and we're looking at uh additional folks. We have a high school teacher who is doing a leave placement who um who has a Wilson background and we actually have her doing Wilson instruction with a high school student. And so again, we

115are looking at students needs and providing supports uh for those needs. With curriculum implementation, we've also done a lot of professional development on the new ELA curriculum. We have a new literacy leadership team which is part of uh another department of education grant that we received. This is for 9 through 12 ELA. As I mentioned, K through 8 is very systematized. 9 through 12. Um we're working on building a putting in a a highly uh HQIM highly high quality instructional materials um for that grade. So there's a team of high school teachers um that are working on that which is very exciting. And then we have a lot of other work happening obviously in other subject areas as well. Math is an area of growth for the district. We are underperforming in math. Um although

116fourth and fifth grade math did show tremendous growth last year. We've been using uh a lot of focus on building thinking classrooms um which is a a very highly engaging mode of instruction as well as small groupoup instruction. Science we're looking at new resources for next year because there are new standards that the state board of education just approved for implementation for the 2627 school year. And then in world language we have new heritage classes. Um we've we've taken a look at the types of students that we have. You know Denellan public schools is 60% Hispanic. um were about 18% uh or 17% multilingual learners. And so when we look at those students, we've really spent a lot of time trying to figure out what is the background of those students. Have they had formal

117education in their native language, which is almost entirely Spanish? Um or have they not, right? What kinds of supports do they need? And so we've built classes off of that. Uh and we have, you know, excellent world language teachers who are providing that instruction. That's been going very well. We've also done a lot of coaching for uh computer science and STEM. We have uh the brand new art room at the middle school which we built and a new STEM room here at the middle school. Um both of which have been very exciting for students. Um and then for 2728 we're looking at art, uh computer science, visual and performing arts, STEM, and health and PE as the areas that need to be revised based on updated standards. The last of the key priorities is staff

118feedback. We have been very very intentional about uh working very closely with staff members to ensure that we understand what staff members experiences are and that they feel comfortable sharing those experiences. Um we are working with the learning the labor management collaborative which is uh through the NJA um this is a district partnership that we've built with them. We have LMC teams at each of the buildings and this is basically about collaborative problem solving. What I realized is that I was working with the uh DEA leadership. I was meeting with them monthly. We have a very strong, positive, open relationship. There's a lot of great information sharing. That type of information wasn't necessarily being shared at the building level, right, where a lot of the change could be made in as direct a way. And

119so we brought in LMC to to facilitate that type of discussion. We've also been using uh highlight uh which is a program where uh staff members can provide uh uh highlights which are basically um like kudos congratulations to to their colleagues um for things that they've done or just thanks thanks for helping me with that student. Um these are all published on sort of a public bulletin board um that uh that's that's online through the highlight software. This year uh our staff members have uh written over 700 highlights to each other. That's 700 pieces of recognition that from one staff member to another or an administrator to a staff member saying did you're doing a great job with this thing or thank you for this thing or I saw you you know help that student

120who was crying. Um so that's really phenomenal. Twothirds of staff members uh in the district have received a highlight and obviously we're looking to expand that. We uh we use a process in Denellan called rounding which is uh very intentional conversations with staff members. Um basically how are things going? What are some growth points or some areas that we can continue to focus on? And has there any has there been anyone who's been really helpful for you? Um our uh administrators have completed over 90 rounding sessions this year. These are not like hey how was your weekend right? These are intentional. Sit down, have a conversation, focus on the information, take the information, onboard it, and then get back to the person. Say, "I heard you about this thing, right? And we implemented this change

121as a result, or we're looking into this other thing, or do you want to serve on a committee?" Um, we also do 30 and 90day check-ins with new staff members. This started last year. Um, the goal here is really about trying to maintain our folks who we've we've spent a lot of time onboarding, right? We do a lot of training of staff members and so what what was happening again I was doing exit interviews with people and I would say why are you leaving and they'd say well because no one ever asked me yada yada yada and so I was like why don't we have these conversations before people leave right why don't we have it at the beginning of their time here and then in the middle and then sort of you know later

122on so we do that with every new staff member we do a 30-day check-in that's within the first 30 days we also do a 90-day check-in And it has helped uh retention in terms of you know staff members feeling like they are are connecting with their administrators. It also helps us understand what the feedback is. So that's been going very well. Uh I I mentioned my relationship with the DEA. Um when there are issues that arise with staff members. Uh I can have a a very open dialogue with the DEA. the DA has always been a very great partner. Uh to me as a superintendent and you know in terms of um districts across the state and across the country that's not always the case. Uh I'm I'm very happy that we have that relationship

123and that's some something that's been built on a lot of mutual trust and a lot of uh conversations. Staff recognition is part of this. Um and this is something that's sort of just ongoing as we as we go. But I'll just give you an example. At the last faculty meeting for the middle school, uh Abby Franklin, who's one of our ENL teachers, led a staff recognition program uh to honor honor staff members who exemplify the school's goals on on a daily basis. Um they celebrated Miss Herrera, Miss Modi, Mr. Summers, Miss Travers, Miss Fukulch, um and then Mr. Tobin recognized Miss Franklin for her leadership. So again, this is part of the the sort of the DNA of what we're doing. Pascal Martinez and Samir Cruz who are two of our custodians. Um they're at

124Faber. You've probably seen them if you've been at Fabre. They visited the middle school and the high school um as uh Plor and Snar who are two uh plushy characters from I Ready. Um and they went into the classrooms and took pictures with them and the kids were like this is the greatest thing ever. Right. So again, this is this is, you know, uh and so I I'll just I'll just sort of close this section with commentary about the middle school. Uh it's outdated commentary. It's it's it's totally incorrect. Um it's also demeaning to Mr. Tobin and his leadership. Um if you walk around this building, you know, if you are if you're spending time in the middle school, this is not the experience of students. It's not the experience of staff members. It's not

125the experience of the administration. There is not rampant bullying. Teachers who don't know how to control their classrooms, right? Teachers are high high quality professionals, right? Discipline is an issue where there are a lot of different philosophies about what type of discipline should be meed out. And I am very happy to have dialogue and conversation about too much discipline, not enough discipline, etc. My sense of things is if we're getting to the stage of discipline, we've missed a step. And what we need to do is we need to work on building strong classroom culture, strong school culture first so that when you restore right someone back to that culture that there is a relationship there to be to be restored to. Um our counselors um Miss San Philippo and Miss Cherosaro have been excellent with

126this work. Um and frankly it's a it's an incredibly different place um than it has been in the past and it's a very positive learning environment. So on behalf of them, you know, I would just say again that type of inflammatory language is misguided. It's also um you know, deeply personal. Uh another really big section of this uh conversation is about special education. Um special education is a very it's a very hard emotional issue because the parents are on one side and parents are the strongest advocates imaginable for their children, right? And on the other side of it is the district right and there is sometimes right naturally uh a a relationship that is at odds um one side doesn't want exactly what the other side is willing to give vice versa and so there's

127sort of confrontation right the question is is what's being done appropriate and does it follow the law and so of course again there's a lot of inflammatory language here philosophically uh my philosophy and But M. Trapkin, Dr. Santaneloo, my entire team, every administrator in the district believes that we should have students in the most inclusive learning environment that they can be successful in for as much of of the time as possible. And what that means is that sometimes we pull students out of self-contained classrooms and we put them into classrooms that are less restrictive because that's what the law requires us to do and we provide them with appropriate supports, right? And sometimes that transition is hard. That's hard for students sometimes. Sometimes that's hard for parents, right? But it is the right thing to

128do for students and it is the right thing to do to the extent that it is possible. It's not possible for every student. Not every student and their learning needs can be serviced even in the district, right? Um but for students who can be served here and served well, that is the goal. That is the philosophy. To that end, we have a three-year partnership with the Department of Education that we applied for and we were granted through the 2728 school year. It is the New Jersey Inclusion Project. Uh it is uh sort of overseen by AllIn for Inclusive Education, which is a company um I think it had a previous name, New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. It's been around for about 25 years. um and they work to create learning communities where all students

129with and without disabilities are supported and feel like they belong. Um there's a lot of grants that are associated with this. This is all free to us for three years of professional development support. Um what this support provides us is site visits which includes observations, targeted coaching cycles, lesson study designs for uh for to ensure that you know lessons are accessible to all students. And we've received very positive feedback so far. Uh LMS and Faber are the two schools that have full support of this program. Um and we have had meetings uh on site October, November. They're scheduled for January, March, and April, plus other monthly virtual meetings when they're not in uh on the site with us. We also have access to the all-in professional learningmies which are about very important topics like universal

130design for learning, co-eing strategies, inclusive scheduling. Right. We've had many staff members who have attended those because they also believe strongly in the mission. There was a belief survey that was administered at the middle school in Faber. Data was reviewed in November. Um, and from that there was a mission statement that was created by both of the schools, posted on the wall at Faber. I'm not sure if it's posted here yet. Um, but the team members also have it in their email signatures. Since 2022 when I arrived, uh, we've also taken a look at staffing. Many of you are aware, you might be aware that we've added 30 staff members since I arrived in the district. And to a person, almost every single staff member has been designated as some sort of support, whether that's

131intervention, whether that's ENL, whether that is a community parent involvement specialist, um whether that's school counselors, right? We had 34 multilingual learners in one class when I came into the district. 34. There was a teacher who was here two periods and there were 45 multilingual learners at at at Lincoln Middle School. So to that end, uh we have restructured the elementary school. We've consolidated programs and we've created much more in-class support. And what that means is that we have special education teachers not paraprofessionals who are providing support for students uh with IEPs. At the secondary level uh we have added three ICR teachers and we have restructured the resource room so that there's a better flow of continuity from level to level. On the child study team, we have added a speech therapist, a behaviorist,

132an occupational therapist, a preschool social worker, plus other staff members uh two other staff members who are supporting LDTC, learning dis learning learning disability teacher coach uh needs in the district. We have also added two new school-based wellness specialists uh who are in the district providing tier three supports for students who are in crisis. So, we have invested heavily in special education. We have invested heavily in supporting students with disabilities. We have invested heavily in providing inclusive learning environments, professional support and alignment. Obviously, the MTSS model uh is is you know for all students, but now that includes very explicitly child study team members involved at tier 3 talking with interventionists and ENL teachers to ensure that everybody understands what the needs of these students uh might be. Child study team members also participated in

133the wit and wisdom arts and letters PD. This is the K8 ELA program. There's uh paraprofessionals have received much more training than they did in the past. They have access to to allin's uh 30-hour course um that's through the New Jersey inclusion project. And then we're also uh we've also provided them with support from ESCJ which is in Piscataway through uh professional development on inclusion and supporting the role of a par profofessional. There's been a lot of collaborative walkthroughs. Um, we have a dual enrollment partnership with ESCJ. We had an interest meeting this afternoon and this is the the goal is to push teachers to get more expertise to help students. This includes Orton Gillingham support uh teachers of students with disabilities, school counseling, reading specialists, all sorts of other things. Uh in July, the

134Department of Education Office of Special Education also put out a collaborative working group uh opportunity with three to five LEAs. Uh this is the partnership to effectively resolve disputes at the local level and we were selected for that. And so again, we're working with the state on about as many different things that we can to ensure that we're providing best practices. In terms of outcomes, no judicial rulings have ever been held against us. We've never been found to have denied FAPE or been non-compliant. We just completed an investigation from the Office of Special Education that found the district fully compliant in all areas with no corrective action plan. So, we have been fully compliant. Um, the number of students who are uh taking the DM has decreased because we've been able to provide more support

135for students to take the state test. Secondary restructuring and small group instruction has improved academic outcomes. We only have one student this year with an IEP who has to do a portfolio appeal process to graduate. More students are spending less time in a restrictive environment. There's more general education exposure, which again is goes to the heart of inclusion. And of course, there is always more work to do. Um, we're looking at programming needs, especially secondary programming needs to be re-evaluated. And we know that transition years from 5th to 6th or from 8th to 9th are always hard for students, especially those um that might be uh suffering in some sort of way or have some sort of academic or social need. Uh as with the other uh claims that were made, this the language is

136just really insulting. Um, claiming that people who are experts in these fields, properly certificated, well-trained, that they know nothing is absurd and inflammatory. Saying that they have retaliated against parents is absurd and inflammatory. We work with a board attorney, we follow the laws, we do things according to process and procedure. Sometimes parents are unhappy with outcomes. Sometimes that's okay. um you know, we try to find, you know, the the most collaborative outcomes as we possibly can and sometimes we're at odds with folks and that happens. That is not a failure on the district. That is not a failure of law. Um it is not our job or our responsibility to provide whatever any parent asks for at any given time. We follow the law, we follow testing, and we follow the IEP and the recommendations

137of the experts. I have three more pages, but that's all that I'm going to say about this this uh this petition. I'm going to talk about some other things because there are a lot of really other great things happening in the district. Um keep Middle Sex moving um that you you know the district uh Faber received the silver award um in 2025. Uh we've been invited to um uh to participate in the gold recognition process. Um and I want to thank Diana Starice um who has been a huge advocate for us here um in in Denellan for all the walk to school programs, the bike rodeo programming, you know, all of the other types of things that have occurred um this year. Uh obviously we have to do a few items and then we're looking

138at the gold award um and probably a a spring recognition which would be wonderful. We've been working on visitor entry protocols. Um, and this is actually something that is sort of tangentially related to construction as well. Uh, there's a program visitor aware that we are going to be implementing. This is a visitor management system. Um, if you go to uh if you go to like labcore or something like that, you walk in, right, and you scan your ID, right? Your ID then goes into a database, right? And there's a database that checks you in and does all the things. From a school system perspective, what that does is it checks you against a federal database, national sex offender database, and government watch lists as well as active legal injunctions. Um, it can also maintain a

139a list of banned visitors who should be flagged when trying to check in to prevent known offenders from gaining access to the facilities. So, this system is basically a kiosk with an iPad and a scanner. Uh, person puts their ID in, it gets scanned, it gets run through the databases very quickly. If the person checks out as being fined to be a visitor in the in the building, um there's a little print out with a sticker that says visitor with your name on it um and your picture and then you would wear that around the building along with your yellow lanyard uh showing that you're a visitor. We're we're actually going to be piloting this with our construction workers. Um our construction workers have to go through pretty rigorous background checks. um they're actually required

140to uh to uphold the same type of background checks that staff members would um in in because they're working, you know, in an area where there are children. So, we're going to pilot this this software, this process with our construction workers. They will have black lanyards um identifying them as being different than regular daily visitors, but we're going to roll that out in sometime in January uh when we can get all the technology set up and and things like that. But that's very exciting. If that goes well, we will put one of those in each of the secure vestibules, right? One at each school. And that would mean then that any visitor that came in would be properly checked and vetted. And that would be again another excellent addition to the security uh requirements that

141are uh already in place. We had some really exciting uh grant visits. Um give me one sec. So, two two really extraordinary visits occurred uh at the end of um November. The first was through the teacher climate and culture grant. Um this is the second one, the $62,000 grant that we received. On November 19th, we had Pete Mazagati from the Department of Education. Um he spoke with the learning experience leaders who were able to make the meeting. our staff members did a really wonderful job talking about the work that they've been doing um on the Atlas program AI and professional learning communities and uh and then the LAL's went and did the the PD on the 4th which was uh focused on PLC's and then we were very excited on November 25th um as part

142of the climate change education and resilient grant continuation uh which was the second climate change grant that we received November 25th we had uh the first lady Tammy Murphy um along with the assistant commissioner, one of the assistant commissioners at the department of education, uh Dr. Jordan Schiff and also Ross Garry who runs the DOE climate change education office. Uh they all came to Faber. They shadowed Miss Cortez's class. Um her her students were amazing. Um she sat at the tables with them and worked with them. Um and uh they ba ba they basically got to see the partnership that we have with Drop the Beat Farms. Cody Parker and two of his staff members led the different sessions. Obviously, there was a lot of really cool photo ops and things like that. Um, but

143it was mostly just the experience to be able to have the kids sitting there doing this incredibly high level work. Uh, Tammy Murphy also uh took some lettuce back for her uh dinner that she was having with Mikey Cheryl uh and her husband and the governor. And um we got very very positive feedback from the Department of Education. Um Dr. Jordan Schiff uh was very very uh complimentary of our staff and the work that was being done there. So, we're excited about that. And then we actually yesterday received uh information about a new grant opportunity which is uh another climate it's called climate literacy innovation opportunity. Um and we will apply for this and if we get it, we'll be looking to bring this into the middle school. Possibly bring in aquaponics or hydroponics into

144the middle school and then also use that STEM programming to really promote that and continue that. So that's due in February. So I'll provide more updates on that. We had some food drives uh over the Thanksgiving break. I want to thank the Denell and PTO um their partnership with Fish Inc. um which was really wonderful. Um as well as the Carol Fund um and I know these these drives are continuing. Um this is a time of need for many families and especially in a community like ours. It's wonderful that people can come together and provide support for each other. So very thankful to the efforts of the for the efforts of the PTO and the Carol Fund for their support. Um as Dr. Jendano mentioned, the DHS schoolwide transition meeting was held. Um basically the

145way that uh that this works for for those of you that don't know, Title One funds are available to schools either through a targeted approach or through a schoolwide approach. A schoolwide approach means that all of the funds can be used for any student within the particular school. um which it provides a lot of flexibility for the districts that that get them. All of our schools are eligible to be schoolwide because um they exceed the minimum of 40% of economic disadvantage. Um and the Faber uh is in its second year, the middle school is in its first year of schoolwide and the high school is transitioning this year. So assuming everything goes well, the high school will be a full schoolwide program next year, which again would free up the title one funds. Part of

146that process is a schoolwide stakeholder engagement committee. There's 15 people on that committee that includes staff, parents, students, board members. Dr. Dendrono serves on that one. Uh so that is work being led by uh Miss Trapkin and then also the DHS administration. Um events, we've talked a lot about events, but I just want to shout a couple people out. Uh the Faber Band and Choir concert was Mrs. Ferguson's first uh concert in the district and we're very uh excited that she was uh she chose to to come here. Um she had spent some time here prior to being a full-time staff member. She's really made a tremendous positive impact. We're very happy to have her. Um I I know there was a little incident at the end of the concert. Um but hopefully that's not

147something that that gets repeated uh in future shows. Um the high school middle school uh choir concert uh had some very special uh as Miss Piano uh called it smalltown vibes. Um special guests including Mayor Sento and others came on stage to sing the Hallelujah Chorus from Hondel's Messiah. Um and then uh again the band concert is is this coming Thursday. Our marking period one honor roll assemblies also occurred November 25th at the high school and middle school on December 2nd. These are very different. The high school never had honor roal assemblies before. Uh I think it was maybe mark period four of last year. Um but Beatatric Gimenez, who is our community parent involvement specialist, has been a great force for this to try to get parents out and really celebrate the fact that

148this is a wonderful achievement for students. So both events were very well attended in the mornings of those two dates and we'll continue to have those throughout the year. The um the other items that occurred obviously the fall sports award ceremony. Congratulations to all the teams and the individual players who earn recognitions. And then also on December 4th, we had the freshman focus event at Denellan High School um where uh this is an annual annual tradition for the nth grade students allows them to hear from professionals about a wide range of topics. Um this year was among others a journalist, a carpenter, a realtor uh with a PhD, a physician's assistant and many other folks who start who shared their wisdom and talked about um you know all of those things. So a very very

149positive event. Um we also submitted today the ASSA which is the application for state school aid. Uh this is uh something that's a little bit uh sort of wonky but it is very important. The ASSA is used to provide background data for a lot of title funds um and and also eligibility for other grant opportunities. Um, our ASSA numbers are are gone over, you know, really with a fine tooth comb by Mr. Pettinger and Mr. Pepe. Um, and as Dr. Dendrono, this is one of those things that when you look at a score like the Denellan's third grade ELA scores against, you know, Milbours, right, they're they're going to be different. Um, as Dr. Jano mentioned, uh, the ASSA this year, uh, the outcome was that 57.6% 6% of students are economically disadvantaged. Uh that

150is a still an undercount. There's no question that we're probably more like 70% 65 to 70%. Um but we've also been able to increase the percentage of parents that are actually filling out those forms because it does provide students with free or reduced meals um in addition to other benefits. So um the uh so anyway the ASSA is interesting because it has it has been sort of changing over the years. Um and in 2017 18 the district was at 48.2% economic disadvantage and we sort of hovered in the mid40s there was a drop during the COVID years where that number went down to 23 and 25%. The reason for that was that um the state was providing free meals for every student and so families didn't have to complete the forms because they didn't sort

151of need to to get that benefit. But in the last four years, 49.3, 52.5, 55.8, and 57.6%. So this is this is who we are, right? This is who is actually in the schools. So this is who we're programming for. This is why we're building systems to support struggling learners. This is why we're trying to build extremely strong early elementary programs. This is why we're providing full day preschool for every student in Denellan is because this is a community that needs that. And all students benefit from all of these things. And so, you know, this is this is sort of at the heart of what we're doing. We also have been running parent ESL classes. This is, I think, the the third iteration of this. These are actually being taught by Miss Soler Bottoro who's

152our new Spanish teacher who's also a community member. Uh Mr. Um Vargas uh they're sharing the course teaching load. We had about 80 people initially show interest. We have 30 who are attending regularly. Um this is again just anything that we can do to provide support for the community. Um I want to congratulate Miss Feta uh who had her baby uh Carson James on Sunday. Um so she's out on maternity leave. So, I wanted to provide a congrats to her. And then last and of course certainly but not least, but always last is the enrollment update. And the district uh did drop a number a couple of students. We um we are at 1,326 students without private prek. We're at 1,412 students including private prek. um and that is 607 students at Faber, 313 students

153at the middle school, and 406 students at the high school. The enrollment report is also in the agenda online. Um so if you look for that, that's one of the attachments there. That concludes my report. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Ross. very enlightening and certainly uh showing the breadth of what's going on here in the district and uh work that's happening. So moving on to item number 10 on the agenda, public comments on agenda action items only. Before jumping to here, just to note that there is a separate section separate in section 12 where we will uh have a public hearing and approval for the superintendent's contract. So if you are here to speak on that, please reserve your comments for that uh section of the agenda. Uh we're almost there. This section is

154for public comments on agenda action items only. So the board invites public comment from members of our community in accordance with board policy 0167 on agenda action items to be voted on only. 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 and administration will take notes during 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

155name 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 action 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. Hi, my name is Kimberly Green and my son is a fourth grader at Faber. I wanted to speak about the construction. Um, if I can ask a quick question. Um, Mr. Pepe, what was the last thing? >> I'm sorry. What's the action item? >> Construction. >> And that is I'm sorry. What section? >> Uh other items for discussion under superintendent report. >> So that's not an action item. No. >> Yeah, it's not an action item. Could

156we can we hold that until we get to the public hearing? >> If can you explain why it's not an action if it's on the agenda? It's not being voting on. >> Can I still get clarification on the last visit of Department of Labor? >> No, I'm asking what was the last date. I missed that when Mr. Pepe gave that report. >> The last date of the Department of Labor's visit. >> Thank you. So, you're confirming that I can speak afterwards. >> Well, when we move to the public comment section for the uh um I think it was the public hearing. >> Oh, all items. Sorry. On the all items, which is item double check. >> 18. Thank you. >> I'm just waiting for the date. You can't repeat the date of the last visit

157from the Department of Labor. >> Well, we could provide that after. Again, we don't provide comments. >> You've already said it. >> Any other comments on agenda items only that are being ordered on? Okay. So, u this time I'm going to close public comment. Mr. Ross, >> Mr. Pepe, can you provide the date of the Department of Labor visit, please? >> Sorry about that. Can you hear me? Yes. It was December 15th. >> December 15th. >> Yes. Okay, moving along, moving on to item number 11, committee reports. Um, as we started last time, uh, we have a section devoted exclusively for committee reports and we will go through each of those committee reports uh, one by one. So, starting with uh, the education committee, I will turn it over to Mrs. Howard who is the

158chair of that committee. >> Great. Thank you. Um the the education committee met on December 9th. President were myself, Miss Ibec, Miss Shyf, Dr. Janjano, Miss Drapkin, and Mr. Ross. The education committee met on December 9th and discussed a number of items including a wide range of staff professional development and coaching activities occurring throughout the district, information related to grant funded work currently in operation across the three schools, including climate change education, AP course expansion, school climate and culture, ELA related work K12, and an early outreach to families of children ages 0 to three. details about the schoolwide title one work being completed at Faber and LMS and the transition to schoolwide meetings that will be occurring this year at DHS, the district's partnership with NJ4S to provide educational sessions to students at LMS and

159DHS and their parents on topics related to anti-bullying and violence prevention and stress reduction, the universal preschool expansion facilities project at Faber, district calendar parameters for the 2627 school year, and a variety of other items and confidential matters. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Howard. Moving on to 11B, personnel. Um, I chair that committee. So, the personnel committee met on December 9th, uh, in attendance for myself, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Shep, Mr. Ross and a number of items were discussed including staffing information for the current year, additional compensation that is being approved on tonight's agenda, a wide range of updates related to the universal preschool expansion facilities project at favor, district calendar parameters for the 2026 to 2027 school year, and a number of confidential items. And that ends uh personnel report. Moving on to 11C,

160the operations committee report. Um, I'll turn it over to Mr. Walker, the chair of the operations committee. Thank you, Dr. Jano. The operations committee met on December 9th, 2025, 7 p.m., president at the meeting were Miss Condit, Mr. Satanoi, Dr. Tendano, Mr. Pepe, Mr. Ross. The discussion items included a number of items on tonight's agenda for approval, the district's transition to Blue Foundry Bank, a wide range of updates related to the universal prek expansion facilities project of fab district calendar parameters for the 2627 school year and a variety of confidential matters. That's it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Walker. Moving on to item 11D, policy. I don't believe we have any updates for that. Um, so we'll move on to 11E negotiations. Uh, Mr. Shim, would you like to provide a few updates? >>

161Okay, just the date, please. >> The negotiations team met yesterday on December 15th. >> Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> Okay, moving on to item number 12. uh public hearing and approval of a superintendent's contract. This is 12A. The Denellan Board of Education will now conduct a public hearing regarding the new employment contract for the Superintendent of Schools, Daniel J. Ross, for the effective period of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2030. During a public hearing, members of the public are invited to make a comment regarding the approval of this contract. 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'd like to make comments on the superintendent's contract

162only. Good evening. My name is Nancy Heredia Villinoea. I'm a resident of Denellan. I am a parent at one point who had five children attending all three Denellan schools. And today I only have one child left in this district. So I stood before this board over a year ago when my son was assaulted at school. I asked for accountability. To this day, I have seen none. I'm here tonight to speak on whether Superintendent Ross' employment contract should be renewed. But before I get to that, I need to address several critical issues in our school district that began after his employment. Despite the board president's lengthy speech filled with many inaccuracies, the online petition is not anonymous and the concerns expressed therein are legitimate. There are two separate petitions. One is electronic, one is not and

163all the board members were actually added um or copied in the petition, the online petition directly. Also, with regard to the board president's comment about the timing of the petitions and comments, it would only make sense since this is the meeting about whether or not we want to renew his contract that we would be discussing this as a community online at this time. So, um I I basically I'm um since Superintendent Ross took over, our district's academic performance has been poor relative to the state. According to the publicly available test score data, the Denellan public school district currently ranks near the bottom half of districts in New Jersey with overall testing proficiency much lower than state averages. Districtwide math proficiency is around 25% compared to a New Jersey average of about 38%. And reading proficiency

164is approximately 40% versus a state average near 49%. This trend holds at the elementary and middle school levels as well. For example, elementary math proficiency is about 28% versus 39% statewide and reading proficiency about 40% versus 49% statewide. At the high school level, math proficiency drops even further to roughly 12% compared to 29% statewide with reading at 37% versus 30 47% statewide. These numbers show a persistent and concerning gap in academic performance under the current leadership. While our graduation rate remains relatively strong at around 92%, graduation data alone doesn't erase the fact that many students are not demonstrating grade level proficiency on state assessments and are not adequately prepared for college. These numbers have steadily declined since Mr. Ro Mr. Ross took over. This information is publicly available and I encourage everyone to view this

165information themselves. And I would also like to point out that both Mr. Ross and the board board president only addressed that there was an improvement in the fourth and fifth grade level. They didn't even bother to address all the other grades in the Denellan School District who made no progress at all and their scores have continued to decline. So while Mr. Ross and the board president talked to good talk, the numbers don't lie. At this point, parents are fed up. Many are withdrawing their children from the district and paying out of pocket for education elsewhere. Even as property taxes reach record levels and the economy remains tough, families should not have to choose between financial stability and their children's safety and academic success. And I want to say that I take offense that you're saying

166that our underperforming is doing is due to us being economically disadvantaged. So basically, you're saying that majority of this community is poor and that's why we're underperforming. Has nothing to do with the leadership or what is going on within this community and within this school district. That is uncalled for. This lack of transparent communication and accountability is unacceptable. Staff members have described Superintendent Ross as a king in an ivory tower, completely disconnected from what's really happening inside classrooms and school buildings. Parents I've spoken to regularly are genuinely afraid to send their children to school. Parents are tired of coming to these board meetings voicing the same concerns again and again and seeing no meaningful action. After hearing the board president's very undermining speech, I wonder if this disconnect as to what is going on in

167the classrooms and schools also extends to this board as well because you seem to be very disconnected as well. Teachers are disheartened. Those who have spoken out have been pushed out and many excellent educators have already left with more planning to leave if this leadership remains. This continued loss of experience and dedicated demonstrate effective leadership in a town of only three schools. Yet academic performance and school climate concerns persist. As I told you the last time I stood here, it is your responsibility as board members to ensure that every child in Denellan receives a safe and highquality education. I remind you of that duty tonight again as you consider renewing Superintendent Ross's contract. As I stated before, there are multiple petitions currently circulating calling for his removal, including one started today that already has currently

168over a hundred signatures, and that number continues to grow. At this point, Superintendent Ross's removal shouldn't even be the central issue anymore. Teachers, parents, administrators, and students, some of whom are here tonight, have already spoken. We do not want him. We demand his removal and the immediate search of a qualified replacement. Superintendent Ross has failed this community. And if this board chooses to renew his contract despite knowing these facts, then you will leave this you will have failed this community of as well. If that occurs, let me be clear. Our community will act. We will find qualified individuals to replace every board member if necessary. We are done fighting the same battles and being ignored. You hired him. Now you must own that decision and correct it and give this community the accountability it deserves.

169And I would also like to say that the president's earlier speech disregards many legitimate concerns and undermines our feelings and issues as a community and school district. It looks like based on the agenda that you've already made up your minds, but I would strongly ask that one of you step up tonight to make a motion to reconsider moving forward with approving mi of Mr. Ross' contract and consider the collective wishes of this community and conduct an anonymous anonymous survey among parents and teachers to see how we really feel about you moving forward with renewing his contract. Um I as I stated also before I have for the board president to sit here and say that we don't address these concerns. I have personally stood before this board and addressed these concerns not just tonight not

170just because his contract is being renewed. And there's several parents who have come before this board numerous times as well only to go unheard. I said, "So, I'm really offended by the comments and also with respect to you saying that there's no bullying, there's no violence within the school. I spoke last time about how under reportported those SLDS reportings were and that there was bullying just the day of that meeting that my son was assaulted at school and nothing had happened. So again, I just encourage this community and everybody here to go do their own due diligence. Go look on the websites, look at the information. The numbers don't lie. This school is the school district has declined and will continue declining under Mrs. Mr. Ross' leadership. And I hope that the board does the

171right thing and does not approve his contract. Thank you. >> Other comments? My name is Jeff Best. I'm a resident of Denellan. I didn't come to this meeting angry, but I am now. I heard a lot of people talk up here about dialogue. Well, apparently you need to go back to school and learn what dialogue is. Dialogue means you give us a chance to speak. What I saw tonight was a filibuster. What I saw was you speaking long enough to make sure that the parents and citizens left this room. You did not give time for public comment. You didn't care what the public has to say. And that's disgusting. As for safety, I am the chief of the Denon Rescue Squad. I will agree that I have seen a marked reduction of the number of

172middle school students who have been beaten in 2025. That's great. But I have responded to way too many students who have been beaten. It's disgusting. Why was that ever happening? Now perhaps you don't think discipline is necessary. that I don't think that students should come to school knowing that they are going to get beaten on. What are you doing? If a child is assaulted then there you have an obligation first off to notify the parents that it happened and second to involve law enforcement. I have one parent who is a good friend of mine that discovered that his son was being beaten here in the school for two months and that you had it on camera and did nothing and didn't notify him. Well, his son is now removed from this school and he is

173now being homeschooled. Why? I have no explanation for this because the only word I can say when a child is beaten and the adults who know about it do nothing. The only word I can say is that you are accompllices and that will not be tolerated. I didn't come here angry. I came to talk about test scores and I came to talk about student performances. I came to talk about that if a school system is failing to educate that you need to look at the top at the problem that comes from the top. But what I saw here tonight was disgusting. You lectured the people. You went on a tirade. You gave a speech that was designed the only person I've seen do a longer speech was Cy Booker. When were you going to let

174the public speak? Because that is literally a constitutional right to address our government for redress of our grievances. And what you did tonight was attempting to remove that. Now perhaps civics and the constitution need to be taught in this school. And maybe that's a required course that you should be going through because our Supreme Court said that the people have the right to petition their government even if what they say is going to make you uncomfortable and it's difficult to hear at times. I understand it. Look, I hear complaints from people. They complain about what I do and addressing those complaints is important. But if you're saying that you want to have dialogue with the people, how many people came here tonight to have dialogue to speak and it took until after 10:00 at night

175at a meeting that started at 7 for them to be able to speak. You tried to wait them out. You tried to make sure they weren't going to be able to go to work in the morning if they continued to stay here. It's inexcusable. And I'm sorry. I don't I don't even have kids in the school, but right now I want to start a recall petition to remove all the board members because you let this happen. I'm not asking for I'm not asking for Superintendent Ross just to not be renewed at this point. I am asking for all of you to take a real good look at what you're doing. We have two new board members that are about to come in and before and before the elected new board members are here, we're trying

176to extend a contract that's going to go farther than their term of service. I find that interesting. The citizens voted for people to take positions on the board and they're not going to be able to speak at all during their term of service about whether or not we should renew this contract. It seems awfully convenient to me. I would seriously suggest that you wait until January and you give the elected representatives an opportunity to participate in the democratic process. I think I've said enough. Have yourself a good night. Thank you. Kakupia. become a resident of Allen. Before I start the speech that I prepared for all of you, I would like to comment on something that was said tonight. You both use the word vindictive and you both said that the community had a hidden

177agenda. It seemed to me by what I just witnessed for the past one and a half for almost two hours here is that you were being vindictive to the community >> and you had a hidden agenda tonight. your hidden agenda was to try and get us out of here and everything that you said was vindictive to everything that you knew was coming. So, I just wanted to start with that. Now, thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak. I come here wearing three different hats tonight. First, I'm the mother of two sons, one in eighth grade and one in second grade. Second, I'm an educator myself with many years of experience and in very different roles. And third, and very important, I'm the proud wife of one of the most respected veteran teacher in

178this district that has dedicated his entire career to teaching every single one of you. And I'm looking at faces that have suit that my husband is teaching right now or has taught in the past. So you know who I'm talking about. I share this not for emphasis but for transparency. What I'm about to say comes from a deep personal investment, professional knowledge, and a genuine love for this school district. Over the past three years, I have observed a pattern in leadership in leadership decision made by made by our superintendent. From my perspective and the perspective of many other people I spoken to this decision have consistently prioritized expansion, appearance and resume building over what truly matters which is student learning, teacher voice and community trust. We have seen the creation of several new position funded

179through temporary grants. Position that will eventually disappear once the grant money runs out. While they may look impressive on paper, they leave our district vulnerable and unstable and long term. This initiative may uh enhance a resume, but they do not streng the school system in a sustainable way. We have also seen the introduction of new data and assessment platforms such as Lincoln and I read and I'm so glad that you brought that up. They were implemented without meaningful teacher input and collaboration. Teachers were told to use them not asked. Our children are now spending significant instructional time being assessed. Yet despite all this data collection, our district academic numbers continue to decline. This raises a very important question. If the data is not being used to drive instructional change, to support teacher and to meet

180student needs, then what is its purpose? The introduction alone seems to be the goal, not the follow through. Once the system is in place, it can be listed as an accomplishment, but the hard work of using the data to actually improve learning never fully happens. This has been implemented for three years. Finally, now with the PLC, the data is sought into actually being looked at for to drive instruction. Equally concerning is the ongoing lack of communication with both parents and teachers. A clear example of this is the removal of the honor courses at the middle school. This was a significant instructional shift that directly impacted students and families. Yet it was communicated to teachers and parents less than a week before the start of the school year with absolutely no explanation and no opportunity to

181for discussion. A decision of this manager should have involved teachers, administrators, counselors, and perhaps even students. Instead, it was made centrally without collaboration and simply announced. Unfortunately, this has become a pattern rather than an exception. From day one, the superintendent adopted the motto small town vibes. I remember well that initial conversation, Mr. Ross, that you and I had. I was a board member back then because I was the one that used this concept to describe to you what Danellin truly is. I was hopeful when it became the superintendent model. I believe it would guide leadership grounded in relationship, transparency, and community voice. Sadly, that promise has not been upheld. The actions were have that we have seen reflect the complete opposite. top-down decision making, very limited engagement with staff and family, and a lack of

182investment in the people who make this small town special, our children and our teachers. Finally, I want to speak both as a parent, as an educator about instructional changes that are not improving learning. My eighth grade son recently came home upset because unlike previous years, in class, they're no longer reading full novels. Students are not engaging in deep character analysis, making inferences, and being pushed to think critically. Instead, they're using the new arts and letter language arts material. I actually brought the book with me if any of you would like to see it. And I would like to speak directly now to the ones of you that I know are educators, Mrs. Howard, Mrs. Shim, Mr. Anderson. I have the book if you would like to look at it. What you will see it's the

183same table repeated over and over and over every day all day. This is not rigorous instruction. This is not meaningful literacy development. That is certainly not preparing students for high school or beyond. As a district, we should be striving to raise expectation, not lower them. We should be empowering teachers, not restricting them to scripted materials that diminish professional judgment and student engagement. Teacher morale in this district is at the lowest it has ever been largely due a lack of compassion and empathy from the district leadership. Teachers are consistently told what will happen rather than being included in the decision that directly impact their classroom and students. I want to stop there and comment on something that specifically you brought up, Mr. Ross. you brought up the high quality um material for language arts. No, the

184teachers are not being part of the decisions. Again, there was a meeting and the teachers were showed the material. So, I want to make sure that everyone in the audience understand that a lot of the things that were presented today, it's not truly what's happening inside these buildings. There have been instances where teachers facing serious personal challenges were not treated as professionals or even as human beings, but were simply told no without flexibility or understanding. This is not small town vibes. This is a cold top-down leadership. The superintendent also instituted an instructional coaching program, one that if implemented well could be transformative. As a former instructional coach myself, I understand the power of such a model. However, I've yet to understand how instructional coach in this district is actually functioning. Many teachers continue to struggle

185with classroom management and student behavior. Yet, there is a little evidence that coaching is addressing these very real needs. At the same time, the superintendent refused to implement a clear district-wide discipline policy or consistency cell phone policy. Teachers are being asked to manage increasingly challenging behaviors without systemic support. Coaching alone cannot fix this. Leadership and policy must be part of the solution. Finally, I would like to address a deeply troubling issue related to priorities and equity. In reviewing the proposed contract, I noticed that the superintendent will receive up to $12,000 per year in tuition reimbursement for himself. This is shameful. when compared to what teachers receive in this district. A small poll that gets divided by the amount of teachers that apply. There are teachers in the district like my husband who have dedicated their

186entire professional lives to the children of Denalin yet have been unable to further the education because quite frankly a teacher in this town on the salary that teachers made in this town cannot afford to do so. Meanwhile, we're asked to approve up to $12,000 per year for the superintendent on top of the salary he's receiving of $25,000. This speaks volume about value and priorities. For all of these reasons, I respectfully urge the board to vote against renewing the superintendent's contract for another five years. This decision is not about personalities. It's about leadership, vision, and accountability. It is about ensurings that the next chapter of this district is centered on students, teachers, and the community and not optics because that's all you've been doing. Our children deserve better. Our teachers deserve a voice and this community

187deserves leadership that truly reflects the value of this small town. Thank you for your attention. >> Thank you. Hello. Stop a little bit. My name is Josephine Stalker. I have two kids in the district, an eighth grader and a first grader. Got my little script here. Okay. I'm here tonight both as a parent and a lifelong member of this community. I grew up in Denalen and attended our schools from start to finish, even including Whittier. I always imagined my own kids would do the same. Unfortunately, because the lack of confidence in the current superintendent, that is no longer something I feel certain or comfortable about. My daughter is currently in eighth grade. Like I said, she's a very bright student. She's definitely on the other end of the students that you guys are seemingly only

188talking about. She loves learning and thrives when she's challenged. and yet my husband and I are now seriously discussing whether we need to send her to a different high school. This district does not appear to prioritize or support its higher achieving students. One of my biggest concerns obviously was the decision to eliminate honors classes at the middle school level. This was announced just two weeks or so before the the school year began, leaving teachers scrambling to redesign their curriculum and manage mixed classrooms with little guidance or preparation. Since then, as far as I'm aware, there has been no meaningful enrichment in place for gifted and talented middle school students. Those ch those children are being overlooked, under challenge, and left bored, and that's not a recipe for long-term academic success. I also witnessed abrupt last

189minute changes in the elementary level. For example, first grade spelling tests were removed after a few months. From what I've gathered, it was an email that was sent to the teachers the same day it was announced to us. I can get behind a study that, you know, first graders don't need to be taking spelling tests. I get it. The problem with me is that these last minute changes to the curriculum, it creates a sense of instability and a lack of trust. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, Kimberly Green again from Faber. Um, I just wanted the word vindictiveness has been tossed around and I just wanted to share. Four years ago, I started subbing at this at Faber. I started subbing in September and by December, Mr. Ross recommended that I be a district

190employee instead of a third party vendor. Two years great. I only special I only subbed for special ed two, three times a month. And then I came to this board in November of 2024 to advocate for my son. Nothing was done. I came back in March of 2025 and I have not subbed since. There's been no reason for me not subbing. I have never had a complaint, you know, from the teachers or administration about my performance as a sub. I can't help to think I have been blacklisted and retaliated against. Thank you. >> Thank you. Other comments. >> Good evening. My name is Norma Martin. I have three children currently in favor, two special ed children. I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of special ed as best as I possibly can. I encourage this

191board to seriously consider our special ed department in its current position. Children with disabilities are not being given IEPs. They are being rejected IEP. They are being rejected from IEPs. No matter how many times their parents go to the child study team, no matter how many times they bring outside evaluations, those evaluations are not even considered even though parents are told that they are free to bring them and that they will be looked over. This district, especially the special ed department, is very selective as to what information they will look at and what information they will not look at. They look at I Ready scores when they serve the narrative of the child's study team. They don't look at them when they serve the narrative of the parent. As a parent with two children on

192the spectrum, I tell you, there is no parent that wants their child to receive services unless they deeply know and feel that they need services. There is no parent that wants their children pulled out of class because they have to receive services. We come to you because we know that our children need more than what is currently being given to them. And by not giving them these services, you place a hardship on parents, on the families, not just the parents, but on the other children in the household because parents are then forced to get private services that tap into their personal time. the other siblings are not able to take part in academics because there's frankly no time left because my child was rejected. I had to go outside and get private services. And Superintendent

193Ross, you're aware of that because I did reach out to you on several occasions for your assistance because my child doesn't have an IEP. They are not given the same sort of leeway that children who do have IEPs. I had to go and get my own ABA therapist. I requested on numerous occasions to have my ABA therapist watch my child in the setting in their natural setting so that they could best tailor their ABA therapy and was rejected on numerous occasions. I even so much as went to say just let him stand in the parking lot and watch them on the playground so they can watch how my child interacts to better tailor his ABA services and was rejected. Again, this is not a district of collaboration. You speak of wanting parent interaction. You speak

194of collaboration between parents and teachers. But that is not what you really want. You want us to be sheep. You want us to listen to what you say, do as you say, to not ask questions, to not advocate for our children. As far as a child study team is concerned, I would deeply encourage you to look into them. These individuals have been extremely disrespectful to parents who are receiving notification that their children have disabilities for the first time. And I assure you as a parent that is a very challenging thing to deal with that to not receive support from the district on top of that can leave a parent in complete disarray. We have nowhere else to turn to. As you've mentioned, our district is in a poverty level as you would consider, meaning that

195we don't have the ability to go out and get private services when services within the school are not granted. I would also like to say that because one of my child has been rejected from services for over two years now, the fight that I've had to go through with Dr. Santelo has now allowed him to receive partial servicing. But what you fail to realize is because he hasn't received services, they have to go backwards now in order to go forwards. He has to relearn what he should have learned two years ago while still being kept up to speed with his current curriculum. It's a task that is challenging for an adult to take on, let alone a child. When you deny a child services, you put them in a hardship. You put them in in

196a position of of failure. We need to move from a position of of reactive to proactive. It is not harmful to give children additional services whether they qualify for an IEP or not. But when you safeguard and keep those within an IEP and don't allow that children who really need them to get those services, you place them at a a disadvantage. And if you have any hope that our numbers are ever going to get any better, you have to start here and look here and start to give our children the accommodations that they really need. I encourage you as a board to look into the special ed department and ask yourselves this question. How many parents have come requested an IEP and been rejected? How many children with diagnosed disabilities do not receive an IEP

197or do not receive services within these three schools? I think you may be shocked to see how many parents come yearly and request that evaluations be done that bring private evaluations to these meetings and are still rejected time and time again. I can tell you I have been rejected over four times in the course of two years for my child with a diagnosed disability. Lastly, I'd like to say that high functioning individuals do not mean no support. It may mean low support, but it still means support. By giving support, you only encourage and help that child to meet their maximum capability. By denying it, you put them in freef fall. I'd also like to say that the teachers at Faber are fantastic and that they have gone above and beyond where the special ed department

198has failed. They have put themselves in a position to take on more than they frankly should because your special ed department is not doing their job. You're putting hardships on teachers and you're placing other children in a position where they can't receive what they need because a teacher is maxed out. They're stretched too far. As a parent, I was given the option to allow my child to fail. And that was the only way my child would potentially receive services. But the emotional component there was one that was not considered. By allowing a child to fail like that, you have to take into consideration what it's going to take to bring them back. I was not willing to do that. So because of that, my child stayed status quo and your child study team said, "Your

199child's doing fine." Without taking into consideration that the reason my child was doing as well as they were was because I was paying tens of thousands of dollar. >> Thank you. Other comments? >> Hi, Nicole Moore, uh, Denellan resident. You know, as you know, I will be stepping into the role of board of education member in January. I'm neutral in this decision until I take my place on this board and I can have a better understanding of all the sides. However, I do think it might be worth pausing until the questions and concerns raised by these parents can be properly addressed. Ignoring these concerns will only further upset and anger the parents and the community and could potentially hurt one of the three pillars that are so important to this school, building relationships. Thank you.

200>> Other comments, >> Kimberly Green Favor. Um, Miss Moore just talked about building relationships and I find that very interesting because when you build a relationship, you work together with people and the town has asked Mr. Ross since he got here to do a residency check. Mr. Ross has declined saying it was not needed. I did not realize it was the board's responsibility and I emailed the town. I spoke with the town and they were told again, they told me again, they saw no need. I was subbing in Mr. u Miss Gunther's third grade class and the kids were always so surprised and excited to find out I live in Denellan. And this one little girl jumped up and she said, "I live in Planefield." Seven or eight other kids said, "Shh, you're not supposed

201to say that." Why would they know that? They all live in Planefield. I did report this to the main office and the main office reported that that little girl has a brother in the school system. So that's 10 kids right there at $6,400 a kid. 64,000 that could have been saved. And that's not the grade. That was one class. So there's plenty other kids that 64,000 maybe could have been used to buy Faber paper. paper always runs out of paper. It's ridiculous. The other building relationship was Mr. Ross rejected the county's uh the county's offer to provide free training, cyber training, um online stalking, you know, all the internet stuff. It would have been offered for free from the county and it would have been tailored. the county would the community would have had input

202as to you know what they wanted. Mr. Ross was approached multiple times and said no every single time. I cannot understand why we would ever receive free services even if we were getting them from multiple agencies. Is there ever too much that a parent can learn to keep their child safe? And at the end I will email the board my con all the contact information so you can verify my comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Alina Villanoeva. I'm a Danellan resident and I have a brother in middle school as well as a relative who is in the elementary school who is special needs. Um, I would just like to second what she came up here and said, "I'm very disappointed in your guys special education program. She is 9 years

203old and cannot even form a full sentence yet is was deducted from her speech therapy and is only receiving 30 minutes of speech therapy in a month and cannot even form a full sentence. And every time her parents who do not speak English are told that she is doing perfectly fine and are you guys are not properly educating them on her needs and it is ridiculous as well as my brother. I have watched my mom stress and stress because his 504 accommodations have not been met and it is absolutely ridiculous and I do think you guys are failing the special needs big time and it is absolutely ridiculous and that is all I need to say. Other comments. My name is Jeff Best and I apologize for coming up again. There's one thing that I

204feel that I need to say that what I have heard from the parents and from the teachers that have come here tonight is they feel that the job of our superintendent has been a failure. A failure is not rewarded with a raise. Thank you. Other comments. >> Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Lopez. Many of you know me. We're neighbors. We're friends. Um, I've been a resident of Denellan for 15 years. My family lived here. My siblings were graduates of this school district. And our school district is imperfect. The problems that we've spoken about tonight have existed for decades. And I applaud every parent and every educator who is here tonight advocating for improvements to our district. But I do not believe that these failures fall solely on the shoulders of Superintendent Ross. I have

205had the opportunity to work with Superintendent Ross as the library director. I have seen the ways in which he has sought to meet the needs of the community. Dan Ross has been a part of our community for three years. The problems that we're speaking about have existed for decades and we need to seek solutions. We need to come together and not scapegoat an individual. I do not believe that seeking a new superintendent is going to put us on the right track. I agree that there are problems. They need to be addressed, but I don't think that they fall squarely on the shoulders of one individual. There are systemic problems that have ex existed for decades, and we need to work together as a community to find solutions. And I really hope that we we find

206those solutions in the future. And I do believe that Dan is leading us on the right path. My daughter Sophia was a part of this school board. She was the first student who was involved in the school the board of education and she had a wonderful experience and I do believe that we can work together to find solutions to these very real problems. I'm not diminishing the problems that my friends and my neighbors have proposed tonight, but I do not believe that they fall squarely on the shoulders of one individual. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, I just have to say one more thing. Um, we're talking about accountability and open dialogue on the Denellan board member page. not one of your contacts. So, we can contact any of you guys directly to

207even have a conversation is available. So, I really want to know how you're inviting us to have open dialogue when the only way we've even had to contact you is by finding personal emails and social media accounts. >> Thank you. Other comments. Last call. >> Okay. Closing uh 12A. >> Okay. Okay. Uh, moving along to the agenda. Um, okay. So, um, calling an audible at this time, uh, the Denellan Board of Education will adjourn into executive session to disc items that fall within specific exceptions to the Open Public Meetings Act. Oh, sorry. Thank you. So, need to make a motion, right? Okay. So, uh like looking for a motion to add executive session to the agenda. >> Move to add an executive session to the agenda. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I

208>> opposed. Okay. So at this time, the Denell Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall within specific exceptions to the Open Public Meetings Act, CJSA 104-12B, the confidential matters discussed by the board during this executive session include items related to personnel. Any discussion uh that does not need to be does not need to remain confidential made public as soon as it is 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 take place after the conclusion of the executive session. May I have a motion to move into executive session, please? >> Move to go to exe. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I

209opposed. >> Okay, we're going to go into executive. We'll be back in about uh 20 30 minutes or so. Okay, we are back. Uh, looking for a motion to come back into public. >> Move to go back to public. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I opposed. >> Okay. So, um, thank you for waiting. Uh so um looking for a motion to Shwanda. >> I move to postpone definitely item 12 A. I'm sorry. Is it B or A? I'm sorry. >> B. >> I I move to postpone definitely item 12B to our next regular stated meeting January 2026. Second. >> Okay. Uh, questions, comments? >> Okay. Mr. Pepe, please call the role. >> Just for the record, can I clarify? Are we postponing to January 6th or to the second January meeting? >>

210It's the It would be the Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> The second meeting. >> Thank you. Just write that down. for the public. I just asked that because the second meeting is not scheduled yet. That'll be determined when the reorganization meeting happens on January 6th. Okay. Um so we are taking a role. Mr. Anderson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Condit, >> yes. >> Miss Ibach, >> yes. >> Dr. Gendrono, >> yes. Mrs. Uh, Mrs. Howard >> abstain due to personal conflict. >> Mr. Senoi, >> yes. >> Miss Shy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shep, >> no. >> Mr. Walker, >> no. >> We motion passes. So, the original motion 12B is now postponed until the second meeting in January. Okay, moving on to item number 13, approval of minutes. Looking for a motion to approve the minutes

211from the November 18th uh board meeting. >> Approve. 13 I. >> Second. >> Uh open for questions or comments. Last call. >> Okay, Mr. Pepe, please call the roll. Mr. Anderson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Condit, >> yes. >> Miss Ibeck, >> yes. >> Dr. Gendrono, >> yes. >> Mrs. Howard, >> yes. >> Mr. Senoi, >> yes. >> Miss Shy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shep, >> yes. >> Mr. Walker, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Wonderful. Moving on to item number 14. Uh, education uh action items. Board action items. Education. Looking for a motion to approve 14A one through four as a block. >> Oh, all >> approve 14 I do. >> You do it all, right? >> Okay. I'm sorry. Let me let me retract that then. Um looking for a motion to approve 14 A

212through D as a block. >> Approve 14 A through D. >> Second. >> Open for questions or comments. Again, I would like to point out this is a large chunk of information and I understand we get the agenda far in advance, but we can overlook things when it's not broken up and I prefer to go back to discussing reports and action items by committee. Noted. Any other questions or comments? Last call. >> Okay. Mr. Pep, can you please call the RO? >> Mr. Anderson? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Condit? >> Yes. >> Miss Ibeck? >> Yes. >> Dr. Gendrono? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Howard? >> Yes. >> Mr. Senoi? >> Yes. Miss Shy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shep, >> yes. >> Mr. Walker, >> yes. >> Motion passed. >> Okay, moving on to item number. >>

213Well, yes. Thank you. Moving to item number uh 15 uh old business. Uh so uh this discussion uh is regarding the board meeting schedule. Did you want to take this? >> Okay. All right. So this is a there's a draft here um for uh board meeting schedule. So let's say anyone wants to discuss that. Right. And these are the um dates that'll be the meetings the meeting dates for 2026. Any discussion? Okay. Then moving on to 15B. Uh the district calendar for 2026 2027 a discussion and uh this refers to the to the ones that we were uh discussing in uh in committee. So um this talks about um >> yeah the the different options that we're discussing in committee. So any thoughts? Remember the issues were when does when does the school year end?

214Uh when does the school year start? What about um you know um certain uh breaks that would be held during the year whether it was a winter break or a spring break. Um there are tricky uh situations where um for example I think Easter is that that week is is early I think. Um, so any thoughts? >> Um, no, sorry, I just turned my computer off. Is the There's one with a break in November. Is that correct? Just refresh. Am I thinking the right thing? >> So, um, the first one was half day November and then 26 and 27 that goes along with the, uh, Thanksgiving holiday, right? That one. one where around election day and um do teacher I'm sorry teachers convention >> right so option one uh had the fifth and the sixth

215option two had the full week had full week >> yeah I was just reflecting that uh several years ago we had the full week >> and um I know that it caused some child care issues for families >> but again if we're going to go in that way I would recommend we um approve it as soon as possible so families have ample time to make arrangements. >> Agree. Agree. >> Um that's the when we the last time we did that though the nice thing about it was it was a very big chunk of instructional time um which I think felt productive and then a nice break and then there was kind of a bigger chunk of time to till the um Christmas break. So there were benefits to that the last time if that's the

216way the board decides, but just give ample notice so families can make childare arrangements. >> Yeah. Um and I think that was if I if I'm uh looking at this uh correctly, the um the staff uh um there would be professional days that would be starting on the 26th and the 27th. I think that's right. But no school for the students. They wouldn't be back in until uh I think they would start on the 31st. I think it's the first would be the first day >> in that that scenario. >> Okay. >> But the teachers would start soon. >> Then in the third scenario, yeah, this that's also the um Thursday and Friday in November 5th and sixth. No other days. And then the fourth scenario, yeah, same fifth and sixth, but the different scenarios

217start at different times. So for example, the first scenario we were talking about where um has okay the first scenario has um first day of school for kids starting at 31st of August and the last day of school as June 17th. Um scenario two, we're talking about first day of school, also the 31st, but with a change in I guess some of the actual breaks here. the last day of school winds up becoming the the 18th, a day a day day later. And then in option three, we have um school starting on the 2nd of September. Uh which would be after Yeah. 2nd of September because the the the Labor Day weekend is late. >> Yeah. >> So it's still before uh Labor Day weekend, but it would start on the second. Um and then

218it would end the school year would then end on the 21st of June which is late later than we've normally seen. And then the last one is uh start date is the 8th of September. So really starting late and that's right after the Tuesday right after Labor Day. But then we wind up going uh until uh the 24th of June. Okay. So any discussion on um on on the calendar? >> As always, I'm opposed to teachers and students starting before September. >> Okay. Noted. >> I feel like I mean overall, who wouldn't like to start a little bit later? and also end early, right? >> Um if we can find some sort of a compromise where we're starting before Labor Day but not in August. >> So, you know, even if we're looking at the

219kids coming back on the third or the second or the third to shorten that week since that's often just kind of like a get settled period of time. Um but if we can take into consideration the rest of the calendar where we're not ending at the very last minute in June in order to kind of compromise there. >> Right. So, so scenario three and and I think we >> I'm not speaking to any specific scenario, just saying in general the idea of >> trying to find a compromise between not starting in August because I I I would support that, but also not waiting till after Labor Day to start because that's really late and and we will pay a price for that at some point in the calendar. looking at the rest of our days

220off and finding a way to still end earlier in June potentially to kind of come together on both ends. >> Okay, thank you. Any other comments, guys? Last call. All right, so let's move on to Sorry, I lost my place here. Item number 16. Thank you. Item number 16, new business. Any new business? >> Okay, moving on. Oh, go ahead. Um, I would like to thank the members of the public that came to speak out tonight. As your elected board members, we do hear you. Um, I also like to thank Dan. when I've had questions, he's clarified many things about the construction. He's been very patient in explaining them to me. Hopefully, you guys will feel more comfortable looking into those things. I do have some questions still about asbestos and we've gone back and

221forth in that because he's uh alluded that it is nonfryable asbestous um asbestos and from my research non-fryable asbestos becomes fryable once it is um interacted with but I as I spoke earlier to Dave uh he's always helped me understand these things better and he explained some things to me tonight uh I do have a question Dan about some things we had a conversation I believe it was yesterday it was yes it was Monday today's Tuesday yeah Monday um You said through investigation some new things were uncovered. Could you elaborate on some the things that were found that gave you concern? >> I'm not sure exactly what you were talking referring to. >> You said because the date was moved and you uncovered some new things that had to be looked into. Uh I wasn't

222feeling very well. I don't think I questioned you further about that during our conversation. >> Yeah. I mean, as I said earlier, when you when you take down walls, you always discover new things. And so, I mean, maybe that's what I was referring to. >> So, no, nothing new has been found in in favor that causes concern >> in terms of asbestous. No, no, >> nothing at all. No, I mean we we've identified uh the pieces of asbestous that need to be remediated. Um we tested uh some additional uh floor tiles in >> floor tiles were one of my concerns. >> Yeah. Um they were found to not contain asbestous. There was testing of uh some piece of the cinder block where asbestous was found and then all of the rest of it was >>

223all of it was retested and there was no asbestous found. >> The asbestous was identified in the coaul joint. Uh there was like an old um chalkboard that was uh installed on the wall. You're you're nodding your head. and they use this epoxy and the epoxy contained asbestous. So that's been uh you know added to the list. >> I would also like to say to the public that your concerns uh as far as the construction are also my concerns. Uh and to the staff members that have concerns as well. Um I ask that you continue to share your uh concerns with this board so that we can ask the questions and get the answers to you. Thank you. Any other new business? >> I have a question. Um, >> in looking over our agenda and,

224uh, some of kind of the feedback that we've received at times and tonight included, uh, the end of our agenda is public comments. In the beginning, we have commentary on action items. I understand I I I get the logical flow. Um, what I'm wondering is because often we speak to a very empty room, um, I would imagine that time constraints certainly could impact individuals in deciding to attend. Is this a set way where we have to have public comments at the very end or is there an ability to move it up where people would have an ability to speak without waiting out a two or three hour board meeting in order to do so? >> So I mean I'll I'll speak to that. The you know the this is a meeting of the board. The

225purpose of the meeting is for the board to do its business. So the board's the public comment that occurs before the board action items should be related to the business that the board is doing. You could add a you could move public comment elsewhere. I mean it is not it's not too far after that. That's the that's sort of where we are. If you want to move the committee reports to the end, you could move that. The committee reports sometimes do speak to the action items themselves. So, but I know there are boards, I think Highland Park, um the committee reports are at the end after the the action items. You could move the president's report and superintendent's report as well um to move public comment earlier, but again, those those items are sometimes related

226to the board action items. So, there's no set way that it has to be done. It's just up to the comfort of the board. >> Thank you. >> Any other question? Uh any other new business? Last call. Okay. So, moving on to item number 17, uh president's remarks. Uh I have nothing further to add uh this evening uh other than to say have a uh wonderful holiday and we'll be seeing you in the new year. Um, at this point we'll move to item number 18, public comments on any issue, any topic. Uh, the board invites public comment from members of our community in accordance with board policy 0167 on any 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

227interest. The board and administration will take notes during 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 comments, please state your name and mun 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 uh comments on any issue or any topic. >> Hi, Kimberly Green Faber. Um I wanted to speak about the construction and the Department of Labor. I

228spoke with Angel yesterday. Um Angel is at the Department of Labor. He's one of the investigators. He reported to me that he was very familiar with Mr. Ross as Angel has made numerous visits to our school system. Angel said he has issued violations at multiple visits. So much so that Angel told Mr. Ross that if he had to come out again, the department of later would be issuing citations. Angel assured me that the safety of our children is their top priority and he would be keeping close oversight for this project. He confirmed that any asbestos abatement cannot be done when people especially children are in are present. I know there's a comment about the type of asbestous matters but according to department of labor it does not. Um he promised me that he will personally

229make sure the air is safe before our kids are allowed to return to school. I'm relieved that someone in the position of power cares about the well-being and safety of our kids and teachers. Angel's next visit was yesterday. He called me after that visit. He told me that he quotes he thinks Mr. Ros Ross gets it now. End quote. But Angel said he will make sure he does. I did not ask if a citation was issued, but if one was, who pays for it? I understand that the removal was moved to spring break, but I wonder how was this board okay with asbestous removal being done with our kids in school. Again, I will provide this angel the board with angel cell information so you can confirm my statements. Thank you. >> Any other comments,

230questions? Sorry, comments. Last call. Okay. Uh, moving on to >> Oh, go ahead. Please do. >> Miss Green, I mean, so there's been a lot of conversation, right? Board members have been swayed by the uh motions that have come out. I don't know who Angel is, and I've never spoken to someone named Angel, and I didn't speak with him yesterday. He's never issued any citations to the district. That's totally made up. And if you would like to share Angel's card from the Department of Labor, we'd be happy to have it. >> I did not speak with anybody named Angel. Right. This is my my time to speak. We have never received a citation with regard to this project from the Department of Labor. We had the first meeting from the Department of Labor yesterday. It

231was a It was Angel 32nd meeting. How long did you meet with him for? >> All right. Mr. Pepe met with Angel for a couple of minutes. That was the end of the conversation. >> So, excuse me. It is not your time to speak. Um, so again, you're going to make public comments, right? These comments are on the record, right? They are false and they are inflammatory. And I will just say again that the willingness to believe nonsense is high. Uh I'm very frustrated by that. It is 1210, so I might be a little bit more frustrated than I normally would be, but there's a there's got to be some discernment between what is fact and what is fiction. I'm very disappointed in this uh in in the the this commentary. Um and I'm just

232wanted to make sure that that was noted in the record. Ross. So, moving on to um any my item number 20 adjournment. Uh let's see. All right. Motion to adjourn, guys. Please make can someone make a motion? >> No. >> Oh, sorry. Yes. Executive session is number 19. Sorry, I missed that. Um do we want? >> Okay. Executive session. Uh we're going to move into session. The Dylan Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall within specific exceptions to the to the Open Public Meetings Act, C, the NJSA 10 4-12B. Confidential matters discussed by the board during the executive session include items related to personnel. Any discussion that does not need to remain confidential will be made public as soon as it is practical. Minutes of the executive session

233will 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. I have a motion to move to executive session. Please >> move to go to executive >> second. >> All those in favor? >> I opposed. Okay. Uh and for the public, we are going to move to adjournment after we exit uh the executive session. So there's no need to wait. There's no action that will be taken. So, uh, we will see you if you, uh, care to join us on January 6th at a reorganization meeting here 7:00. Thank you.