001e e e all right let's rock and roll okay calling this meeting to order okay in accordance with the open public meetings njsa 10 4-6 uh adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising and The Courier News and posting notice in the Board of Education Administrative Building administration building excuse me and district schools and filing notice with the burough clerk I hereby call to order the regular public meeting Tuesday November 19 2024 in the Lincoln uh Middle School cafetorium 400 dellan Avenue at 7 p.m. this meeting is broadcast live for details check www. thelan School schools.org um following the agenda we're moving on to item number two executive session the dellan Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall within specific exceptions to the open public meetings
002act C njsa uh 10 4-12 B the confidential matters discussed by the board during this executive session include items related to individual privacy um any discussion that does not need to remain confidential will be made public as soon as it is practice iCal excuse me 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 at this time I'm looking for a motion to move into executive session move to go to exe second all those in favor I opposed okay we'll be back uh about 7:30 for e e e all right okay hello we we are back um at this time I looked uh asked
003for a motion to move back into public return to public second all those in favor I I I opposed okay so moving on to item number three on the agenda Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence the flag is here please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all 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 United States of America thank you moving on to item number four on the agenda roll call Mr Pepe could you please call the role
004Mr Anderson presid Mrs Condit present Mr Dugen here Dr gendrano present Mrs Howard present Mr satoi here miss Shimp Mrs Shep present Mr Walker here student representative jazar mclin present and student representative Douglas J guaro present we have a quum fantastic thank you moving on to item number five approval of minutes looking for a motion to approve uh the uh minutes from the October 15th uh board meeting so who's the first I don't know were you first and you second second okay you guys win all right um open for questions and comments or comments I mean last call okay Mr Pepe can you please call the roll Mr Anderson yes Mrs Condit yes Mr Dugen yes Dr gendrano yes Mrs Howard yes Mr satoi yes M uh Mrs Shep yes and Mr Walker yes motion
005passes great thank you so much moving on to item number six student recognition I'll turn the floor over to Mr Ross thank you Dr gendrano and good evening parents and students it's so nice to see all of you here especially that back corner with uh so many of our wonderful little students so uh student recognition is a monthly tradition uh with the Board of Education where uh students from each School are recognized for excellence contribution to the school Community just general kindness and uh just being supportive classmates and friends and things like that so we have our administrators here and they will introduce the students of the month for their particular school students when you're name is called you're going to come up here and you're going to stand in the front with your certificate
006until all of the students are called from the school and then we'll take a little uh a little break and then parents you can feel free to stand up and grab a picture of everybody and all the rest um and we'll give you the time to do that as well so it's not rushed at all all right so we'll start with Faber Elementary School and Mr tenant [Applause] you know it's always wonderful coming to the board meeting because it's like one of the only times to get a standing or appla Applause and a clap up and everything like that so um real exciting times for our student of the month for November we have preschool Evan Ramirez M Lowry's class Evan come on up [Applause] stand right here Evan he is very kind plays well
007with his friends and always offering help another student bumped his head the other day and he offered an ice pack from his lunchbox look at that caringness of Evan how awesome is that thank you so much Evan kindergarten Hannah Torres where's Hannah there she is come on up Hannah congratulations Hannah has shown amazing qualities that make her role model in our classroom Hannah is always kind and respectful in the school Community she's always helping and sharing with her friends she shows wonderful responsibility by taking care of the things and following classroom dire directions Hannah always comes to school with a positive attitude and it's always ready to learn clap it up for Hannah first grade we have Chloe mayard where's Chloe I saw her back there somewhere come on up Chloe Chloe is a very
008bright girl and eager to learn participates and most importantly helps her peers she always puts others before herself for example she sits next to some students who struggle packing up and getting their stuff done in a timely manner however Khloe assists these students and encourages them throughout the day clap it up for Chloe second grade we have two students first up is Marvin Romero Martinez where's Marvin Marvin come on up Marvin presents himself and his friends to others and willing to help his teacher and becoming stronger and stronger academically As Time continues he is showing interest in learning new things while in school and has been selected as an anti-bullying Ambassador clap it up for Marvin our other student of the month Cali Mundy come on up Cali cie is the definition of sunshine in
009her classroom her Bright Smile fun personality kind heart and Role Model Behavior are just a few of the wonderful things cie brings to the classroom each and every day the amount of effort and positive energy she puts into everything she does cie makes a a fantastic student and goes above and beyond for class every single day clap it up for Al third grade Jer Calderon Castillo come on up J has a wonderful positive attitude always been wearing a smile she has been excited about participating on Girls on the Run and tells me she loves running every day to miss Gunther she is kind and helpful friend to other students in class and is a wonderful help to a teacher clap it up Jer please [Applause] fourth grade Noah Ben yunes Malo where's Noah front row
010there we are he is helpful to his peers he is kind to everyone he gets all his work done he's very attentive in class and always has polite conversations with adults in the room he gives his best effort every day all the time he is amazing says Mr Sosa clap it up for Noah Gian sto for fifth grade where's Gian there she is Gian is an Exemplar student she's the poster child for hard work and does it with the most Pleasant and carefree demeanor effort and attitude are always a few things that we can control in our lives and she's mastered them both at an early age the sky limit for her clap it up for Gian please and our special areas last but not least Carmine aano where's Carmine Carmine is a student who
011always tries his best in specials he enjoys all his classes and encourages his teammates and his teachers Carmine makes everybody laugh because he's so sweet and funny great job Carmine please clap it up for these wonderful students at fa school we celebrate a in day and out [Applause] parents if you want to come up to the middle take some pictures come on up e all right thank you Mr tenant from Lincoln Middle School we have our new assistant principal Miss Coffield make sure the mic's on press good evening it works now um congratulations to all our faor students here at Lincoln our first stone recognizes the sixth grader Preston Dalton come on up [Applause] Preston the staff at Lincoln middle school is proud to recognize Preston as our sixth grade student of the month for
012November Preston is cooperative and respectful to all of his teachers and peers he's friendly and person personable toward anyone he comes in contact with both in and out of the classroom academically Preston demonstrates a strong work ethic and is conscientious about all of the work he produces while Preston is very involved in athletics he seems to always manage to strike a balance between schoolwork and Athletics and activities outside of the classroom congratulations Preston we're all very proud of you right next we have we have our seventh grade student Brandon [Applause] costanzo the seventh grade teachers would like to congratulate Brandon for being recognized as our student of the month Brandon is commended for the attention he puts into his schoolwork he self-motivated individual who consistently works hard in all of his classes acting as a
013model for other students Brandon manages his time wisely and completes all his assignments and tasks in an organized manner Beyond academics Brandon is also recognized for positive character traits that he exhibits on a daily basis he's always respectful and kind to his peers and teachers Brandon also demonstrates cooperation in his willingness to work with others and help them congratulations Brandon you're off to a great start in seventh [Applause] grade okay and for eighth grade we have ronado Franco Morales I don't know if she snuck in I didn't see um Rada is Lincoln Middle School's eighth grade student of the month she has a positive attitude and is always engaged during lessons she actively participates in class discussions and chose a genuine interest in learning rata is highly responsible consistently putting in her best effort and
014setting a strong example for her peers her respect and kindness toward both teachers and classmates make her a valued member of our school community recently due to her hard work and academic achievements she was moved into two additional honors classes reflecting her dedication and Readiness to take on new challenges ronado is also elected our president for student council at Lincoln Middle School congratulations rata and we look forward to your continued success in eth grade and Beyond no okay um on behalf of Link Middle School congratulations to all of our students here in the den Allen School District for student of the month of November parents you want to come and take pictures Now's the Time [Applause] all right and last but not least from Den Allan high school we have Mr Tobin [Applause] good evening
015everyone always nice to see everyone out here for this recognition of the students uh since this is why we're all in education uh we're going to be recognizing our grade nine 10 11 and 12 students of the month for the month of November for grade nine Briana Sanchez Alvarez uh Brianna recently transitioned to ninth grade which is a challenge for most uh but not only that she also transferred from another District to us Briana is our nth grade student of the month as she made the transition and transfer seemed like it was par for the course in the midst of all these changes her marking period one grades are among the best of the Freshman Class therefore she is so Desiring of this award and welcome to denell and public schools so congratulations to [Applause]
016Briana our 10th grade student of the month is maias Mathias St Louis come on down [Applause] Matias just started here at dellan high school and really hit the ground running uh he challenged himself by taking his first honors class and in this first marking period was one B short of getting straight A's uh he also took a very bold and strong move and ran for student council as a new student here and graved a great speech and was elected as a class officer off for the sophomore class we're looking forward to seeing what else Maas can bring to dellan high school in his remaining uh two plus years here so congratulations Mias our 11th grade student of the month is Samuel Garcia [Applause] roas this year Sam is locked in as they say and although
017an already well performing student he has changed his academic performance to perhaps his best marking period grades of his entire High School career Sam took the talk seriously about junior year being very important due to this he moved his academics to the next level and is very deserving of this student of the month award and also in me and Mr Lynch and Mr denapoli's leadership class and is an excellent participant and student in our leadership class so congratulations to Samuel [Applause] our grade 12 student of the month is Natalie [Applause] himz congratulations Natalie's ambition knows no bounds as if maintaining a high GPA with honors and AP classes isn't enough she also has elected to take one class at middle sex County College and will be be taking two more this spring Natalie juggles her
018academics and extracurricular activities very successfully having participated in soccer Madrigal Art Club and Spanish club throughout her High School career as well as a National Honor Society I see great things in Natalie's future and I will also remark that this is the first year I don't think we've talked about missing airpods which is also a good reason for being student of the month because that's happened a couple times so congratulations to Natalie well deserved e so congratulations to all of our students of the month we have a uh we have a lot of board business ahead of us you are welcome to stay but I understand it's a school night it's getting late we're going to take about a 5 minute break or so uh if you want to file out that's certainly uh okay
019with us all right thank you have a wonderful night e e e thank you Mr Tobin jacket might be in every picture jacket might be in every picture there's G to be a pink a pink in every picture a little little pink Corner yeah I saw you going like this you were trying all right so uh so thank you all we are going to resume the meeting um and so I'm GNA turn this back to Dr gendrano great thank you Mr Ross So moving along to item number uh seven on the agenda president's remarks just a few things to talk about here real quick so first of all i' like to reiterate and you thanks everyone for coming out tonight um how proud We Are of our students uh who we just recognized and celebrated
020congratulations to them again on their Great accomplishments a couple things to mention since our last meeting um along long same lines with the student recognition I'd like to recognize our students who were SE selected by audition to participate in the College of New Jersey honors ensembles that happened just recently and are currently happening our talented students participated in the tcj honors course during a performance on November 10th uh those students were Maria Stein uh Brian V Genevie of Sato and Jackson Jano and this Sunday actually on the 24th uh Kaden Pomo Gwen dubr jenev satoi and Jackson Jr will be performing with the tcj honors Wind Ensemble the band um in in a similar performance and wanted to say thank you to miss piano Mr SATA Miss Miss Anastasia Mr guer and all of our
021art staff and administrators for supporting our students and preparing them for these great opportunities this past weekend the nelan High School drama club presented 10 ways to survive the zombie apocalypse and congrat congratulations to all the cast and crew for their hard work in making this production a tremendous success a special thank you to miss Tory Clemens Mr Larry royel and the DHS Art Club and Mr Dave Petzinger uh for making it possible for making that possible and thank you to the parents and Community for supporting our kids and schools and schools Kudos Kudos Kudos um with regards to our recent um uh NJ uh school boards conference or Workshop uh Mr Ross in addition to myself Mrs Howard Miss Shimp Mr satoi Mr Pepe were the contingent representing dellan School District at the uh
022New Jersey school boards Association Workshop in convention in Atlantic City we participated in a number of sessions and met with a number of groups adjacent to our school uh board work it was a tremendous learning experience and we look forward to apply our learnings uh to ongoing and future discussions perhaps a panel uh next time when we meet in December to talk about some of those things that we did learn um staying healthy as the weather changes and the temperature drops it's important to underscore that healthy kids means healthy schools which means a healthy Community bottom line we we encourage folks to take Common Sense hygienic precautions like washing hands well covering up when sneezing keeping sick sick kids home and keeping current with vaccinations to minimize the spread of infectious disease that can really
023impact our students and Community right now covid RSV and the flu are kind of low in their numbers so it's kind of a bit of a lull the season just just getting started so what we can do to prevent it uh will will will really be um beneficial down the line monthly celebration so November we celebrated uh American Indian and Alaskan natives Heritage Month in December we'll be celebrating um Universal human rights month International Day for the abolition of slavery International Day for persons with disabilities uh International migrants day as well as international human solidarity day and I mentioned these things to underscore the importance of diversity equity and inclusion in the fabric of the our daily lives and the impact that that has on our community open honest Equitable communication that is respectful positive
024supportive fair and most of all kind goes a long way in strengthening our community thank you again for your time listening and Happy Thanksgiving next week to everyone I'll turn it over to Mr Ross for your superintendent report thank you Dr Jano um so first item in the superintendent report is the student representative report so I will turn it over to uh jazara and Douglas good evening everyone so Douglas and I have prepared the student report for the month of October and partially leading in to November it's going to include sports activities the environment of the school student thoughts and just overall experience here at DHS so here's some information regarding the this portion of the school year so on October 29th the National Honor Society held their induction ceremony the ceremony consisted of an
025introduction and congratulatory speech from the chapter's president jaara McLaughlin the ceremony then was progressed by Dr Bess and following his remarks was the candle lighting ceremony speeches were given by Antonio stto Isabelle tarez Sophie Jimenez and Maria Stein about the four pillars of the organization the newly inducted members then signed their names in the NHS book to close the service congratulations to the newest members of the Roosevelt chapter of of the National Honor Society on November 15th DHS drama club had their opening night for 10 ways to survive the zombie apocalypse the last show was November 16th at 7:30 the club did an outstanding job with the play the black student union will be going on a field trip this Thursday November 21st to Keane University for the annual Malcolm Bernard HBCU college fair seniors
026who participate in the fair have the opportunity to receive admission decisions the day of the fair as well as scholarship Awards so next we're going to transition into the the conclusion of the Fall Sports so as far as football our destroyers ended their season with a record of zero wins and 10 losses the team was fairly young this year with a number of underclassmen stepping up to fill in rols on and off the field the team played their last game of the season on November 2nd unfortunately falling short of a win against South River the Destroyers wrapped up their season with a freshman team game against Ridge High School on November 5th sadly missing the mark on a win the underclassman show a lot of potential for the 25 to 26 Season next we have
027girl soccer our girl soccer team ended their season with a record of five WIS 11 losses and one tie the girls pulled away with a 4-2 win against South Amboy for senior night unfortunately the girls ended the season at the first round of the NJ Sia tournament with a 10 to zero loss against Delware Valley the team had three girls jar mlin Wendy wall and Rose Chella selected for all gold division next we have boy soccer our boy soccer team ended the season with a record of seven wins seven losses and one tie which is the third best record in our conference the team scored eight games in a row after failing to score in their first four they ended out outscoring themselves 28 to 24 after not scoring those first four games the boys
028also had a seven game undefeated streak next is girls tennis our tennis team ended their season with a record of zero wins and 14 losses however as stated by coach Egan our final record does not show the improvements made this season by a young Team Six out of the seven starting seven will earn their first Varsity letter this Thursday at the sports awards however in the second half of the Season we were able to improve within our matches with some close three to2 losses from teams that previously shut us out within the team the girls were able to push each other to become better by playing close challenge matches and numerous girls achieve their goal of moving up further in the lineup the future is looking positive as we do not graduate any players this
029year so we hope to have the entire team return next year with lots of match play experience game this season the next upcoming sports for DHS are girls and boys basketball wrestling and winter track there'll be an interest meeting for winter track on Monday November 25th girls and boys soccer will hold tryouts the week of the 25th as well all right so good evening so for the M high school I'm going to be speaking about the environment of the school on this last marking period so School environment uh on DHS have been uh prly average students at DHS seems to have settled back after break and are working on their assignments in the first quarter of the school year there was some struggle from students who had to turn in their work but teachers are
030encouraging students to do better and turnning their work there are classroom rules that have been reinforced so that students focus more on the material to cover that is positive attitude in the hallways and also students show a lot of interest in clubs and class officers are working hard on planning for their fundra events events some of the activities of the class councils are for the ninth grade our freshman have completed their first fundraiser which was we was a hot chocolate sale they started early in the morning on Thursday the 14th and sold hot chocolate munchkins and churas the fund Razer was a complete success and a lot of people enjoyed the delicious chocolate and desserts that they were that were available the 10 grade class held their clothing Drive where they collected a lot of
031clothes they got some profit inter change and they are currently working on planning future fundraising events the Juniors have not yet started fundraising however they do have the school store which is open every morning and after and after school too the senior's most recent fundraising event was their Halloween custom contest the contest Was Won by Summers cing wallet and Rose chicola with their custom based on the movie Step Brothers the next event the class has plan is their three on three basketball tournament which they hosted for their first time time last school year the tournament will be held at DHS at 3 pm. this Friday November on the 13th then on November 13th the mlau committee had the first meeting where the team was selected for this year's M Leto the team for dance will
032be New Year's Eve and it will be held at the midet Elks as far as further upcoming fund events the class will be selling Double good perp from January 13th to January 17th the DHS faculty also organized a custom contest exclusive for staff members students will Vote for Will vote to elect the best group and solo costume winners the solo winner was Mr Valenzuela and the group winners were the Inside Out custume teachers it was a lot of fun and a good way to interact with the teachers and they did a great job choosing their custumes winners were rewarded with a dinner at Al por of vieria here in dellan from the students executive student council we have been working trying to find businesses who are willing to uh help D to donates and fundra
033and events one of the mission of our conso is to help every class f for their own budgets so we offer fund research where the te student council will partner up with the class Council and divide the the profit and at the end we offer a higher profit than we will take since our purpose is to help them gather money we are also going to meet next Monday to discuss the idea of having a winter Spirit Week the idea is to have is to have it before winter break and spread some Christmas Vibes and go to the break with the winter uh experence uh as Miss uh as Mr henano said the dellan Performing Arts performed the show time was to survive a a zombie apoc apocalypse the show was very successful as a lot
034of people came to see it a lot of people commented on how the show was show was done nicely and they loved the work of all that all students put in I also have some information from Lincoln Middle School uh Lincoln Middle School student student uh student council officers were elected as the president is Renata Franco Morales the vice president is Adam GMA the secretary is Haley Gonzalez and the treasurer is Kaye Gonzalez I heard that they both are s are siblings so that's nice they can be working together um they have met with all the great level representative to plan events and they they decorated and organized the Fall Dance which was for all great levels they also started their winter basketball interest meetings and triy outs are in the next two weeks I
035have some information from favor Elementary as well um this last month of favor School favor celebrated a lot of great things going on for our students favor created anti-bullying amb ambassadors at each grade level to be leaders and role models in their school this these students were selected to lead the charge against bully they were able to give out bracelets to help remind their classmates we speak out against bullies against bullying celebrated Stamp Out bullying day the students were so excited to share their message to stop bullying with their friends fa for favor also celebrated kindness month during the month Miss Gamble and Miss Cordis were pushing into classroom and doing lessons lesson with the students around kindness the students pledged to be kind and 10 and then took class photos we celebrated our highest
036Achievers in the school for the njsla and wi assignments Paulo Tran had a perfect score of 850 on his mat njla Jessi call Moreno at on her waa assessment and also arani wah who also sell on his with assment favor got a climate change Grant and that Grant is allowing favor students to to participate in Arrangement activities around aquaponics Hydroponics and harvesting vegetables we are excited about what students will be will learn our Aqua phonics love is thriving Cody Parker from drop the beit Farms is working with our students to give them tips and tricks to teach our students all about the system and how it functions students in third grade are harvesting vegetables and lettuce for salads in the cafeteria thank you thank you both that was great really extensive and I appreciate it
037I know the board does as well and members of the public so uh looking forward to those kinds of updates moving forward so thank you both um all right we have some presentations um and some information we are going to start with the preschool presentation uh this is preschool expansion information for school year 2526 and the presentation will be given by miss van Ross so we need to relocate for okay hello and and it's great to be here Melissa Van Ross supervisor of Early Childhood um it's great to see you and be with you so I'm going to present some information on the ongoing efforts with our preschool expansion um update you on this year and what's to come for next year um as far as our overview just to reiterate the preschool expansion has
038been a critical part of serving dellan School Community um um and offering this opportunity to families for pre free preschool districts must strive to serve 90% of the universe within five years and we plan to achieve it in the third or fourth year of our expansion in school year 2025 26 next year the district plans to add four three to four new classrooms to serve an additional 60 students through a partnership with big hugs that's in Greenbrook so just to give you um an overview of our strategic growth timeline last year around this time in October our pea funding was awarded uh our expansion was communicated to families and planning began we had originally started with 35 seats um as we moved into the expansion it began January um and we added the six seats
039at Faber for the three-year-olds the tuition payments were refunded for all those enrolled families and our total seats went to 41 coming in planning for this year um 15 seats were added at Faber that means there's four classrooms now Faber 45 seats were added at our private provider A+ Academy so they have three classrooms there uh which brought our total seats to 105 so a nice growth this year um and the numbers you know to get them up um starting now in November uh we started our planning of course for next year and our plan is to open 45 to 60 seats um at Big Hugs the private provider which I mentioned so we're projecting our total seats to be 150 to 165 um the exact numbers are going to depend on the next step
040which is is happening now with our community outreach and we really plan um in the next week or two to get an interest survey out to the community uh throughout dellan with active advertising and um bringing of the information to all the events so that all families can have the opportunity to share with us if they have interest so we can gauge our numbers based on that um initial survey which will then lead us into the new year um in January February of next year in which we hope to hold parent information sessions um information will present be presented to families for next year for 2025 26 school year and then the pre-registration Google form will be sent out as a little bit more of an official um commitment as far as our programming with
041the expansion Aid we have our preschool Community parent involvement special specialist the cpis if you hear that that's uh Community parent involvement specialist she is running family events throughout the year based on her survey and feedback from parents and families um she's aiming to do about a an event a month to bring in families and make connections and educate um and offer resources she also runs the eak our early childhood advisory Council we had our first meeting on Monday was that yesterday um so we gathered um teachers from grade levels prek through three because we're really focusing on that transition meeting the needs as the students move from preschool up through third grade The Early Childhood years um we have a parent uh member we have uh members from the community the librarian in town
042we have our Librarian from the school um it's really a great team that gave a lot of good feedback yesterday at our meeting we also have our pre School instructional coach um she is integral to supporting our teachers and really guiding them through um the strategies with the tools of the Mind curriculum she taught it for 10 years so she's she's been great at supporting our teachers she also runs the per um which is the preschool intervention and referral team we have our state approved curriculum to tools of the mind uh we follow ecker's guidelines which is our early childhood environment environment rating system system so we ensure a high quality preschool for all our students here we have our integrated specials and our additional staff that we anticipate would be a social worker um
043and a speech therapist so as far as future planning um tonight we have the two required board approvals on the agenda um so like I said we're planning to add up to four classrooms or 60 seats next year of course that will depend on our interest survey and the numbers we can kind of gauge um and then the additional state aid will support our new staff and the new classes as we plan for the Universe um that number is based on the double um doubling the number of the first grade students currently uh including the public and charter schools so it's approximately 180 students which is about 12 to 13 classes which would have 14 to 15 students per class so we must um strive to to serve 90% of the universe within those 5
044years so we're on track I said we are ahead of track um so that's it thank you for your time I'll take questions if you have any to the board thanks all right thank you very much Miss van Ross um on that first slide I did say that we were going to add four classes and all the other slides showed three to four classes we are adding three or four classes we've not made that determination yet the board approval does show four classes we need to um basically show the maximum number of classes is on the board approval which is a certified resolution that will be sent to the Department of Education but um based on the survey feedback and the information that we receive from the community will make a determination about exactly what
045this looks like next year um but as you can see and as miss van Ross presented uh we started with 45 kids and we could have 145 or 160 next year so it really is tremendous and we know that getting uh universal access to preschool for all three-year-olds and four-year-olds in town would be just an absolute game changer for us uh moving forward as a school community so very excited about this work uh I'm very thankful to miss van Ross for her leadership on this Miss drapkin has been really the driving force behind this um for the last year and um none of this could have been done without you so thank you as well for for everything you've done um before we move on board me Members any questions for me about preschool all
046right so next I'd like to bring up Mr marenberg and Mr marenberg is our district uh safety coordinator um District security coordinator and I've asked Mr marenberg to uh speak today to the board and to members of the public who are here and at home just about some of the ongoing efforts um related to Safety and Security Now obviously as you know Safety and Security efforts within the district are many of them are highly confidential and so the information that will be shared will be a little bit light on very specific details about things that we've done or are doing but you will get a good General sense of things uh from the presentation I also do have for board members a little bit of an overview of speaking points and so um uh I
047will without further Ado turn it over to Mr marberg all right I like talking with my hands so the mic is going to mess me up um do keep the mic first of all it's nice seeing everybody again do use the mic because we have the recording yeah in the back thank you um I'm G to go over some things they may not seem cohesive but what I'm dealing with is basically putting together a puzzle um tiny pieces take a lot of time to go together into a picture that hopefully we never see um first um heavy lift is our reunification process um labor intensive Manpower intensive it's dealing with um I'm working daily with Mr Tobin dull and PD dullin OEM middlex County OEM goes any further State's going to get involved and depending
048upon the situation the federal government can step in on something like this um it's going through stages there's right now we're in expectations and vision of what we want the plan to look like um training of staff and then it even gets presented to you for approval the superintendent lawyers um and there's even parental education where we have to go over the plan with the parents um this process is in place um if the unfortunate incident that we ever have an active threat um once that threat is dealt with we need to remove our students and staff from the building to a safe location not in the district not near here um where they will be met with counselors police parents will be coming there faculty um if necessary clergy it will almost be like
049and I hate to make the comparison and assembly line that students will go through to make sure they're okay before they're reunified with their parents um Den nullen is a small town we don't have busing our local police department is small so this is a huge huge project um it goes slow but we'll get it done it's very important piece to the security plan um we' also been working on this is our Bible this is a School Safety and Security plan um on my last job you'd call it the patrol guide everything and anything with school security is in here with all the schools all of our plans all of our policies it's our go-to um Mr Tobin has done an amazing job starting it I'm pulling it together adding the final touches um having
050a paper copy a Bible is necessary but also getting it online so that new hires and anybody with authorization can see it um a lot of time another thing we're working on is the site assessment site assessment is at minimum 400 questions about everything and anything that has to do with the district with the buildings um there are questions on it asking when was the last time the traps in the kitchens were checked to make sure that there's adequate water in there to stop gases from back flowing so it's a lot of time a lot of people have to get involved in this um teachers of all disciplines maintenance security um it all goes on an app there's about a 15minute video on YouTube telling you how to use the app I've watched it twice
051um next uh exterior signage oops this is something we're working on actually I am just waiting for samples these are the numbers that go on our Windows all the buildings every room has one um right now it's time to upgrade them um we're looking at something like this it will be stuck on the exterior of the window because we have our shades are in the middle of the panes so putting it on the inside isn't going to work um I'm looking at getting them in white with the red numbers just like we currently have on all the exterior doors the number nine um no other reason than it's aesthetically pleasing I don't want colors of a looking like a corkboard so very important um could you just share share those that way also okay industrial
052tape if they come off we put it back on um not that big a b deal this is four pages long this is a list of all the signage that I've compiled that the school needs it's from room numbers to X ior signage um upgrading our trespassing signs upgrading them to putting title 2C on it which basically States during school hours that is your warning not to come on school property title two is stated which gives law enforcement the right to issue summonses or make arrests if if need be um also using exterior signage as way find in there's nothing that basically says this way to the main office this is not an entrance um our deliveries I don't know if you came in today you saw the cones that are out front um I
053put them out there it's just a little physical barrier to stop cars from not stopping as they enter our alley here when children are outside um I witnessed a delivery come in while the kids were playing and this slows them down they have to get out they have to stop I'd also like to put a sign outside that code um that responds to our delivery um plan where the vendors have to call prior to getting here so there is a log so that we're already alerted that somebody will be coming and they wait for us to come out and get them um moving on to Interior signs once again wayf finding um I basically completed this at Faber um um I'm doing it in a in a laminating process right now with paper as a
054temporary um fix if it works um I would upgrade it to the kind of signs that we currently have in the high school the plastic signs some of them State the nurse the floor you're on um I want to go further with that um if you walk into Faber right now you're immediately directed which way the rooms are going you get to the into that hallway it directs you which way is left which way is right um it's great for new students for the parents but I think of it from a tactical Viewpoint which is First Responders coming into the building need to know where they're going um if there's nobody there to direct them the signs do it um moving on to the high school a little more complicated with the stairwells um same
055process wayf finding but inside the St St wheells before you even exit the doors there will be directions on what is to your right and what is to your left another first responder um help um I'm moving fast because I know it's late radios bless you um currently we have two types of radios um and neither of them talk to each other this is Faber this is the middle school and the high school and some admin at Faber have them I would like to upgrade Faber so that the schools can talk to each other right now there's very little communication that can happen other than a cell phone or the hard lines if hard lines go down we resort to radios so what I propose is updating Faber and giving it the capability um talking
056like they do currently at the school they have their own channel if anything should arise they switch a channel High School can do the same the schools can talk to each other and then go to an emergency channel that is strictly used for that incident um maintenance currently has a channel and I would like to dedicate a channel to PD where I can get on and talk to them and advise them of what's happening in our schools prior to their arrival um I understand budgetary concerns I'm everything I do I keep that in mind um big deal but communication is key without Communication in an instance where we'll have chaos and uh I can't have that um on a small note we've instituted parking plots for the faculty at fav um there was a major
057issue with having unauthorized people or parents entering our Lots during um drop off and dismissal um that's pretty much come to an end grant that I do stand at the entrance um but the plaques help it helps me identify the cars and it's not so much the parking although making sure that the teachers can get into school in the morning get to their classroom and take care of the students is important um on a safety aspect the parents coming in and out and crossing the sidewalk where the students are crossing is uh my concern so that's pretty much come to a stop but we'll see if I'm not there for a day um security enhancements with our security system I don't want to say too much but by far we have an amazing system um
058and I give all the world all the props to Ronnie Dave and Ryan for really keeping that running everything I've asked of them they've done um changing camera descriptions right now if you looked at one of our cameras and you'd see a description of where the camera is you'd literally go you know BB ticks no idea what that means changing all the descriptions so that anyone looking at the camera can tell someone who may be on camera where they are what direction they're heading in combination with our Maps if PD is giving instructions it's it's Layman it's very easy now and I'm trying to simplify all of that um a visitor management system very big um our system is capable of handling it it's not the easiest thing um um but like I said the
059gentleman that we have in the department can do it it's basically scanning IDs as people come into the school uh be it a passport or a driver's license non-driver's license ID from the state um it can even scan for Megan's Law so we know who's coming in even the contractors would have to scan before they enter the school um also using it for the students um undertaking but it can be used for arrivals in the morning they can scan in takes their attendance some of our students leave for lunch easy enough just to scan out scan back in um good way of tracking and it keeps a a record of everybody that's entered our school and their information um camera IDs I went over doors um big issue maintaining making sure that they're all closed
060classroom doors to um alarms that go off that they're investigated um even those were updated in our system for locations now they correspond to a camera so when the door goes off the camera trips we can see who's going through our doors relocation of the blue stropes um I don't know if anybody pays attention to them on the exterior um interior um is not my concern right now but on the outside I'm trying to move them all to all the entrances they have to be right there um I've walked up to a building it was a sunny day I didn't see them so now there's no excuse for a parent to be standing at the front door while a blue strobe is going off saying I don't know what's happening if they do say I
061don't know what's happening I will Point them to our new signage which tells them if the blue light is going off the school is in lockdown and whatever other instructions we plan on putting that so redundancy for that um also uh I would like to look into securing all Lockers in the schools no open lockers no open locks it's it's not safe it's a place for students to hide things for other people to hide things so whether they're used or not um I'm going to lock them I know some of the students have an issue with going in between class it's not enough time they have to figure out the trick on how to set a combination lock that it takes you a quarter of a turn to open it as they're watching they're not
062watching um last week we also had the NPD and middle sex County Special Ops units here they were going over active threats they were moving through our hallways moving through our rooms um part of the Bible um also continuing and trying to further our relationship with theel and PD I invite them all the time to walk through our schools at any point of the day um if they're shy I told them to call me I'll gladly walk them through knowing the lay of the land is extremely important in that line of work um knowing the hallways if they make a turn what's there so the offer has been extended and actually some have taken me up on it um all of this takes a tremendous amount of time from my day um so it's a
063it's a creep right now um I understand possibly the board may be considering um the hiring of someone else to assist me if that is the case I thank you very much um it's it's it's it's it's needed it's it's a big job um so I thank you all Mr Ross I've mentioned that to him um what I'd like to do which is very important I need to get back to spending time in the hallways with the students with the staff it's important to me because as I said when I was meeting all of you this is a team job I can't do this job alone and the students The Faculty the parents are a big part of getting on board with me um so when I'm asked questions or why don't we do this
064my old school did this I take the time to explain things yes your school did it this way let me explain to you why they did it that way and why we're not going to do it that way um I don't like saying because I told you so um I don't know if I'm even allowed to say that I don't know if anybody would listen to me or I have the authority to say that but it's extremely important um spending time with people builds confidence confidence builds trust and the trust builds relationships um and that's what this job is about um I'm asking people to listen to me to follow me God forbid something should happen um and all of this is very time consuming so if we are considering once again thank you um
065just to close um you know this whole thing this book all of us and we're all part of the program this you're all included in this nobody escapes the book um we're only as strong as our weakest link um I'm part of the chain you're all part of the chain but we self-inspect um so all of us together this will get done I promise you it will um right now the school is in good hands everything's running smoothly it's just uh it's a process and I I just want you to understand that um and if there are any questions for me at any point I'm always available okay board members do you have any questions for Mr marberg yeah I do just technically are you looking to go with a UHF dig digital secure radio
066system as a recommendation so that is a yes because they didn't yeah they just can't hear you on the uh on the video digital and encrypted perfect um what we do have to add to the system is we have to add boosters um yeah that's what I was going to say because of the buildings in place would that be we tried it last week I'm sorry we tried putting a booster on top of Faber um it sent the signal here but it was very difficult for us us to read what was being sent back to the school so we took the repeater the booster and put it in this school and everything works fine the radios have also have to be strong enough to reach the booster so it's it's not as simple as just
067getting the least expensive radio you know there is and and explain that it's also multi-use so that'll combine with both the PD as well as Emergency Management to control any it won't talk to PD um Communications with PD is something we've discussed that's a whole different animal that has to do with you know i' I've asked you know I ask it it doesn't hurt to ask I've asked for a radio from PD it doesn't happen it's it's like asking to take an officer home it's it's just not gonna happen um they're not going to give one up um so we have to find a way if not directly to PD then I was thinking of somehow having Communications with Somerset dispatch so at least I can talk to dispatch and dispatch can relay the message
068back to the null and PD that's a tricky one there's too many people involved right and I I like the fact that you're really looking at the visitor management system because that also helps a lot with reunification as well as a lot of those lost persons kind of uh information so that's really good um thank you part of that scanning process with reunification every single day the front offices are going to have to punch out attendance sheets every day so that if something were to happen we're not looking for a faculty member who didn't show up a student who didn't show up so every single day the system would help with that and also help with Manpower in time just spitting this out for us putting it in the folder and that folder is in
069what's considered a go bag just in case anything were to happen the bag comes with us and we have the information we need right and just for clarification that's not to manage the resources and the staff that's just for accountability for you know in case a need arises right yes yes I just wanted to say thank you I I think um the updates that we've gotten from Mr Ross periodically and hearing you tonight we obviously didn't know what we didn't know and it sounds like we're learning a lot about what we didn't know um and I just as you were talking in my head I'm just like wow this was this was a really good decision so I I just I really appreciate um you know the fact that we kind of we have you
070at the home and and that you're guiding everything for us I appreciate that um there's a lot more everything breaks down and by no means please that I paint a bleak picture and I don't want to you know say it's a quiet night but we're good it's it's a good system we have everyone listens The Faculty is good we're well trained um but it's never good enough awesome thank you Mr marberg thank you more can we maybe M have Mr marberg in an executive one night just for a few minutes absolutely just there some few few things I want to say ask out loud yeah we'll we'll speak about some just some confidential matters um and I'll just say I mean from thank you for for your comment Miss Shep and I think um you
071know we had probably three months of dialogue about this position um last spring and obviously board members there were lot of different perspectives that were shared and it was I think a a very good starting point to start with a district security coordinator um these guys are talking shop they are going to just talk shop all night aren't they no it's okay um but the uh and so there's sort of two parts of it first is um you know I think the position was a well-designed position and I think that our hiring process was thorough obviously we're very fortunate to have uh hired Mr marenberg for this for this role um and when we met him initially in the first round of the interview process we're very excited by his approach his um sort of
072downto Earth communication style but his really his deep caring about students and staff in the school Community um we are we're all Educators and you know Dave is a a tech guy and Ronnie is a facilities expert and uh is is a technology expert as well and so there had been a tremendous amount of work at the sort of Baseline that had been done in the district and you know we have been really a model school for many districts to come and visit in terms of the electronic keying system um which was put in by the previous administration and which was just an incredibly insightful thing to do at that time five years ago or whatever it was um the camera system the connections it's all excellent the crg mapping that was done is you
073know interactive mapping that's shared with all of the uh First Responders and and other groups um that would respond to an emergency uh event and all of that was in place um but I think that the really big difference here is that when we think about all right what do we need to do next we all sort of got stuck because we had hit that kind of that that lwh hanging fruit um and having um some someone with Mr marburg's background um in emergency services and as a a patrolman and as a manager of folks who lead security teams um it's really just been incredibly eye openening when we talk about the facility and we talk about you know the traffic of students and we TR talk about how staff enter and you know the
074way that we communicate to each other there's a really sound rationale behind the things that we're doing um and the steps that we're taking and I will commend the staff I mean we've asked for a lot of different things from them we've asked for a lot of changes they've been very open to things um and open to to new approaches and um you know I'm thankful for them for their partnership in this as well so only good things to come I will say that as someone whose office is in favor one of the the best very simple things uh for me has been the internal wayfinding signs because faers rooms if you know if you've been in there it is very hard to figure out which room is in which direction my for two years
075I have just walked around in a square or in a circle because I know at some point I will get to the room that I need to but now I can actually decide to go right or left and I'll probably get there faster so um but in all seriousness thank you very much for your work it's been tremendous um and uh and as we discussed and as is on tonight's agenda we are looking to making I am making a recommendation to add a a another District security guard um we are also in conversation with the buau about the SRO we're waiting for the buau uh for dpd to become more fully staffed so that we can have an SRO on site and obviously having an SRO on site is tremendous for direct communication because there's
076someone in the in the in one of our facilities who has direct access to the police department which is what we had really wanted uh from the onset but I think that um you know the last couple months of this process and of vetting has made us realize that even if we had an SRO we would still want another District staff member um who was on site so that Mr marenberg could have more of a floating role more of an oversight role more of a management role um to ensure the the the overall Safety and Security of the facilities so thank you again to the board for your support in this Mr marberg thank you for your presentation really appreciate it um and then we will move on so thank you thank you all right
077the next presentation is mine uh my staff members I will say administrators if you'd like to go home it is nine o'clock um I know actually all three of you have relatively long drives so um you know I wish you a good night if you would like to stay feel free to do so uh Miss Laguna morau you're gonna hang out so yes yes well I'm going to probably talk for the next 20 20 minutes over there so I'll I might put you to sleep so uh the next presentation is about District goal setting um and so um I will set that up and we'll just take about a two second two- minute break right here e e hello hello hello all right so we're going to get rolling with the district goal progress monitoring
078update so for the last couple of years I've done a midor update on District goals and uh and I will do the same again in January but one of the things that's different about this year is that we have started to work with a company called stter education um and they have helped us do some really formal goal setting work that I wanted to to share with the administration or with the board and with the public uh so this this presentation was shared with staff members and uh many of the things in here have already been shared with staff and folks know what what we're sort of working on at each level but I just wanted to provide a a very broad overview of this work I'm not going to get into all of the
079details I'm not going to read all the slides um but basically this work is really about trying to make functional the district goals that we have so we have four District goals right we've had three in the past we added Community engagement we re re uh reshuffled sort of goal three to make it operational efficiency but these have been really the things we've been we've focused on and most school districts have District goals that are somewhat similar to these some have five some have you know six or whatever but generally District goals focus on the same types of of things in in every District um what usually happens is at some point the the it's really hard to see whether you've actually met a district goal right you set a goal and the goal is
080some sort of sort of broad-based thing or general thing and it's sometimes very hard to say like did you actually meet this or did you make progress or to what degree did you make progress and so our work is really about trying to Def Define the sort of cascading approach to this so the goal is very general right the district goals were approved by the board um and you know we've talked about districtal updates that are shared regularly Etc right but what we're talking about if we're talking about academic success for all students is we have to identify specific impacts specific metrics at each of the schools and at the district level that are defined so if we're if we're looking at operational efficiency and we're talking about human resources we have to say what
081is the actual impact that we want to see and so the process of developing impacts was really about talking to administrators and saying what is the most important thing that you want to move right what's the outcome that you really want to see what do you want to change and these impacts can be measured throughout the year right if we're talking about um improving processes or it can be summative after the year is over if we're talking about something like State Testing once you've identified the impacts right then you have to identify the things that you're going to do in order to make that impact happen so if I say for example we want to improve processes in the business office and we want to improve something about its efficiency right we can't just hope
082that that's going to happen we have to State some specific actions for that and so our specific actions really get very granular right what will you do to do the thing that you're that will hopefully affect the impact right and these are reviewed quarterly by our admin team and I speak with all the administrators about the actions that they're taking and we put those um into effect strategic actions are also the behaviors that we want to see so as a manager many of you board members are are managers of people and you say things like I wish so and so would do this more more right and rather than saying I hope that so and so would do this more we've actually written it down and we say you have to do this because this
083is what I want you to do right and this is now part of your part of the accountability piece of things and the administrators have said yeah this is something I have to do if I want to meet this goal so it's been a really good partnership in that way the last piece of it is the action evidence which is basically how do you prove that you've done the Strategic action that you said that you were going to do and so the Strategic action has to have some supporting evidence that's associated with it and sometimes we set actions that are really not achievable or not not measurable we'll say things like someone will become more familiar with something something right but when you say that there's no way to actually measure that unless you give
084them some assessment right and so we have to look at the Strategic actions that people had put down and say well this is actually too General right we need to get a little bit more specific and this evidence is collected throughout the year and cated you know during our um our admin meetings so here are the big impacts that are targeted for the current school year this is divided by school there's a district one which is on the next slide but you can see what folks are looking at we're looking at Ela performance at Faber based on I ready scores we're looking at teachers managing and documenting um student issues and student behaviors in classroom management within their own class and then we're looking at across the board for all of the schools um increasing
085participation in the comprehensive needs assessment this is the big State uh schoolwide districtwide survey that's given in the spring that gives us information about people's perceptions on on the schools at the middle school it is Ela and math performance so again directly trying to measure improvements in um academic outputs the number of referrals managed through the principal's office right we're trying to decrease that by improving classroom management at the middle school level looking at counselors and how they can assist obviously we added the assistant principle as well and at the high school we're looking at Algebra 1 and we're looking at Chronic absenteeism DHS does not have high chronic absenteeism but it is over the 10% threshold it has been for the last couple of years and so it is an area that we have
086to address um and this is about proactive parent communication it's Etc at the district level we have four or five I guess um the first is about payment of invoices the second is about requisitions right these sound boring but these are uh really about relationships with vendors and uh relationships with people that we hire and contracted service providers it's actually very important that we that we pay people quickly and we process um orders quickly the creation of a facilities planning life cycle guide which is essential to any District's sort of long-term planning when you think about budgeting um when is this piece of equipment going to sort of start to sundown and how do we budget for that and how do we make sure that we're not sundowning all of the equipment at the same
087time um and so that life cycle guide is really important ongoing maintenance uh preventative maintenance Etc comprehensive needs assessment and then the employee life cycle process and this is something that we've talked a lot about um due to the the high turnover rate that has existed in the district over you know probably the last five years or so um and certainly before I arrived there was a lot of conversations about ways to improve the process here in the district of maintaining and keeping our our valued staff members and some of that has to do with obviously things like salary but a lot of it also has to do with support and asking people early and often how are they feeling right what can we do to help them um how can we support them and
088then as people are exiting making sure that they understand clearly um what they're entitled to um having you know exit interviews where they can provide feedback and just ensuring that throughout that entire journey through that entire process staff members feel like our central office Human Resources principles are supporting them and their growth at every step so there is a lot of information on the next couple slides so I wanted to just provide you with a little bit of a key of what this information actually is so all of the Improvement processes are set up like this um the action evidence is not shown on these slides but there's a school right or District in the First Column the impact is the important thing that will be improved the coding 1.8.2 is the district goal the
089location and then which strategic action it is the first the second the third Etc and then the IC actions are the specific steps that will lead to the impact being achieved right and so when you look at the Improvement actions these are organized by District goal and this is available online so I'm not going to read through it but you can see that it's very very specific so when you think about uh let's say m Lincoln Middle School link it Ela and math right you're looking at improvements for multilingual Learners you're looking at the student academic counselor working with students who are on the cusp or who are at risk um and then you're looking at walkthroughs for instructional Fidelity right so those three specific strategic actions will impact you know students scores positively assuming
090that they're done well and with high quality and then you know we'll measure that throughout the year and see how progress is being made this is the district one and so you can see the strategic actions are related to more the directors of curriculum and special services um also the business administrator in some of the other goals um but the district actions uh are really the responsibility of District personnel and so how does the district support Lincoln Middle School's uh improvements in link it right and so that sort of information is here throughout each of these goals right there's a lot of specific information I'm not going to read it but it is very very thorough uh and and granular what I also did was I I organized this by school or department so that
091you could see universally what is it that Faber right as a school is looking to improve so you can see academic success right the academic piece School culture and climate and then the community engagement and then what are the actions for Faber and then the same information is presented for the the middle school the high school and back at the district level so that's really it uh I don't want to go further than this because it would just be reading just a ton of information um but the last piece of this is that this all gets tracked and it gets monitored so we've just finished the first quarter we met as as a full admin team we discussed things that were on track things that were were off track or things that had not been
092started yet and as a group all of those things are visible to each other so not only is there this sort of openness and transparency of the process but there's also this information sharing and you know people are everyone's a little bit competitive right which is a good thing because it kind of Lights a fire for people like no one wants to come to a meeting and and say like I didn't do that thing I said I was going to do right and so the first quarter went very well uh people really did do the work that they had said they were going to do um and I think we're in really good shape moving forward so at the end of this there will be an annual determination of whether the impact was met or
093not uh for the goals that that can be or for the impact that can be measured at that time when school when student uh test scores come back in the summer we'll have information about some of those impacts um but we'll really have a good sense of you know uh how how helpful this work was to towards meeting our district goals and that's it so board members any questions about any of this I know you've seen this but please Mr Walker de next to the last Slide the tracking is that a self assessment by the principles or is that is that your assessment this is my assessment with our uh with our coach basically and so we go through uh the progress monitoring piece is pretty self-reported but remember that the piece that's missing from
094this presentation is the action evidence and so if you can't produce evidence for something it hasn't happened right but when the administrators have been putting adding evidence saying this is what we did this is when we did it right that's very helpful to really monitor the tracking absolutely yes Mr s wow you're comfortable with such a large percentage gains in LMS would some of those stats up there yeah so the so some of the some some of the impacts are uh they're very uh Progressive and these impacts were almost entirely developed by the administrator of the particular area not by me and so um you know I I had that conversation I would say you know are you sure that you want to do that much of a of a percentage or whatever and they
095said yes that's what we want to do so um so yeah the the the the import important part of this right an important part of this is that this is not a top- down uh Mandate of impacts right it is a top- down process in that I have developed this process and shared that with them and we've been working collaboratively on it but the impacts are very much theirs which gives them a much different set of incentives to to meet them right they really do feel a lot of ownership around them so yeah yeah some of those percentages are a bit unnerving yes yes and if we can meet them then that would be wonderful right um and is there a way to help support these aggressive gains through like constant tracking to to find
096out areas where some support can be given yeah so I meet with the administrators weekly uh either individually or in small groups and then we meet as an admin Team every month so we we talk about these a lot um I met with uh I did my one-on ones with all of them yesterday and we had discussions about each of these so the thing about the the the pieces where there's really formative data right so like the number of referrals right we can say q1 you know let's say the for the Middle School reduced by 75% so 70 so 25% of 477 is what 120 or so right so if in the first quarter there were 60 referrals we would say you're not going to get this target but if there were 15 we could
097say yeah you're really on track right now you're doing great and so that's that's the kind of tracking conversations that we're having yeah Dr Jr I was just going to say I think this is wonderful I mean um I'm I'm a bit biased you know in the work that I do we we have something very similar where we have the targets we have the things that we're trying to accomplish and it it it bolsters a sense of of of individual responsibility but also you know as a group what we need to accomplish and it helps to it it's in a way like a team building thing I think it's fantastic I think this is going to be great you know I think it it really works because it helps to put everything out there put
098it into perspective and then you know for us to really hold each other accountable for what it is that we're going to do it's tied directly to the goals yes indeed yes thank you very much all right so I will provide updates on this as we go obviously I'll provide a midyear uh goals report in January at the end of January and uh we'll take it from there so thank you uh for your questions and um yeah we'll move on why did he sit so far back all right so I will continue my superintendence report with a couple of additional items obviously we just heard about uh preschool and Safety and Security um we have uh two students that were uh selected for the English speaking unions February Shakespeare competition um this is on February
09923rd um Samuel sront and Maria Stein were both selected to participate which is wonderful um and if they succeed the winners get to go to uh Lincoln Center in the spring so we wish them the best of luck and Miss Clemens really has been a huge advocate for this she's been wonderful um trying to get kids and and get the the theater groups in bless you uh to these types of competitions so I actually think what was it September I talked about some of the um competitions that our folks would be would be involved with so this is great individual accolades and also just for the program itself uh yesterday we had uh there was an ed camp at Faber Ed Camp is professional development led by staff members about important topics and so um
100we had four staff members uh Miss Gunther Mr fortunio Miss Bey and Miss wsel who presented about building thinking classrooms in mathematics um and some of those teachers um had the ability to go to Mr dugin's uh manow Park Elementary school and see two of his teachers who were doing that work so thank you for that Mr dougen you really uh your folks really inspired um a lot of great work so um there was also a session on managing behaviors in the classroom which was provided by our uh District behaviorist uh Miss Nancy coer uh Miss miet Brown who is our Faber stem teacher presented on AI tools and in the classroom and uh Miss canella uh who was a classroom teacher last year and is a uh enl teacher this year presented on enl
101strategies in the classroom along with assistance from Miss melanowski so really tremendous work it is the the best type of PD um staff members were very engaged and it's really exciting to see the the teachers who presented up there in front of their their colleagues a couple of updates on grants um we have our expanding access to climate change Grant this is from the Department of Education um we had some professional development provided on November 5th for lesson activity creation we also have representatives from the Department of Education coming to visit on Friday they're going to tour the uh the huge aquaponic setup which is by the preschool Wing we also have the aquaponic setup in our stem lab we have the hydroponic setup in Miss Gunther's room and then they're also going to visit
102the new Elementary Gardens that are in the courtyard um and then talk about some of the The View and and talk about some of the lesson activities that are surrounding that so that's very exciting there was was the first harvesting of lettuce um which actually was it was great um there were I don't know 4050 bags of lettuce um that were produced in the first round um and as a reminder this is the largest uh aquaponic setup of any K12 school uh in the state of New Jersey which I will say every time we talk about it but also it means that there's not only you know tons of tilapia that are in the the tank uh but there's also this huge output of lettuce um and uh it's it's tremendous so the kids are
103getting involved with it and uh it's it's very exciting to have as part of the school you should say that all day and every day I will I will okay we also have the Department of Education computer science education grant um and we've worked with our staff and our funding we've uh we're going to be able to support three staff members to earn their masters of Science in teaching and learning computer science um that's on tonight's agenda and so these staff members will be uh earning a master's degree uh and the earning of the Master's Degree will allow them to take the practice for the new computer science um uh certification or endorsement one is just taking the classes uh for the practice but it's very exciting these are these are four interested staff members
104and we're able to Pro provide that support for them um in their professional growth and then with the grant we also have after school programs that will be taking place in the winter at Faber the middle school and at the high school um and so we'll look forward to talking more about those the teacher climate and culture Grant is a department of education grant related to uh staff member uh climate and culture and just overall District climate and culture we had our initial meeting on October 30th our next meeting is this coming Thursday this is a grant that we earned $125,000 for so there is a lot of funding for us to find really Innovative innovative ways to support staff members make live make make work easier um you know and and do all sorts
105of things that we can to uh to improve the the overall uh work that we have going on in the district um and then lastly we have the high impact tutoring Grant this is the extension from last year and we will be doing a little bit of supplemental programming with that funding coupled with some of our Title One funding um so that we can support students who need additional uh learning opportunities we also have uh some other committee work going on uh M drapkin running three committees I ready to inspire the power of data and assessment and denell and tiered system of supports those each have very good uh participation in them um and then we have stakeholder schoolwide meetings for Title One um this year we moved from targeted to schoolwide uh Title One
106funding at Faber and we're GNA we're in the process of doing the same this for next year for the middle school so the Faber meeting is uh Thursday and then the middle school meeting is December 4th and what that allows us to do is just generalize the use of the funds uh that we receive for title one we have some family engagement coming up uh as well we have some title three nights December 2nd there's a free assistance in helping with health insurance program that the district will be running uh we have a title one event December 12th uh which is for kindergarten in first grade it's called snow much fun um and then we have a preschool event on this December 3rd which is understanding Child Development uh 0 through five and that's really
107a community event trying to get um students in you know uh preschool and then even pre- preschool um sort of daycare facilities to uh to attend parents to attend to to learn about child development at that age so all great things I was going to also congratulate dzara on making all division um which is wonderful um for soccer and uh the last piece is that we did our first round of seal of by literacy testing um seal of by literacy is a Department of Education Program where a seal is placed on the diploma of students that can show Proficiency in two languages or more um we had I think 16 students test initially 12 of those students passed in the first round of this last year I think we had six total um and we're
108probably going to test about 40 or 50 more students in January so very exciting now we've got great results um a lot of the kids came out on a Saturday morning to take the test um we gave them breakfast and you know help them through the process and it turns out they did very very well so um that's exciting as well and with that uh last thing is the enrollment report so our current enrollment uh including preschool uh and the expansion is uh 1,400 in the district that includes Private Preschool uh providers as well we have 1358 in The District kindergarten is 89 first grade is 91 second grade is 90 third grade is 98 fourth grade is 92 fifth grade is 99 Middle School is 106 115 and 105 in each of those grades
109and then High School is 103 96 112 and 100 from 9th to 12th grade and so Faber is a little bit down from uh last school year from the end of last school year Middle School is also a little bit down but just just pretty close and the high school is up 10 students from the end of last school year and that is the conclusion of my report great thank you Mr Ross So moving along to um item number nine on the agenda uh public comments so the board invites public comment on agenda items only for members of our community in accordance with board policy 0167 public public comment sections excuse me are intended to provide an opportunity for members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest the board and
110administration will be taking notes during public comment but will not provide substantive responses to questions or concerns raised by the individual speakers if necessary the superintendent May provide a brief response after the entire public comment period is completed the board appreciates and welcomes feedback from the community but is not at Liberty to engage in a back and forth dialogue with members of the public during this portion of the meeting prior to making your public comment please state your name and municipality please note that all statements must be directed to the presiding officer please come to the microphone at this time if you'd like to make comments on agenda items only last call okay moving on to item number 10 uh executive session so the dellan Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to
111discuss items that fall within specific exceptions to the open public meetings act C njsa 10 4-12 B that get confidential excuse me matters discussed by the board during this executive session include items uh related to uh pending or anticipate litigation as well as attorney client privilege uh 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 uh before uh calling vote just to mention oh just going to mention that this is our second executive session this evening we will be doing three uh this is executive
112session will be relatively brief at the conclusion of that executive session we'll be coming back into public coming back to these seats and continuing on with our usual education committee report or excuse me our committee reports as well as moving along the agenda and approving uh discussing and approving um action items so did you want to say okay all right um so um at this time I'm going to ask for a motion uh to to um move into into executive session move to go to Executive session all those in favor I I I opposed okay we'll be back in about uh 15 20 minutes about 25 minutes e e e s for said okay we are back so um we have a motion to come back into public please all those in favor I I
113opposed okay moving on to item number 11 on the agenda education committee report I turn the floor over to the committee chair uh Mr dougen thank you Dr gendrano uh president at the meeting were myself Miss Howard Miss Shimp your you Dr gendrano U Miss drapkin and Mr Ross the education committee met on November 11th and discussed a number of items including a wide range of updates from Miss drapkin regarding professional development curricular initiatives instructional coaching family engagement and Grant funded initiatives information regarding the district's seal of bi literacy testing for students updates on the district's work with the student education related to goal setting information regarding the recommendation to allow 12th grade student who has moved to remain at DHS through graduation preschool expansion efforts and plans for next year new clubs that are
114on the agenda for approval and a variety of confidential matters thank you thank you Mr dougen moving on to item number 12 uh action items for Education looking for a motion to approve uh 12 a through f as a block move 12 a through F second open for questions or comments last call okay Mr Pepe can you please call the roll yes M on Mr Anderson yes Mrs condet yes Mr Dugen yes Dr gendrano yes Mrs Howard yes Mr saoi yes Miss Shimp yes Mrs Shep yes Mr Walker yes motion passes okay fantastic moving on to item number 14 uh sorry number 13 uh Personnel committee report that's me uh so the um Personnel committee uh met on November 12th uh president of that meeting were myself Mr Anderson uh Mrs Shep and Mr Ross
115and we discussed a number of items including the district's ongoing work with stuter related to goal setting and monitoring uh Staffing for the current school year uh new clubs being recommended for approval uh a new instructional coach uh position for grades K through two um items related to the work of the new District security coordinator and the number of confidential items moving on to item number 14 uh personal action items looking for motion to approve uh 14 a through X as a block move to approve items a through f as a block second is a correction oh that's right so um members please note on item f there is a correction um so the $45 an hour number should be 4 468 4680 U instead so that's that's the correction on F just to clarify
116that was a a revised motion from a previous meeting we copied it over and because the new CBA is in place now we have the new rates and we missed that detail when we copied it over to revise it so we've rised the number of hours missed the rate so now it's fixed so Mr pepy did we have a uh an initial Motion in the second or not yet yes we did okay so open for questions and comments guys I'll just comment that um I'm really glad to see that we're approving all these clubs and I noticed in C there's another club being added to fav sounds like this will be great to kind of align with the anti-bullying initiative that's been talked about and also just in general at Faber it there's not sports
117or anything to offer so I think it's great that we're offering things to the students to start getting them engaged early on so hopefully that continues through middle school and high school as well thank you Mr shef totally agree other comments questions I have a question under L what is Teo training Tel is the uh organization it's ESL related tsol is the organization that that oversees that yep I don't know what it stands for teaching English to speakers of other languages boom any other questions comments okay last call all right Mr Pepe could you please call the role Mr Anderson yes Mrs Condit yes Mr Dugen yes Dr gendrano yes Mrs Howard yes Mr sanoi yes Miss schimp yes Mrs Shep yes and Mr Walker yes motion passes wonderful moving on to item 15 uh
118discussion items from operations I'll turn this over to uh committee chair uh Mr Walker thank you Dr Jano the operations committee met on November 11th 2024 at 8m I was present at the meeting along with Mr Sono Dr jenjo Mr pepy and Mr Ross the operations committee discussed a number of items including facilities work ongoing throughout the district information about carryover funding from federal grants which are on tonight's agenda for approval the approval of a new call pricing agreement information regarding Safety and Security efforts being undertaken throughout the district a number of customary items are on tonight's agenda for approval and a variety of confidential matters that is all thank you thank you Mr Walker so um excuse me looking for motion to approve so moving on to item 16 operations action items um moving
119on looking for a motion to approve items 16 a through S as a block move to approve appr items a through S as a block second open for questions or comments last call okay Mr Pepe could you please call the roll Mr Anderson yes Mrs Condit yes Mr Dugen yes Dr gendrano yes Mrs Howard yes Mr saoi yes Miss Shimp yes Mrs Shep yes Mr Walker yes motion passes fantastic uh moving on to item number uh 17 uh topics for board uh as a whole discuss discussion items uh we have um on the agenda uh bylaw 01 64 conduct of board meeting Mr Ross yep so uh bylaw 0164 is conduct of a board meeting it's the bylaw that um outlines the process and the steps that will be taken during a board meeting right
120now our existing bylaw um has served us reasonably well um it enumerates all of the individual sections that would uh typically appear in a board meeting but we actually as a board uh the board has taken a lot of liberties with adding sections and uh moving things around and so the revised bylaw um that's being recommended in the next section essentially keeps the core elements right student uh recognition uh public comment old business new business board action um but it just makes it uh it takes the restrictions off of order so it enumerates the sections that will typically occur but it just takes the order out of things um and it's my recommendation that we move forward with this bylaw just to provide that little bit of of Clarity that it's not always the case
121that our agenda will include every single section that's enumerated in the existing bylaw awesome any questions comments thoughts guys okay so let's move on to 18 uh topics for board as a whole action item so with that uh and I know we've discussed this already so moving on to this to um looking for a motion to approve um uh the first reading of the follow of the of the board bylaw for 0164 conduct of the board meeting so looking for a motion approve 18a first reading seconded okay uh last questions or comments okay Mr Pepe can you please call the role Mr Anderson yes Mrs Condit yes Mr dougen yes Dr gendrano yes Mrs Howard yes Mr satoi yes Miss schimp yes Mrs Shep yes Mr Walker yes motion passes okay wonderful so uh moving
122on to item number uh 19 uh old business any old business that you guys want to bring up from previous meetings okay moving along to 21 uh sorry 20 uh any new business that anyone would like to talk about um I would just say here that um I think at perhaps at the next board meeting since it's uh getting on a little late side perhaps we can share uh for the members that attended the school board's Workshop um you know some uh take takeaways or Reflections uh from what we saw at that last meeting just because in the interest of time don't want to keep us here super late and we still have another uh session to go through so just to mention that for next time okay any last uh L business okay moving
123on to uh 21 president's remarks um nothing to add from earlier and at this point now moving on to um item 22 uh public comments so the board invites public comment on any issue any topic for members of our community at this time in accordance with board policy 0167 um 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 be taking 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 board appreciates and welcomes feedback from the community but is not at Liberty to engage in a back and forth dialogue with members
124of the public during this portion of the meeting prior to making your public comment please state your name and municipality please note that all statements must be directed to the presiding officer please come to the microphone at this time if you'd like to make comments on any issue or any topic please come forward and go ahead and grab the microphone so that we can hear you on the record yes and please state your name and municipality please hi my name is Kimberly green and my son is at Faber um I would like to address the practice of using food as rewards and incentives in the school setting studies cond conducted by psychologists have demonstrated that that repeatedly presenting food as a reward for completing tasks increases children's preference for the presented food if we are
125using food pizza ice cream popsicles as a reward for class contest good behavior and school challenges we are essentially shaping our children to form unhealthy preferences to foods high in sugar and fat which could lead to obesity the American Medical Association officially recognized obesity as a chronic condition chronic disease in 2013 and cited that obesity in children and adults is a major public health problem approximately 177% of American children are obese and the rates have doubled in children and tripled in teens over the past two decades more than 220 health conditions have been linked to obesity including um type 2 diabetes cardiovascular disease and an increase in certain cancer it is our role as parents and Educators to help our children form healthy relationships with food we should be teaching them how to food fuels
126our bodies and how proper nutrition affects our physical mental and emotional well-being while it is known that I have a personal interest in stopping the use of food as a reward this doesn't just affect one child a pizza party excludes kids with dairy and gluten allergies once that don't like sauce ones that have textures issues and others that just don't like pizza these are just some of the reasons many school districts have already implemented a no food policy for rewards and parties this isn't an impossible task liability was also a significant reason if a child helps his class win a contest everyone in that classroom should be able to enjoy the reward using food as the reward excludes some children we teach our children not to exclude others shouldn't adults model this Behavior instead of
127using pizza and popsicles as rewards we can provide the class that wins with free homework coupons we can have a special time for that class to participate in a team building exercise from the children's point of view they don't have to do homework one night and they had some free time we as adults know they were really learning teamwork leadership skills and self-confidence unlike pizza and popsicles homework coupons and team building exercises are free and they don't don't use our limited funds I'm sure we can identify a better use of our tax dollars I appreciate the opportunity to address this topic and thank you for your time and thank you for your comment we appreciate it any other comments okay last call okay uh so at this time we are going to move to our
128our third and uh final executive session um so uh the the dellan Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall Within specific exceptions to the open public meetings act C njsa 10 412b uh the confidential uh matters discussed by the board during this executive session include items uh related to individual privacy collective bargaining agreements as well as Personnel uh 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 dis disc an executive session have been adequately notified action will not take place after the conclusion of the executive session so at this time may I have a motion to
129move into executive session move to go to exe second all those in favor I opposed okay so we will uh go into executive session we will be adjourning from there you do not have to stay with us for that time um and we will be meeting again in December um December 17 uh same time uh same place thank you everyone for coming we'll see you then