001Good evening and welcome to the November 21st, 2023 board of legislation meeting. Um, first I'd like to ask the community to remember Patricia Carter who's a longtime resident of Quer Lane in West Milberg um who passed away this past weekend and also Miss Agnes of Jessica likewise um a 2004 graduate who has also recently passed away. Um, Jessica was a published author, a former bank and hired member of West Milford, a board certified behavior analyst, and was an advocate for the autism community. Please remember their family and friends um during our moment of silence right now. Thank you. Please stand for the flag. I pledge alce 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. [Applause]
002In accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act, a public notice of this meeting has been sent to all board members, all district schools, the Herald news, the suburban trends, the record, the messenger, West Milford town hall, the county superintendent's office, the board attorney, the division of Warwick, and West Milford TV7 and posted in the administration building. Cops the boarding calendar resolution required to all local media town hall township library and all district schools roll call Mr. Schultz Mr. Con >> here >> Mr. Sideways Mr. Libby >> here >> Mr. Dwire Mr. Marino >> here Mrs. O'Brien Mlin >> here Mr. Vike Mrs. Romeo. >> Okay. >> Um, Mr. Lockwood, executive sess session resolution, please. I make a motion to approve the following resolution. That the board immediately go into executive session for
003approximately 30 minutes for the purpose of conducting a grievance, hearing, and student matters. The executive session minutes will not be released until such time as the privilege of confidential confidentiality is no longer applicable. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Thank you. >> Welcome back. Um roll call Mr. Schultz. >> Mrs. Rana >> here. >> Mr. Ly >> here. Mr. >> Marina >> here. Mr. O'Brien. >> M L >> here. >> Mrs. Romeo >> here. >> Uh next we're going to have our in superintendence report. Dr. Good evening everyone. We have a couple of items on our agenda this evening for the superintendent's report. The first of them is the uh report of the um harassment intimidation and bullying uh ITP report and ITP stands for investigations, trainings and programs. U for the purpose
004of HFIB ITP data collection which is what this report will show us. Um the term training is defined as instruction and or practice activity specifically designed to make someone prepared to implement a program or strategy filled fulfill responsibility or implement a skill professionally. Training may be provided to all or some select staff to support implementation of program curriculum. Training is not considered program for the purpose of the report. So our training sessions that go on in district um are directed toward our staff to help them navigate that EI process um more cleanly and with more efficiency and effectiveness. Um as far as programs are concerned for the purpose of this report the data collection the term program is defined as an event or a planned system of organized activities or procedures under which action may
005be taken toward a goal. Those kinds of programs can be for students, they can be for staff, they can be for parents, community members to go around the topic of intimidation and bullying. So the data that I'm going to read to you this evening has to do with those three categories of investigation, um, uh, training and program. So, uh, we have categories that we are supposed to be reporting to the state department of education within, uh, a certain time frame. This report happens twice a year. So, the report that I'm going to give you this evening, uh, spans the time frame from last school year, January 1st of 2023 through June 30th of 2023. The data is by school and also this district aggregate data. Um so last year from January through June um Ashual
006Elementary School had three confirmed HIVs and those were the only uh HIVs that occurred at actual school during that particular time frame second half of the school year. At the middle school there were eight confirmed HIVs, two were nonHIV for a total of 10 reports in that same time frame. Um, when it came to Maple Road Elementary School, there was only one report and that was a non-HIV incident. Marshall Hill had one confirmed HIV during the same time frame. Paradise Null had one HIV during the same time frame, which was, and may I say Marshall Hill and Paradise Null, those single instances were um were confirmed. The UGL Elementary School had one nonHIV situation. um West Milford um high school at zero during the time frame from January through June of 2023. And at the
007time Westwork Elementary School was was still functioning as an elementary school. There were zero confirmed and non-confirmed. So zero at there. Um total there were uh 13 incidents that were confirmed HIV uh four that were non confirmed that were unsubstantiated or not confirmed. So there was a total of incidents both confirmed and not confirmed um at 17 for the district in total. Uh as far as trainings and programs were concerned um the uh okay so across the district there were 26 trainings that occurred and don't forget trainings could be for a number of different categories parents students staff there were 26 separate training sessions that occurred during that time frame from January through June there were 66 programs recorded January through June districtwide um there was a Districtwide training um was one that was conducted
008and there were two district-wide programs. And when we talk about districtwide, those are things that happen at one central location that anybody can come to um to participate. So um that is the data that was submitted to the state department for that time frame and this report will be done again midyear this year um at the beginning of the year. So, we'll um you'll hear from me again on this report. Thank you. Uh next on the superintendent report, um board members, you have among the papers that are in front of you, you'll find two packets. Um, one of them has information on our district's strategic plan, action plan for year one, which was the 2223 school year. And you will find a second one that is, um, has green rows on it, and that is
009for the current school year. So, uh, the district administrators who are here at the table with me this evening and I have been working to organize and categorize the things that you've done already in the strategic plan in year one of your strategic plan, which was last year cuz don't forget your strategic planning process happened in 2122 and that's where your goals and objectives were developed and then last year the district worked to kind of organize those into categories and and map it out a little bit. What I did was um in order to give the board and the community a a better idea of where we are, I created a template, the one you have in front of me, um it's one that I've used before and I kind of tailored it to this
010district to um include some information that people, you know, have asked for over time about different things that we've been doing. So, it brings together the um you'll see the uh goal categories at the top of each area. then the goal statement and then below that were several goals or objectives. Now all of that came out of your strategic planning process from that much of it. Then last year the district started to develop some activities. The administrators in different categories worked together to come up with things that get at the beginnings of looking at these objectives and trying to accomplish them. So um what we are doing here then is um I separated those out and so that you can identify every single activity by an activity number and um there are several columns that
011come next. So explore, plan, create, implement, monitor, analyze and evaluate. So the idea is that each of these activities as you go through the five years of your strategic plan will either end at a certain time period because you accomplished whatever it was you intended to accomplish or it's going to go through several phases before you can see that that task is going to come to fruition. So in year one um for example if we have some things that are at the implementation stage year two they may say implementation stage or they may say that you know um following you know maybe in year three it's going to be monitored maybe in year four you're going to evaluate your progress. So um the idea is for us to set this up so that we can
012go and move forward in a logical manner. Um about the middle of this the uh document you're going to see lead on task. That's that means the individual or set of individuals that are responsible for guiding the district through that particular task or activity. Um typically it will be an administrator or a group of administrators because the administration are the ones that are charged with working with staff and or students and or families to and the board to move some of these things along. Um the next column talks about human and fiscal resources. So what are the kinds of things that we need in order to accomplish whatever it is that we've said that we want to accomplish? Um how are we going to tell that we've accomplished it? So that's what the uh second
013to last column um what the the how are we going to determine success that we that we've accomplished this right and then the final column is the current status. So for year one, most of these either say things like that the first stage was accomplished or that the task is complete or that it's ongoing. And in some cases, the district decided to not move forward on a particular task that was in this document initially and defer it to the next year. So you're going to see some of that. Um you've had this I sent it out to the board on Friday. There were a couple of tweaks that the administrative cabinet and I made some changes to as recently as today, but nothing really substantial just to clean up things. Um, but if you move
014to your second document, you're going to see that the majority of Oh, you know what? Before I do that, one thing that I want to make sure I I say is that when you went through strategic planning, your whole process for the um the restructuring of the district, transportation, um the academy and and prep being at Westbrook building, none of that was captured here because it wasn't it wasn't really something that that in 2020 or 2122 that that the district was thinking about, right? So we made sure that in year one because you did so much work around those topics that we added that in and we also added a fifth goal that was not in the strategic planning process originally um which was around fiscal aspects because you didn't want to lose the work
015that you've done around S2 and the the fact that you're working budget. So that's in year one and we carried it over to year two in many cases. some of the things that um that we added in year in year one were accomplished in year one. So, they didn't need to carry over while other things did. So, what we're going to do now is just to give you some a sense of some of the highlights that are in this current year. Things that are in green, either that X moved from one column to another, so maybe it went from explore to a create or explore to a plan. Um, maybe you implemented something that you were looking at last year. Um, and I want to make it clear that there are comments of one sort
016or another in the current status column. That's going to change each time we come back to you with an update on this plan. And the idea is for us to come back mid year and then again in June. If the board would like a fourth one, we can squeeze a fourth one in. But I think we're going to be really busy in April. So, we may may not want to do this in April. Um, so what I asked the uh folks that are on the cabinet and who are present here this evening is just to touch base on a couple of highlights. We're not going to read the whole plan to you because you've got it. You can read through it, but there are a couple things that we'd like to just bring out so
017that the community also knows what we're talking about. The the other thing about this document is that we will post it to the district website so that everybody can see what we accomplished last year and what we are looking at and what we're working on looking forward. So, we'll make sure that that's posted probably right after Thanksgiving. Okay. Um, so I'm going to ask uh Mr. Novak to take a minute to just look at a couple of the highlights in goal number one, which is uh learning and academics. There's a switch on the back. >> Thank you. Uh so I just want to comment on um the process. So I want to uh I know I speak for many of us that this was a this was an interesting process to engage in. It was
018sort of like a strategic plan audit. um with Lydia not um being here for the beginning stages to um work with us to talk about, you know, these are your goals, what what are those things that you've been doing along the way to meet those goals. So, it was a very um uh validating process in terms of being able to um organize the things that we've been working on in in such a way that matches with our strategic plan. So, uh I know that um you know it gave us a nice clear focus. Uh so I'm just going to highlight a few of the things that we've been talking about. Um uh number one increase staff capacity uh for the use of instruction instructional practices needs of all learners uh meaningful professional development. Uh I've
019been talking I talk an awful lot about conquer math. Um it was um like I said the word validating will probably use a lot to to see how it is reflected in the goals that we set two years ago and that we've been able to get to the point where we are. Uh we began with a um few small cohorts in in uh elementary school um in our elementary grades where we uh really have been working to change the process for math instruction across the district. Uh it's a K12 goal. uh conquer math is um you know is that process for our teachers going out and um you know sitting with staff members from other districts talking about standards of best practice instruction. Um that's got a strong um strong flavor of a lot of
020our um you know especially our our math goals. Uh there are teachers in our district that conquer math or math teachers in our district that conquer math doesn't apply to. uh if you're a staff member who's um teaching heavily in uh statistics, AP calculus, uh those types of courses, um those are not offerings that um we are involved in at at Conquer Math. Uh Conquer Math is is really the standardsbased component of Conquer Math is is really goes up to um you know algebra and geometry. Uh so we are in the process of and you'll see in in some of our training and travel throughout the year and into next year the um uh members of our math department being involved with NCTM which is the national council for teacher mathematics uh which is the
021association of math teachers of New Jersey. Uh so we are um expanding beyond conquer math in terms of our um access to good professional development for mathematics. Um, I have to mention our STEM supervisor. It's a very uh exciting development um who we approved um earlier this year who is going to be getting beginning with us uh on December 18th and really um come in and have them and have a set of goals like the strategic plan to uh to take our uh 6 through 12 departments to the next level. Um, one other um area I'd like to point out is in the uh instructional professional development. It's in the explore stage. Uh, we are working with our K5 district literacy committee to select a new ELA program for uh for K5. So we are
022uh in that process similar to what we did with uh Eureka math square where we're looking at and um working with vendors to take a look at all the materials that are available to us and um uh scientific brain based uh current research all all those uh all those types of fundamentals. We have a day on December 14th. Uh I called it um a merry day. Actually I call it I'll give credit to Christy Smoski who titled it a merry day of ELA. So, it's uh December 14th where we're doing a um full day of um vendors where we're going to see presentations from um a um uh ELA series called success for all. Another series called Magnify, which is the uh parent company of Magnify is also curriculum associates who provides I ready. And
023then the uh third program is called Amplify. So, we're going to get our literacy committee together on the 14th. We're going to look at all these uh all these different offerings that we have, have some good professional conversations. Uh we're also going to be reviewing um professional development opportunities similar to what we have >> uh it's called success for all. >> Thank you. >> So, I get that set and you know just take a look at something that's in the uh explore stage. uh also in uh implement analyze diagnostic formative assessment data. So we talk a lot about my ready and um Lincoln and the results that our our students um are receive on on the assessments and work that we do from from one diagnostic to another. So right now we're in the process
024of um ironing out how we're going to implement I Ready uh in our in our classroom. So it's very different in a in a K5 setting than it is in the middle school. So we are um you know working towards fitting in those uh the recommended minutes that would support the research that says we're going to we're going to see results from these ID diagnostics for uh for ELMF. Um, [Applause] another interesting goal which relates directly to um our our last board meeting where we had a presentation on on district uh testing was the goal uh increase standardized assessment scores on the NJSLA. So that's kind of you know that's that um that's that big ambitious goal that we are uh putting a lot of effort and and discussion uh into uh so I talked
025to the education committee uh last week in regard to some of the things that we're doing when we um presented scores last month we talked about the process of um you know increasing a uh academic culture not just, you know, not just preparing for the test. So, uh, we we're trying to really, uh, change the the mindset for staff, students, community when it comes to taking the, uh, taking the NJSLA. >> I guess that's just my that's highlights for academics. >> Okay. One other thing I just wanted to point out is uh at the high school level we um have reconvened and are working with the academic success committee and um you know I've had the opportunity to meet with them and um Mr. Novak and I met with Mr. strikes. And so we really
026want to make sure that that committee's work is ongoing and that it uh is focused on all of the things that um that will help our students truly get the education that they deserve and to also make sure that uh we understand what those rankings have to do with. So we we are planning to do a report later in the year on all of that. Okay. Um our second uh second goal area is hometown pride. Um so there are some things with hometown pride. Um the very first thing if you look under hometown pride on page four you're going to see um that this is 2.1.8 district branding. Uh there are several things that are happening in our schools. Um and one of them that you'll be seeing shortly and I want to just put
027a plug in for for the uh community is that on November 30th we are going to release our first ever um Highlander Press District newsletter >> and y and all of the schools and the departments have sent me articles and photos and I'm in the process of creating the document itself and it'll be digitally blasted out to everybody. Um, so we're really looking forward to seeing, you know, what people think and um, you know, we want to make sure that the document is going to be, um, published quarterly. So for the end of the school year, you look for issues that are submitted. >> Thank you for doing that. I think I've been asking for like 6 years for that. So I appreciate that. >> Sure. You know, it's it's an interesting phenomenon because sometimes
028people go, I don't know what to write. So many things are happening everywhere in this district and I've really gotten some great things back. So I think I think you're going to be happy. Um we also don't want to lose the fact that uh in uh goal 22. And we don't want to lose the fact that we are still working on improving our use of social media and our um upgrades and updates to the website. So that that work is all ongoing as well. So you you'll be hearing more about that. Um I'm going to ask Mr. Schultz to talk a little bit about facilities and operations. [Applause] So the goal under facilities and operations was to maintain and update district facilities fostering a safe and secure learning environment in and out of the classroom.
029Uh and some of the objectives were provide a multi-level use turf field for school and community use that came up as part of the strategic planning back in 2122. uh upgrade and maintain district learning opportunities uh district technology opportunities uh provide modern safe and secure aesthetically pleasing facilities and to continue to investigate modernization of facilities for the future. So to start backwards first uh on the agenda tonight for the investigating modernization of uh buildings for the future we have the Hillrest property and the feasibility study with uh ENV. We've worked uh hard with the township on that. We have a proposal for me and me to do a feasibility study to see what we can do with that property hopefully move it forward for a recreation department and plenty of meetings with township and mayor
030and council and it's been really productive process. So we're working through that. So that's the first step in that process. Uh the turf field portion of it identified the strategic plan. It's still in the evaluation stage. We haven't really done much digging in on that yet but that's something to look forward to in the future. uh and technology upgrades. That's an ever evolving implementation that's it says implement on something on the uh forum, but we're still working through it. Um we maintain and monitor the district 101 Chromebook program. That's probably the most important. This way the kids all have the the Chromebooks and computers that they need to take tests and to do all the other work they need. And that's ever evolving with the Chromebook the recite the recycling and replacement schedule. Um and
031also for the staff to maintain and monitor the district construction staff laptop program. Uh so whenever a new staff member comes in, they get their new laptop and it's constant constant evolution of that. Uh and recently uh Mr. Mr. Winston and Dr. Fer started working on the 3 to 5 year district technology plan. That's still in the creation phase, but they're starting to look lay out what we need for the future when it comes to technology needs in the district. uh under the HVAC upgrades. This past summer we installed air conditioners and it uh improved ventilation in large common areas at Marshville School, Maple Road and Min School. We used our ESR funding for that and it was a really successful project and they finished that up right at the beginning of the school year.
032So look forward to our summer programs next year helping air conditioning [Applause] other facility upgrades. Um every year Mr. Kelly, our supervisor of building the grounds. He removes or abdates some of the asbestous floor tiles. So, he has a cycle going on every year. He's doing a few different tiles at different locations throughout the district. I think this past year we did it at Mackin in the cafeteria as part of the whole renovation that they did there. And as always, we're evaluating the school security needs of the district. We would love to eventually get security vestibles at all the schools. So, we're working through the process of that remaining elementary schools that haven't been addressed yet. [Applause] I believe that's it for facility facility suspect for now. Um if you want to sorry could you
033speak a little bit about our um goal under wellbeing please? [Music] >> Absolutely. Thank you Dr. Fernardi. Good evening everyone. Uh for our goal four uh we spent time discussing what we're doing progressing an area of well-being for the district. Uh that goal is to create a positive, inclusive and connected school environment that promotes lifelong health and well-being. The objectives under that goal is to increase opportunities for extracurricular activities K12 that address student needs and interests. Number two, foster individuality to create a culture of acceptance in all schools. Number three, promote mental and physical wellness for students and staff. And number four, strengthen peer-to-peer relationships and the school home connection in order to build a more supportive school environment. So, working from the top down on this, uh we spend some time discussing what co-curricular
034activities that our students are participating in. We have a very rich program offering for students and clubs at the elementary, middle, and napin and high school level. We're continuing to develop our middle school intramural athletics program in the area of mental and physical wellness. We're continuing to build opportunities for uh for students uh for excuse me for staff to develop their social and emotional wellness through various activities of professional development and team building throughout district and in service opportunities that we have supporting professional development opportunities for staff. Uh we are very big on lifelong learning in West Milford and every time we have the opportunity to provide um opportunities for our staff to go out and enrich themselves and develop and grow in their field. Um we look forward to those opportunities as a district
035administrative team to provide those for our staff whether it's through webinars or workshops or other opportunities for them to learn and take things from those experiences and bring them back to our district and share with our colleagues there. Again, at the bottom is a supportive school environment where we're really working with our our uh school social workers and our principles on um building programs and practices that support students that are dealing with variety of social emotional needs. um whether it's in integrating SEAL lessons in the classroom or providing assemblies and other opportunities for students to learn about how to work together, how to solve problems, and how to be good citizens. Um we're we're also looking to create opportunities for therapy animals in our schools. Uh, one example recently that we're very proud of is
036at our Highlander Academy, we had one of our counselors bring in their certified therapy dog, which was a hit. Uh, there may be some pictures at the in the newsletter. Just a little tip. If you want to take a look at that newsletter, you'll get to see Ginger the therapy dog. So, she was uh she was a hit at uh at our Highland Academy this past week. Good plug. >> Yeah, good little plug in, right? Um and then lastly uh certainly looking at after school mental and physical wellness opportunities for students and staff and actually in our recent CPAC meeting another little plug we were fortunate to have one of our speech therapist Janet Scales come and present on mindfulness and it was a really wonderful opportunity to learn about how helping our students being
037learning how to be present as all of us as adults can do that as well and do breathing exercises and other things to help our students when they're feeling stressed or overwhelmed. just a few examples about our goal area. >> Thank you. Thank you. Uh so goal area five is the one that we had. So um this is uh a goal around financial stability and um this particular goal is some has components that are ongoing but it also has some things in it that uh I think are unique to our district and other districts that are in the process of trying to do more with less. Um so go ahead. >> Sure. >> So goal number five was to achieve financial stability in the light of state aid cuts under S2. Uh as everyone knows
038we've had massive state aid cuts for the last seven or eight years and hopefully this will be the end of it this year but we'll see how that all goes. Um so one of the way to manage district finances was to limit spending in the current budget year. We're very cautious of the purchase orders that get processed and we keep an eye on everything and obviously we analyze the enrollment and the staffing with an eye on efficiency and so we're spending our funds in the correct areas for the where the funds need to be spent. Um we applied every past two years we applied for the stabilization aid. Last year we applied for it and we received roughly 1.3 million. That was a great help to the district. Uh we submitted the application again back
039in September. We haven't heard if we received it as of now. Last year it was a little bit before Christmas time when we found out. So hopefully soon we'll get some feedback as to whether we're successful again applying for that because that will be great help moving forward in the upcoming budget cycle. As always working with Mr. Novak on managing the grants, the ESER funds which this is the last year for the American recipe plan 3. So that'll be something to manage moving forward without those funds available to us and also managing the entitlement grants with Mr. Novak for ESA and also with Dr. Essa for the IDA funds that we received. Uh something we did last year to to uh help out the district was some of the completed capital projects. We moved the
040funding back to their original funding sources. So that that we had a motion I believe last June where we moved about two little over 200,000 back to capital reserves. So great help moving forward for the district. And also we as we do this every day pretty much we conduct the needs assessment to identify efficiencies and reduce redundancies to make sure we're using our money efficiently and as best as we can with the limited amount of dollars that we have these days. >> Okay. Thank you. So um as you see there are many things that have come to this board table that are included. Um there will be updates as I said uh you know at least two more times before the end of the year on this and we'll be posting information. This document will
041be posted to the district website. I want to make sure that everyone knows that that year 2 document is the living breathing part of this of this process. Right? So year one is not that the door is closed, but we've kind of captured everything that we needed to capture in the year 1 core pages and we're now kind of living the end of this year too. And um and we may be adding some things as time goes on. We're um finishing things up before the end of the year. So, keep an eye on that um that status column in each of these rows. Uh and that actually I believe Do I have any questions or comments? This is a big document. Doesn't even [Applause] >> I just want to thank you for putting this together.
042This is very helpful and I think it's going to help us moving forward to um see, you know, what goals we're meeting, what goals we need to maybe improve, work on a little bit more. Thank you. >> My comment is ditto declare that in my years so far as board trustee, this is by far the most helpful document that I've ever seen. Um, and I can tell that cabinet and it has put a lot of time and effort into this. Um, and I'm excited to move forward through the strategic plan. I'm very thankful for this. Um, next up is the director of education's report, Mr. Brie tonight. Uh, this is the last night for parent teacher conferences. We are wrapping up uh evening conferences at the at the high school uh as we speak. Um
043this I'm just going to remind everyone the structure that we we currently have at the elementary level. Uh we plan for and schedule uh inerson conferences for um for each uh each student in every class. at the middle school and high school. We had a different approach where we planned for virtual conferences um for for that process. Uh that was a structure that we began a few years ago. We maintained it with the uh thought process that we were getting greater participation and that we were getting um more families to participate in the middle school and and high school conferences. So we are at a point where we want to revisit that. We want to review. So, uh we are going to be sending um surveys by level to the community just to see how
044uh see how things are going, what the community's thoughts and feelings are in terms of the um the I guess the status of the middle school and high school virtual virtual conferences. I we hear positive things. Uh we just want to make sure that we're doing um you know doing what's right and what's in the best uh best interest of the community. So we will be sending a survey out uh to uh to the community. Is there opportunity to do that for elementary also? >> The survey the virtual do they do that elementary? >> No they well there there is an option. So um for there's the option for both at both levels. It's just the posture at the elementary school is is begins with in person, virtual if um virtual if requested. At the
045middle school and high school, it starts virtual. If they want to have an inerson conference, they can request that as well. Um so, like I said, it's a number of years with that process. We want to review. We make sure that next year we're we're still, you know, doing what's best for the community. [Applause] >> That's my update for conferences. that um we have special reports and correspondence. Um can I have someone or I guess Mr. >> I have the amendments the workshop regular meeting minutes of the October 17th 2023 meeting and also the executive session meetings a minutes for the October 17th 2023 meeting. >> Can I have a motion? All >> in favor? >> I need a motion first. I move to approve the minutes from October 17th uh workshop regular meeting and
046October 17th executive session. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Um and now my president's report. Um first I'd like to say congratulations um to all the winners that were on the ballot. um to our mayor, the councilman, and our new board of ed members. Um we look forward to working um with all of you and um excited um to get to work together. So, thank you. Um I attended first I'll say parent teacher conferences. That was the most recent. Um amazing. Um my own child couldn't have said it better when came home on the first day of school this year and said, "My teachers are amazing." And um just throughout, you know, being a parent, going to parent teacher conferences, they are always professional, just um really give great quality um
047feedback. So, I hope that everyone else has the same experience as I do. And um you know, it's just a really important process to be a part of your child's education and teach together with your teacher. Um, I attended the fall drama at the high school, Radium Girls. Um, fabulous production. Um, and I had read the book. So, I was really excited. It was wonderful. I also attended the tattoo and our high school band, as we all know, uh, this was our our 23rd tattoo. Um, and just breathtaking. Our band is breathtaking. But to see them work together with Clipton High School and they're marching just really really what a great night. If you've never gone to um a Highlander tattoo, get it on your calendar for next year because it is such good entertainment.
048So much fun. Um, and the other thing, the last thing that I went to, um, was the Sussex County Honors Concert for our Makan students. Um, our students auditioned to be part of, um, both the band and the choir. Um, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students auditioned to be part of our of the Sussex County Honors Band and Choir. Um the concert was a full auditorium packed at Vernon Township High School and um again had breathtaking performances. Um really amazing musical pieces and uh those were the events that I've had the opportunity to go and see recently. Um and there's so much going on all the time. So I encourage you to um just head on out and see some of the things that our students are doing cuz it's really a great time of
049year. Um, next that concludes my president's report. Next, we have public comment. Um, all speakers will have 5 minutes to speak until a period of 30 minutes transpires. Before speaking, please state your name, group affiliation, and address for the record. Members of the public who've requested to speak prior to the meeting will be recognized by the chair first. After speaking, all speakers are asked to sign register provided and give their full name, group affiliation, and their address. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. No participant may address profession board members individually. All speakers are expected to have read the statement within the agenda regarding the regulations concerning the public comments. Members of the public are reminded that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments. Mr. Schultz, do we have anyone sign
050up tonight? >> No, we don't. >> Thank you. Um, is there anyone here tonight that would like to speak? Okay, I move to close public policy comment. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Um, Dr. Fernari, do we have any changes on the agenda? So, board members, in um in the documents that were left for you on the table, there are two hand carry documents. One of them uh falls under education and the other falls under personnel. So those are the only Thank you. Can I have a motion to adopt the agenda with two inquiries? [Applause] >> I move to adopt the agenda including the two hand carries as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Mrs. Lockwood Education. I make a motion to approve agenda
051items one through nine which includes hand carry one >> um right >> no hand >> one through nine would you say carry one >> which not eight >> say 1 through seven >> yeah 1 through seven >> oh is that new that they're on Yeah, usually they're separate. Sorry about that. So, I'll do that again. >> Okay. I make a motion to approve agenda items 1 through 7 and 9 under education. Second. Thank you. Um, do we have any questions or comments on 1 through 7 and 9 under education? [Applause] So we're table until after executive session. >> That's right. >> Yeah, we have to report. >> So we have to talk about >> approval of the hips that you reviewed last month. >> So these are already >> those are already done. >> Yeah,
052we're hearing more and that's what >> that's what I thought. Yeah, that's why I thought I >> remember we talked about H1, H1, H2. >> Yeah. Last again. [Applause] >> I'm sorry. >> That's October. >> Thank you. >> So, I make a motion >> to add number eight back into education. Second. >> I apologize. >> It's the first time we've done it. this way. But I >> was confused cuz it said October 17th. So >> yeah. >> All right. So good thing we're a good working team. Thank you. >> Um All right. So >> two days before Thanksgiving. >> Any questions or comments under education on one through nine? [Music] >> Seeing as none, roll call, please. >> Mrs. Bachman. >> Yes. >> Mr. Green. >> Yes. >> Mr. Liby. >> Yes. Mrs. Ram. >>
053Yes. >> Mrs. Romeo. >> Yes. Um, >> Mr. Libby, would you please move personnel with student affairs tonight? [Applause] >> Sorry, I didn't prepare. >> It's okay. Okay. >> It's 1 through 40. >> 1 through 40. There you go. Usually speak out loud. I make a motion to move personal student affairs. Yeah. One through 40, >> including MC number two. >> Second. >> Good job. Thank you. Um, >> any questions or comments on one through 40 person? [Applause] >> I'd just like to um congratulate um Mr. Kelly on his retirement. >> Yeah, thank you. [Applause] Okay, seeing as none, we go to roll call. Thank you, >> Mr. Ling. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rano, >> yes. >> Mr. Laughlin, >> yes. >> Mr. Bino, >> yes. >> Mrs. Romeo, >> yes. [Applause] >> Mr. Green,
054operations and finance. like to make a motion to approve uh agenda items 1 through 10 under author's appointments. >> Second questions and comments through 10. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Bino, >> yes. >> Mrs. Rakano, >> yes. >> Mr. Lwood, >> yes. >> Mr. Ly, >> yes. >> Mrs. Romeo >> abstain on eight. Yes to everything else. I'd >> like to make a motion to approve item number 11 on the agenda under operations and finance. >> Second. >> Roll call. Uh any questions or comments? >> Roll call. >> Mr. Green stay. >> Mr. Okcon. >> Yes. >> M >> Lwood. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lippy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Romeo >> and C >> like to make a motion to approve uh items 12 through 15 the agenda under operates in the finance. >>
055Second. >> Any questions or comments? >> Mr. Green. >> Yes. >> Mr. Van. >> Yes. >> Mr. Blackwood. >> Yes. >> Mr. Licky. Yes, Mrs. Romeo. >> Yes, Mrs. Rakana, can you please um move policy? I would like to move items number one through 14 under policy. >> Second. >> Seeing as no questions or comments, let's go to roll call. >> Mr. Lippy. >> Yes. >> Mr. [Applause] Yes to all and abstain from number four. >> Mrs. Rakana. >> Uh, yes. >> Mrs. Lachman. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Romeo. >> Yes. >> Committee reports. Do we have anything for parks and wreck? Yes, we had a meeting last week. Um, two things that pertain to um our children in the district. Um, they will have the opportunity to call Santa on December 5th from 6:00 to
0568. The telephone number is 9737282862. [Music] That is Santa's hotline from 6 to 8. >> What's that number? 973728 2862. >> I see some people writing it down. >> Um, and they are also having a letters to Santa workshop where you can go on Tuesday, December 12th from 6:00 to 7:30. Um, kids ages 4 to 12 can write letters to Santa with their friends and they'll have quality music and um, paper and letterw writing supplies and cookies and hot chocolate. So, that was really all from Parks and Rack. I have to give a plug when you say Santa. That's my favorite line. >> Your mic's off. My mic is working. Oh, I was just saying the West for players is suing the play Alf and some of our students in district are in it. I'm
057very excited to see that play. Um, there will be no safety report tonight. Uh, superintendent round table. >> I just think I thought I took a screenshot. Um we had our last superintendent roundt meeting was um in October um okay um they talked a lot about um creating and this might be something for the newsletter like the section in the newsletter for successful lesson alumni. Um they wanted to possibly have people come and speak to our high school students, maybe um talk about um like a a sort of night where our successful alumni could come and show, you know, how they progressed from leaving Westford High School. Um, our special education community brought up that there are some special education students outside of district that would like to attend events at what might be their
058home school. So, um, we're trying to work that out. So, because um, the PTAs and PTOs don't necessarily know who and if their school has those students. So, it's something that we can work together on. Um and I which is Mr. Novak's new favorite topic came up. Um the the superintendent's round table wanted to know um if the student should be working on I ready outside of school and if so for how long. Um, and as of right now, the student should be doing 40 to 50 minutes um, of I writing in their pack in class and in time they will be bringing it home for homework, but it should be being done in school at this moment. Um, and that is really all. We have uh superintendent round table coming up uh next week.
059>> It's at this moment in October or November. >> Well, that was as of those that was as of those meeting. >> Yeah. So, I know that we've >> I start sometimes it's our meetings have been a month. Yeah. >> We're going to uh revisit that in the new year. um trying to make their meeting more >> current to the board meeting. >> Thank you. Um the St. County School Boards, Mrs. Lockwood. >> So the next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 30th. It's on school district safety and security. It's going to actually be at the Patterson Charter School for Science and Technology. Um it starts at 6:45. Um they're also going to be offering um which I believe that um the board members that um won the election should be getting an invite to
060the NJSBA 3R's roles, responsibilities, and resources. Um, and they're encouraging any newly elected board members and or um board members, I guess, that are current that would like to get a refresher to that meeting. It starts at 5:30, I believe. And I'm not sure how they're getting the invitations out to the newly elected board members, but it says here that they are. >> Wonderful. Thank you. um New Jersey School Boards Association and Mr. Shadow's absence I've asked Dr. Pardi or Dr. [Music] So uh this past month was the um New Jersey school board's association's workshop 2023 and a number of board members and members of the administrative team attended and um there were some really great workshops that we took advantage of. Some of us uh went to similar workshops and some of us spread
061the wealth and try to um attend things that would be pertinent to the district, but we didn't all have to attend the same things. And um you know, some of the things that we attended tied right into the strategic planning things that we've been talking about um and um I know a number of us attended the branding uh workshop which was interesting and gave us some ideas. Um and there were other things uh that pertained to some of the procedural things that we work on. Um looking at how we use our time, how we use our funding and allocate it. So it was a really valuable event. Um and in addition to that um one of the other things that um we are looking into with school boards uh you know we're entering into our
062negotiation session soon and we've been making inquiries as to whether or not school boards would be available to us to do some evaluation of our current contract documents. So that's uh you know one of the services that they they provide and they uh have the staff to do it and um we're hoping that they're going to be able to do some of that with us. Just a briefly um legislative thing. Um technology. >> Yes. >> How about that? >> Okay. Uh we had a meeting. It's been a little while since we had our last meeting. Uh, but going through the meeting, we found out that the administration came up with their plans. Everything was going well. Uh, Mr. Mr. Winston presented a few things that we have here. One of the things I was very
063happy to hear about was that the Chromebooks for the 24 25 school year uh, high school staff have already purchased with leftover two funds. Um but we will need more funding of course for the the the macro bin um and the lower school books books um class link which is up and going um it's running for all the K through five it appears as though it's working pretty well that um phone systems are working well with the the new phone systems were up uh we had updates this year including the 911 call manager which when there is a 911 call there is it goes to the proper administration that is on site as well as the the emergency first responders that it needs to go to uh web the web master contract that we had
064concluded and it was not renewed. Okay. So we're happy to save us money there which is nice. Uh we have uh new website platform which will be uh be used soon coming I think it was the early 24 and it's going to be done with inhouse staff so there's no additional cost on that which is a year coming up um starting they're starting the the work on the 2425 uh technology budget needs this was two three weeks ago I'm sure come a little further. Then um there's a new VMware that upgrade that's going in should be done by the end of December which is they're working with the hardware and software migration everything that's going well putting together the plans for how they're going to implement the smart future um I call backwards but they're
065all new stuff they're putting up as the housing roll out how they're going what grades and what how to budget for going forward. Uh, and then the new thing that they're working on, which is very nice to hear some of the the the computer issues a lot of people have had recently is an anti-ishing student and staff awareness just to make sure things go wrong. There are test runs that are going to be going on with that and training to go for students and staff. So hopefully that will protect us from being ransom and taking over and like that. Next meeting hopefully will be in January sometime. >> Thank you. Um the township board of education joint committee meeting um we just had meeting um Mr. Schulz talked about it um during this strategic plan
066report and um hiring a company for the feasibility study. Um and so our next meeting um be after that. Is there anything else to add? >> And the West Milford Municipal Alliance. >> Yeah. Um no, I was not able to go. So >> Okay. And CPAC. >> I was not able to go to that either. Uh Mr. Sitz actually um went. >> Okay. and he's not here. So, >> okay. Um, next week, well, we do know that there was the mindfulness presentation. Um, and that completes our community reports. Next, we'll move to old business. Does anyone have any business? >> I move to close all business. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? mute. >> Uh seeing as none, I move to close new business. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? Public comment. All
067speakers will have 5 minutes to speak until 30 minutes transpires. Before speaking, state your name, your group, and your address. Members of the public who've requested to speak will go first. After speaking, everyone's asked to send register provided with their name, group affiliation, and their address. All statements will be directed to the presiding officer. No participant may address or question board members individually. All speakers are expected to have read the statement within the agenda regarding the regulations concerning public comments. Members of the public are reminded that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments. We have anyone that would like to speak? Seeing as none, I'd like to close public comment. All in >> favor? I post. [Applause] Um, we do need an executive session and we will not turn after. Correct. >> Correct.
068Okay. So, at 8:17 p.m., I make a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing HIPS. The executive session minutes will not be released until such time as the privilege or confidentiality is no longer applicable. The board will be in executive session for approximately 30 minutes. Action will not be taken. >> Um, thank you at this time. Second. >> All in favor? >> I Any opposed? >> Um, okay. So, we are heading into an executive session where we will adjourn from. Um, and the board of education and administration wishes all of you a very, very happy Thanksgiving and see you soon.