001is uh 7:37. I would ask everyone to uh silence their cell phones and look around and note the locations of the emergency exits. I would uh like to take a um moment of silence for uh some staff members whose who have lost relatives um this past week. and also for Fred Stewart, the fire um fireman. Please stand for the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act, a public notice of this meeting has been sent to board members, all district schools, the Herald news, the trends, the record, AI. West Milford, the messenger, West Milford town hall, county superintendent's office, the board attorney and cable
002vision of Warwick and has been posted in the administration building. Copies of the board meeting calendar resolution were provided to all local media, town hall, township, library, and all district schools. Roll call, please. Mrs. Francisco, Mr. Bailey, Mr. De here. Mr. Drew, here. Mrs. Dwire, here. Mr. Foody, present. Mr. Yuber here. Mrs. O'Brien. Mr. Robbins called me. He's in an interview and he wasn't sure if he was going to be uh here. I think Mrs. O'Brien here. Uh Glenn, would you mind um reading the executive session resolution, please? Um move to approve the following resolution. Resolve that the board go into executive session for approximately 60 minutes for the purpose of discussing HIV personal personnel negotiations and matters of attorney plan privilege. The executive session minutes will not be released until such time as privilege
003or conf of confidentiality is no longer applicable. We just so we're clear that if we pass the motion as it's written, we go into executive session right now because there's no time on it in the future. So, Glenn, you should put a time. All right. Okay. So, at 9:00 to say at 9:00. Okay. Thank you. I need a second. I have a quick question. Can we move that up to 8:30 p.m.? Is it possible to do that? Well, we could um if we're not done with the I would second at 8:30 if you would amend that. Well, we could go in early. Okay. So, do I have a second? One second. Thank you, Terry. Is this for um 9:00? Uh do you want to make a motion, Jamie, to to amend it to 8:30? And
004I would like to make a motion to amend it to 8:30 if possible. Do we have a second for Jamie's Maryland? Yes. Okay. Um any discussion? I don't think it's necessary. Why? But um do I need to do a roll call? No, you can do it all in favor. All in favor? I Any opposed? Let's just keep in mind that if it goes past 8:30 and the presentations are still Yep. Okay. All right. All in favor of the executive session resolution for 8:30. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Let's see what they have done. Okay. Um All right. Um Dr. Anamone, superintendent report, please. Good evening everybody. just want to give our monthly progress towards our district goals and also our monthly progress towards our school goals and our department goals. We went over this
005uh the board met in May to set up district goals uh for the 1617 school year. Uh we spent the summer months meeting with the administration to come up with some school goals and department goals. We sort of drilled down a little bit more detail and I want to met with the administration uh maybe two weeks ago and they gave us some updates about where they are. We're about a quarter of the way through the school year. First mark period is ending I think this week or maybe last week it ended. So, we're about officially a quarter of the way through a year and I'll update the board. Not on every single thing we're doing because I understand we have a meeting to get to, but I will give you some highlights thus far and
006I'll try and touch on different schools, different departments, different grade levels, etc. Um so under district 01 uh which is differentiated instruction uh one of the goals at the high school was to in assess and plan for the imp implementation of the advanced placement capstone program at West Milford Township High School for the 1718 school year. So earlier this year, the administration at the high school met the principles, assistant principal, supervisor, director of education, and we brainstormed some possible things we could do with this program. We had representatives from the college board, the group that administers program come into our high school. We had one site visit already to Randolph High School and I believe he I believe we have one more site Mount Olive High Point Regional already set up. Um we submitted our
007application and just yesterday we heard from the college board that we were approved to have the advanced placement capstone project in West Milford High School for next school year. So, so this is a very rigorous program. Uh, it involves two additional AP courses, AP research and AP seminar. And it really pushes our students. Right now, we're going to take some time from now until a little bit later into the school year to see when we should offer those courses, grades 10 and 11 or grades 10 and 12. We're not sure. We're still working and we're collaborating with some administrators from other districts that are probably a year ahead of us already. They're they're implementing it this year. So, it's a wonderful opportunity. Um, it's two additional AP classes. They're college type classes. So, these are
008the courses that prepare you for college. Um, if you're a high school student, if you have interest in attending a highly competitive college, an Ivy, a little Ivy, uh, a highly ranked state school, a flagship university, Ruckers, University of Virginia, Michigan, those high-end schools, this is the program that helps you get to those places. So, we're really happy that we it's going to give our kids a competitive leg up academically starting with the graduating class of well, starting with the 1718 school year. Yes, Dr. Arone, could the capstone research project, the summitive project that these kids do, could that be um a graduation um how can I say it? um requirement. Not a requirement, but how could that replace the park testing for their graduation? Could replace the park test for those kids? Not to
009my understanding. Um as of now, no. Maybe that's something that the direction the state moves in in the future, but right now that's not an option. Um however, who knows what the future holds. That that shows more um growth as a student than any test you could ever take. That's why we just brought that up. Okay, we're moving the envelope there. Um, just moving down to the elementary school. Uh, we have finished our Fontis and Panel reading benchmark reading assessments. Uh, this is the assessments that our children in grades one to six take in the fall of the year and then they take a similar measurement in the spring. So, a similar assessment in the spring. So, allows our teachers and administrators to measure their reading growth. Our kindergarteners do it a little bit later.
010It's more like the winter in the spring. So, we finished the initial assessment in the fall. So, we have a baseline of where our children are reading. Now, at all the elementary schools for grades 1 to six, we know what their Lexile score is, which helps our teachers to differentiate their instruction in the classroom. our math department. Uh, one of our goals this year was to assess and plan for the implementation of a new pre-alggebra course in grade seven at Makipin School for the 1718 school year. Um, this goal includes the creation of a benchmark assessment for grade six students plus a communication plan for current grade six parents. So, in a nutshell, what we're looking to do for the current sixth graders going into seventh grade next year is find out, and they're coming
011from six different elementary schools, remember, we're going to get a common benchmark assessment, which has been created already by our math teachers, what a gifted sixth grader would know in math, administer that test a little bit later in the school year, so we can identify in each school a certain number of students, and then collect them into grade seven immac back in school where they'll be in a new uh advanced math class starting in seventh grade. So, it really pushes our gifted students a little bit ahead. And I know we've done things like this in the past at some of the upper grades. This brings it a little bit down uh into our elementary schools for grade six has some good vertical articulation between our grade six math teachers, our grade seven math teachers. And
012if you you're a current grade six parent and probably the furthest thing on your mind is college, but when you're applying to colleges and universities, one of the key elements that they look for is which math which the highest level math you took. Did you take did you top off a pre-calc cal calc BC? Which discrete math whatever level? And the earlier you take algebra, that affects which math class you'll take in 12th grade. So if you take algebra in ninth grade, you can probably only get the pre-calc. If you take algebra in eighth grade, you can probably get the cal and so on and so forth. So the earlier what we're trying to do is identify those gifted students in math in sixth grade and collect them all from backup so they're ready for
013them in seventh grade in the fall. Dr. Adam, what about those kids that are struggling? Will you be able to identify those children as well? we probably already have through other assessments whether it's a classroom assessment whether it's park assessment there's other data points we have but this is more for the gifted ends of the program so the separate ends of the stick I guess um our world languages department has a wonderful group here and um their goal was to investigate the feasibility of offering a New Jersey department of education bilingual diploma endorsement for select West Milford High School graduates starting This year the class of 17 these are students who can identify who who can show a mastery of a language other than English. So Spanish, French, German, Italian. If they can prove mastery
014of that language, they will have a bilingual endorsement on their diploma which similar to the AP capstone conversation and allows our students when they're applying for select and rigorous universities to have a competitive edge out. Our second district goal was to develop and implement an effective and timely communication plan. Uh we have blogs going on. I know at Marshall Hill they piloted usage of uh an app called Remind which helps notify parents of late bus issues for example. Um I think all of our elementary schools are using that app for now. Uh now um on your table here is our newest newsletter from the high school. This is our monthly Highlander news. This comes out, this is created by the high school. It lists some of what we do now at the high school in
015color. It's on our website. There's extra copies on the the uh media center stand. Our visual formal arts department um is also creating a quarterly newsletter which is ed is one is out. Edition quarterly two edition will be out probably in a few weeks prior to our December meeting. But that's also on our website will be shared with the entire community. So, we're trying to highlight a lot of the positive things that we're doing in our district. And the third district goal has to do with uh developing respectful and sustainable partnerships um with our parents, our community, our students, and our staff. All of our schools are involved with the national character educ character.org group this year. They've all they are all in the process of applying for an award. So some schools are applying
016for something called the promising practice which is sort of the beginning level that they offer. The schools that had that already are going for the next level award which is called a state school of character. And we have schools already that are a state school of character. They're applying to be a national school of character. So um every one of our schools is figuring out where they were last year and trying to move one step up the ladder. um weaving character education into basically everything we do. Does anybody have any questions? Yeah. Um going back to the AP tax program, are you working on any partnerships with colleges so that the students that take the AP courses may get some college credits before they actually leave high school that are transferable? All public schools have
017your It's part of the Yeah. Well, the AP classes you take in physics, calc, etc., those may or may not transfer to universities depending on how many classes you're looking to transfer. Um, they typically don't accept somebody as a sophomore, even if you've taken a lot of AP credits. Um, they're in the business of selling new credits. So, um, some universities have a limit as to how many credits you can transfer in. However, having that on your high school transcript in and of itself is typically an advantage even if every single AP credit doesn't necessarily transfer into college. Right. Okay. I just thinking because I know some schools have a partnership for say Ruckers and so you would be like transferring Ruckers credits to another university. I believe we have one with C. Is that
018a dual is that dual enrollment program? I'm not sure. Might be a dual enrollment or concurrent education program. This is not with the university with the college board. So it's probably no different than our AP from other programs. These credits wouldn't necessarily transfer in to universities, but they give you the skills that you need in college where class are typically much more researchbased. We do have a collaboration with Ryder University for tomorrow's teachers program and those students are are at dual enrollment where they are enrolled here in our tomorrow's teachers program and they can receive credits to Ryder University and to comparable program in other state schools. So we do have a number of those programs up. Okay. Next up, uh, in your I don't know if it was in your board packet or if
019it was shared electronically, but the budget and finance committee met a few weeks ago to discuss something called our budget guidelines for 1718 fiscal year budget, which we are in the process of crafting now. So, we developed two, three, four, seven bullet points, seven principles that will guide the development of this budget for the next school year. I'm going to read them out now for the audience. Um and it really show speaks to how efficiently we try to spend the taxpayers dollars. Um so number one, continue to fund all programs and services and foster educational excellence working within the confines of the 2% property tax levy cap state law. maintain staffing and configuration and curricular programs for the 1718 school year pending an enrollment analysis at each grade and and in each building. Continue to
020be conservative and valueoriented in the expenditure of public monies respecting its effect on local taxpayers. Continue to provide financial support for ongoing professional development and curriculum review. continue to derive expenditures from competitive supplier quotations whenever appropriate, official data and actual expenditures from previous years. The concept of zerobased budgeting shall be followed. So just touching briefly on that we don't start our budget process by looking at what we did last what we spent last year. We start from ground zero and we build our budget up. It's not that you had 50,000 in the budget line last year. So, we'll start there and increase or decrease by $1,000. We'll start off by seeing how that $50,000 was spent. Could it have been spent in a more effective matter somewhere else in our budget? Does it need to
021be in our budget at all or does it need to be doubled because that didn't get us where we needed to go? So, these are all the questions we're asking um our directors, our principles, our supervisors and so on. Uh and the last two continue to ensure that budget and financial planning process is aligned with and supports district priorities and goals. That's what we do this year. And um the budget that we're developing now is going to support next year's goals which are yet to be developed and continue to fund a capital reserve account to finance specific improvement projects in our building. Any questions or thoughts? Number three, in your packets and on the agenda tonight, we have two one-year calendars up for approval. Uh we felt this will help out parents, uh staff members
022plan their calendars ahead. So there's a 1718 calendar and also an 18/19 calendar. So um they were approved tonight. We'll share them with the community later this week on our website and via some mailings. Uh also in October we had two weeks. One was a week of respect. Uh the first week in October, I'm going to share a couple of things that we've done in various schools. U at Maple Road, we had an anti-bullying assembly called Stand Up Step Insponsored by the Maple Road PTO. This kickoff assembly uh supports the school's full values and monthly character red themes. And M They had a different theme for every day of the week. Um on Tuesday they did team up for respect where you wear your favorite team sports wear and you wear different clothing every day
023for a different theme to show support for uh upstanders in the process. The third week in October this year was school violence awareness week which uh we typically call Red River week. It's uh it's a it's a nicer phrase I think. Um, I know at Absua Elementary, um, they had a special day with a war war blue and they taught kids how to be safe online to develop digital citizenship grade level by grade level. Uh, and combine that with some literacy lessons um, in in their technology lab. So, they did some technology, some literacy, and some how to be safe online, some digital citizenship skills. And at the high school for school violence awareness week, um the Holocaust studies program had a profile of coverage from the Holocaust. Um they have they decorated the halls
024near room 242. Uh before I pass you off to our student rep, uh we have excuse me, five student suspensions to report, four at the high school, uh and one at Marshall Hill. And now Miss Hogan is not here tonight. student council president. So we have our student council vice president, Miss MacArthur. Um good evening everyone. Uh first I would like to thank members of the school board and um our president Mr. Over uh for allowing me to have this opportunity to speak tonight. Um so we have our past events for the month of November and then um our upcoming events at the high school for December. Uh first our past events we had um our marching band taking uh second in national championships and then third in the Yamaha Cup as well as third
025in states. Um on the 7th of November we had our career day which is a great opportunity for students to uh learn about different jobs around them. We also had a band tattoo this past Saturday and that was a great chance for all the students to um really support our military and our veterans and everyone. There was a park practicing uh trial thing that we had this past Monday as well as this whole entire week is the American education week which is basically teachers like to come into the school. They can support our students and really get to get like hands-on experience of what's going on. Um the freshman class uh during their freshman seminar, they've had a random act of kindness sort of deal where they get to um basically give random acts of
026kindness uh to the different people around them and then write what they did and post it on our board and decorate it. It's a really inspiring thing for everyone to see. The student council ourselves, we've raised about $500 for construction for a new pediatric wing at Chilton Hospital. Um it's part of the kids helping children project. And then for the is leaders program at the high school. We had 10 pals, that's what they're called, were selected to go to this teen summit program and uh learn about substance abuse and how to prevent it. And then our concert choir um performed at Carnegie Hall, which was really an incredible experience, I'm sure, for everyone there. And then in addition, we had a wonderful year with our sports teams. Uh some of our leaders in that, we
027had the gymnastics team, field hockey, and girls soccer all did a wonderful job this past year. Um our upcoming events for the month of December include um and the rest of November. We have underass underassman portrait retakes and then we have this Friday a blood drive for everyone which is a great opportunity for people to really get involved in their community and help those who need blood. And then parent teacher conferences will be next week on the 22nd. There's a winter winter, excuse me, winter coral concert on the first, which is a great opportunity for everyone to go and support our choir program because they're absolutely phenomenal. We have on-site decision day, which is wonderful for our seniors to uh get accepted to colleges and get a hands-on experience with meeting with people who are
028going to be there and get accepted then and there. And then we have our ACT testing on the 10th as well as senior choice awards coming up, a pep rally, another rec assembly, and finally a band concert to wrap everything up. Thank you very much. I know you It's a school night, so if you have to leave, this will be a perfect time. Great. Thank you so much. Okay, that's all from me, Mr. Novak. Education report, please. All right. Thank you. I just want to um comment briefly. Uh it wasn't on the agenda, but we um just left. We I attended the CPAC meeting with Dr. Liz McUade. She had uh 33 members in attendance for her open forum. It's a a fantastic night. um they really highlighted the um collaboration between special education and
029and general ed with a lot of the work we've been doing together to really um build a cohesive unit and it seemed to be well received. Parents there um voiced um voiced some concerns and was great that um Dr. and Dr. Mcuade were there to to field their questions and and be able to respond. I don't know if you want to the other thing that I want to just add is just to say thank you also to the Special Olympics because they offer child care. So I think that that also assisted where they were willing to take students this way um the parents could be a part of our meeting. So I think that that and as you know Mr. I think that just helped to bring the make it to be a larger body
030which then gave us more information from those parents. So I'll probably report on that to the board just after I synthesize all the information that we learned and maybe at the next you know meeting or two I can just give a brief report as to some of the things that were brought up and what we're doing to respond to it so you're aware. I like the fact that there's different timings because I couldn't attend the meeting today because of my work schedule, but parents can and they don't want to come out later, you know. So, it works out very well that you you can get people at the right times at different times and we and we did finalize all those dates that we came up with at the first meeting. So, th those are
031posted on the website for anyone that's interested to attend a future meeting. So, thank you. Thank you. Uh and also following up on some of um Dr. Edone's comments about our um district goals, we had a professional development day this past uh November 8th on election day where we were able to take some of our district goals and and put them into practice. We um really uh went after the idea of differentiated instruction. We began the year, I mentioned it earlier at an earlier meeting that we began with a speaker named uh Angela Myers at our welcome back uh welcome back speech this year for staff where we talked about the um the notion that that all students matter and that's where you see a lot of the schools have uh you matter t-shirts and
032and and that type of uh that type of presence. took it a step further uh this past week where we brought in a um a consultant to work with two of our um 712 departments to develop some common language and what it means to um use differentiated instruction in your everyday um classroom experience that worked with our um science, industrial arts, and um uh English language arts department. We also had uh the remainder of our departments, grades uh like I said 7 through 12 working in a um not typical sort of sort of process and I have to give credit to John Barnau who who developed the idea. He said he came up with it while mowing the lawn one day and I know many uh many of us uh come up with our best
033thinking while while doing that and while mowing the lawn he came with the idea to provide a truly crosscurricular experience for our staff. So they developed a schedule. Um I'll just highlight a couple things that we did. We took volunteers from each of our remaining departments, our uh vocal performing arts, uh family consumer sciences, mathematics, history, fizzed, and volunteers from each of those departments taught lessons in their content. So our math teachers taught a math lesson, our history teachers taught history lesson, and so forth. Um the the classes were populated by staff and they were populated by staff members who were out of their comfort zone. So math teachers went to an art class and you had a history teacher in in the art class. So if you if you get what I'm sort of
034alluding to. So it was giving the experience of that student who is going into that class and not feeling comfortable with with the content. So the art student who loves art might not feel great in in the math class. So we're trying to give the staff members that experience of going in and I'll throw out a couple names. I know Mr. Veter won't be upset with me, but watching him sweat through an art project um was was a lot of fun and and Bruce Balkin and and you know some of the people who are not typically going to be sitting in an art room sitting and developing and and working in that climate. Uh the flip side uh going in see Mrs. Benson um sorry Mrs. Patterson and and Mrs. Welch um do a do
035a math lesson to see the apprehension of those um teachers coming in who knew that math was not their thing and uh it was just a fantastic process and and coming away from that we had a lot of debrief activities where teachers shared their experience and um you know had a good conversation about it and connected it then to students and how a student feels in that process. So, it was it was a fantastic day and that's just highlighting our our 7 through 12 departments. Um, we had a number of activities in our uh prek through six that highlighted differentiated instruction. We had some specific math training in fifth and sixth grade for hands-on learning centers. We had training in grades um three and four for our writer workshop process. Uh they also met to
036um you know they took some of the things that they've been learning in the writer's workshop process and then they went back into their rooms. They worked in their grade level PLC's and they developed the work that they were going to be doing for the next unit for their students. So real real productive day out of them. K1 and two had a busy day. We had our new um science industrial arts supervisor give a session to each K1 and two um staff member on the uh New Jersey um next generation science standards. So gave them some hands-on activities. She had some kits that were considering considering purchasing for some truly hands-on science in in K1 and two. And um you know the feedback was fantastic. We also had a committee I've spoken here about the
037mindfulness committee a few times. Um, our K1 and 2 also had training in um, mindfulness. We connected to our project adventure language of be here called be here 2.0 where um, we're providing students um, those moments throughout the school day to to, you know, take a breath. And there's a great Elmo, if you Google Elmo belly breathe, you'll you'll see um you'll see a fantastic clip that that really connects to, you know, the the idea of mindfulness in our schools. Uh, they also did some um, phonics work. So at in a snapshot, uh we had a lot of work. Uh that sounds like a lot for one day, but we but we got it done. We have our next professional development day is in February, February 21st, where we're going to take the work that
038we did in this particular day and and move it forward. So just want to give a little nod to to all the hard work that went into it. It was a truly um truly collaborative effort. Staff, teachers, administrators, everybody was was all in in the process of making it a fantastic day. Um moving on. Uh so we have in the back tonight um I'm going to try and speaking about the student who need to get home to school night. It's also a school night for all of our staff members. I'm just going to go around the room. Uh what we have in the in the back of the room tonight are the promising practice winners who were honored in Washington DC's national forum on character education this past uh this past October. And as Dr.
039Ranimone mentioned in our district goals that uh character education is at the forefront of of the things that we are are trying to do and and I've mentioned it many times that character red is not a a statement that our schools are perfect or that any particular kid is is perfect. Um but it's the structures and the the processes that we put in place that um that win these awards and give us that um give us that nod. and we're very proud of of the work that everyone's done at the back of the room here and and around the district as the things that Dr. Edmund mentioned. I'm going to start in the far right. We have um my UGL home team uh UGL sack program, the afterchool program who was honored for their friendship
040bench. Uh and that is represented here today by Kim Walker, Heather Terry, and Francis Bao. Um next to them we have Mr. Richard Digos and Frank Gimch from the McPin School. They're here to uh represent and they won their promising practice for Operation Thank You, which was a veteran uh once one of our many veteran honoring activities that we have throughout the district. Uh on their left we have uh Mrs. Medcaf who is here to represent the um our Holocaust and genocide studies and that was also mentioned in in Dr. Anne's report for some of the great work that's going on there and bringing awareness. Um on their left is the uh county o county winning lacrosse coach, sorry, field hockey coach. So I get those mixed up different seasons. I apologize. Um our field
041hockey county champion coach, Mrs. Provos with some players uh representing many things. Our Philadelphia convention taking that to a different level. Um, also she's here for our West Milford uh, field hockey, the work that they do and and um, building team through service learning. So that's it's kind of fitting that's not our pump up. It is. It is. I almost started running. So through through service uh through service learning um, they they've built a tremendous team atmosphere. Um, they won a county championship. So something in that process is working. So you know, way to go way to go guys. Um, we also have coach Angela can't be here tonight, but we have a very similar process in terms of service learning through a team sport and that is uh through our cross country sportsmanship run.
042That's an annual event run by Mr. Andrulie and on the left of that and if Digos do Mr. Dos you want to run over and stand with Mr. Gibb check on that one. Oh, he can say he can they're they're also representing a second board which is uh the MAC and Patriots and they do a lot of work also with our uh our four-legged heroes, the uh service dogs that that often don't get a lot of mention when we talk about um we talk about veterans. They did a lot of work with that and we're honored for that as well. And our final board and and Mrs. just call. We're sorry she couldn't be here today. Um but her board is on the end and that is PK honors veterans and I don't know if
043you saw in the uh in the paper this week on the cover of Zamber messenger where um the upper lake school was was honored for a veterans day process. I just want to give the the nod, you know, it was fantastic event. We had it in many schools, Westbrook, Makipin, and I think it's growing and coming into many schools. But I do want to give uh PK that acknowledgement of um you know, being being the first in the district to to do that at elementary level and really bring in the veterans from that particular community and give um the children in that room in that building the opportunity to see grandma or grandpa or mom or dad come up and be honored in that way. Uh it's really uh really a powerful moment to to
044see that in action. Uh so I just want to say thank you and if we have a round of applause for have a good night. Thank you. That's all Mr. Thank you M. Um Barbara special reports and correspondence please. Um you have the minutes from the October meetings. I'd like to amend each one though. Um the first line of the minutes, it was worth our attention doesn't uh recognize Mr. President. So each one of the minutes are being amended to include title forward. That's the only amendment that I have. So it's the exact same that you have except the first line will read Mr. James board president call the meeting to order. Do we have to vote on that? Yeah. I'm just telling you I'm amending the minutes and you'll consider them as amended. It
045it is it's my error. You know my office should have been motion and a second. I'd like to make a motion to approve the amended following board of education meeting minutes of October 4th, October 18th, and October 24th, 2016. Second. I'll second that. Thank you, Terry. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? I'd like to abstain from the October 18th workshop special action executive session. Okay. Any opposed? Um Joe, legal report, please. Mr. Roselli, excuse me. That's fine. Um I have the legal report today, although I do have any questions. Okay. Okay. um the president's report. Um I guess first is congratulations to Steve and Debbie and Mr. Sidowitz for winning re-election. Really tough. I'm telling you. And and and Debbie, you're the newest uh high vote getter um in any election ever. So, congratulations
046on that. Um, Jamie, I want to thank you for I'll do it again next month, but thank you for all your all your time and help on things. Um, I'm going to piggyback on our student representative. The tattoo on Saturday was phenomenal. There was a group uh what were they? Bergen County. Bergen County firefighters and um pipe and drums. They did stuff with they call themselves the shots. The shots. They did they did stuff with bag pipes that I didn't think was possible. It was it was really really neat to watch. Um and I want to I'd asked uh Mr. Boro and Dr. Mccclaclin um and the West Milford band parents to send me their contact information because I'd like to send a a thank you out to each and every one of those groups
047that supported our tattoo. I mean, it was just phenomenal. Um again, Nationals, um they took second in our division, which was was the band. It was it was kind of neat. That was nice to watch. Um they were we were beat by West Orange. Um they had some singers so this that caught the eyes of the uh judges and and they won first. But it was really nice. Um, I found in the minutes of the meetings I was looking for something and back on November 18th, 2014. Um, board had a resolution um to participate in sustainable New Jersey. Um, I brought this to to um Dr. Anamone's attention. Um, I never remember getting any update or report so to speak. However, um, I did see that Eric Seagull was the person doing that. So, I
048I asked him um, you know, what he thought about Colleen Weiss Magisick and and he was going to talk to her. I don't know if he has, but it would be uh nice to start moving forward with that. Um, and it's basically we're going to use our resources wisely, save money, reducing our impact on the environment, all of which ensure the future health, safety, and prosperity of our children. And safety is the the number one thing there. Um, Miss O'Brien, you had a comment. Yeah, I just saw something in the emails today. I thought that's the direction you were going in from the New Jersey School Boards Association. There's a couple of workshops coming up in December. Uh, one's on a Thursday, one's on a Friday during the day along the same lines of what
049you were just mentioning before. I thought that's where you were going. Like I said, I think that's where you're going with this these comments and you kind of went in a different direction. Okay. But I figured I'd bring it to the attention of the board as well. But, uh, yeah, I think we should try to move forward and and be a little bit more proactive, um, for sustainable Jersey. I think I went to the um the events that the workshop on sustainability and what some of the schools were doing um really made an impression on me and I think that maybe it's something that we can look at with Mrs. Majes and perhaps build a sustainable district and and go for something that's called a green ribbon. If ribbons for everything now, why not go
050for a green one? But it would be very very good. Very good. Something to look at. And that and that that was I just thought that when you were told we discussed that about school boards and I found that I just thought that that was kind of go together. So um that's it as far as the president's report. Um we're going to move on to petitions and request. Petitioners who requested to speak prior to the meeting will be first with five minutes for each petitioner for a period of 30 minutes and then time permitting other petitions and requests limited to five minutes per petitioner will be allowed until the 30 minute period transpires. Petitioners speaking during petitions and requests are asked to address topics listed in the agenda. All speakers are asked to give their
051full name, spell their last name, provide their address. Speakers may not use the names of students during petitions and requests. Did we have anybody who requested to speak? Barbara, would anybody like to speak? Seeing none, I'd like to close petitions and request. Second. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Um Jamie, motion to adopt. Okay. Adopt the agenda as presented. Your corrections then first correction is personnel number three the item is correct the salary is incorrect the salary is going to be 104550. Is that the total after this extra stipend plus the stip end? The base amount the stip end is on top of that. So it'll be 106 and change all in. The second correction is personnel number seven. That assignment is going to have two position control numbers. The first one
052is accurate. The second one is omitted. I'll add it now. Position control 90.03.39ccco. [Music] And the third correction is on the bottom of page five for education. If you look at the numbers, it goes 10 11 12 11. That last one should obviously be 13. So it's the recommendation of super 10 to approve the following resolution. It's the HIV resolution that's numbered 13. It's misnumbered 11. That's it. And the hand carries. Make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented as amended, including the hand carries. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none. Uh, all in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Um, Mr. Dwire, education, please. I'd like to move items 1 through 12 for approval. Second. Any discussion? None. Okay. Roll call, please. Mrs. Dwire. Yes. Mr. Schulz. Yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Yuber, yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes.
053Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. De, yes. Mr. Foody, yes. Number 13 will be after executive session. Okay. Um, Mrs. O'Brien, Personnel, Student Affairs. Got that right. We're going to move items 1 through 29. Hand carry will be done separately under personnel student affairs. Second any discussion I would just like to make special note of item number 29 guys. um for cafeteria workers number 26. I'm just I'm assuming that's all. No, they're not volunteers, but they're um people that staff members that participate in different events. I think they get about $65 for the per event. They get paid per event. It's just in the pool of the football games or Yeah. Yeah. Any other discussion? Like to also, you know, make note congratulation to Miss Sports on your report as principal of West. Okay. No, if there's
054no other discussion, roll call, please. Barb [Applause] short Mr. Drew. Yeah. Mr. Huber. Yes. M O'Bri. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Foody. Uh yes on everything except no on number seven. Okay, now we can clap for Dr. Schwarz. [Applause] I just want to say thank you very much as a West alumni town from Maple Road and the high school and now have a family here going through Westbrook. Um they actually just finished last year and high school. I'm very excited to come to Westbrook and come back home and leave Westbrook with phenomenal teachers and students through the next several years. So thank you very much. [Applause] There is your hand car for personal student affairs. I wish you the best of luck my dear at Westbrook school. I'd like to uh make
055a motion to move item number 30 under personal student affairs. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, please. Mrs. Mr. uh congratulations on that. Very well. Agree. Thank you, Steve. Any other? No. Okay. Roll calling. Mrs. Dwire. Yes. Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Huber. Yes. M. O'Brien. Absolutely. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Deber. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. That concludes personnel student affairs. Thank you, Mrs. O'Brien. Um, budget and finance. Oh, Jamie. Yeah. Real quick, I like to make a motion to extend this uh time beyond 8:30. Unfortunately, I cannot hold time constraints here, but here we go till uh quarter two. Let's try to make it 15 minutes. All in favor? Oh, okay. All in favor? I I Any opposed? Yes. Okay. Mr. Drew, budget like to move items one to five, please. Second. Any
056discussion? I have US Foods from Allentown number four. Um, that's under the advice I guess of Ponttonian regarding the the food services or Well, we needed to replace the stove. We spoke about this in budget finance. Yes. Oh, you're right. You're right. Instead of doing the electric stove, which was much more closely in regard to the gas, we're putting gas. But this came on recommendation of of Ponttonian or just through the through the bids. There's certain vendors that deal with commercial products. Correct. And we get the prices and we do evaluation. All right. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Barber. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Yes, Mrs. Schultz. Yes, Mr. Drew. Yes, Mrs. Yes, Mr. De. Yes, Mr. Foody. Yes. Like to move item number six, please. Listen. Any discussion? Roll call, please.
057Mrs. Schultz, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mrs. Yes. Mrs. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Yes. Rain to the Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Foody. Uh, yes. On the on payroll and I didn't get to finish going through bills, so I'm going to have to stayain on that. like to move item number seven, transfer in the grand total amount of $947.93. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Barber. Mrs. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mrs. Yes. Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yeah. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Yes. Uh carry item number eight. Second. Um any discussion? Seeing none. Roll call, please. Mr. Uber. Yes. Mr. B? Yes. Mr. Drew? Yes. Mr. O'Brien? Yes. Mr. Schultz? Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. De? Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. D. policy, please. I'd like to make a motion to approve the following
058agenda items and I start with 3 through 29 first. Second. Any discussion? local police order 329. Mr. Huber, yes. Mr. Drew, Mrs. Dwire, yes. Mrs. O'Brien, yes. Mrs. Schultz, yes. Mr. Bill, yes. Mr. De, yes. Mr. Yes. Like to make a motion to approve the following agenda items one and two. Second. Any discussion, please? Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mrs. Yes. Mr. Hubert. Yes. Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Yes, Mr. De. Yes, Mr. Yes. Special committees and liaison reports. Mr. Robins isn't here. Mr. Barley, safety, I understand there was a meeting last month. No report. Uh, no. Superintendent's round table. Here's a meeting on this Thursday, November 13. And as far as counties, hold on, sorry. Um, November 17th to Thursday is the SRT meeting and P County School Boards Association. December 5th at the
059Brownstone is a county meeting. It's a joint meeting by Pay County School Boards Association and Pay County Education Association. The topic is student teacher regulations and how the new student teacher regulations will impact our district and uh board members are encouraged to or may register online for this training program if they would like. Thank you. You're welcome. Um I have nothing to report on New Jersey School Boards Association. Mr. drew legislative and technology oversight. Um, you know, I've talked about legislation and politics, but I follow nothing. Okay. And I don't blame you, Mrs. O'Brien, Milford Education Foundation. Okay. Okay, a couple things I'd like to uh bring to the board and public's attention. Um the West Milford Education Foundation, the grants, we had extended, we changed the deadlines. We extended it. It is uh open
060for the Westford Educational Community until November 18th, which is this Friday. Grant awards will be announced on December 16th, 2016, and applicants will be notified by email. Um we will be meeting the week after Thanksgiving and to to uh go over the grants both individually and collectively to date we have received grants from all of our schools and except and I I'm not going to I'm supposed to say except for the Highlander Academy but otherwise we received grants from all the all the schools elementary high So, I I truly look forward to seeing what wonderful things our uh educational community has uh presented to us and I look forward to making the announcements later this year. Thank you, Mr. Um Township Board of Education Joint Committee. We uh haven't had a meeting since our last
061one. um probably because the elections, but um I have the meeting dates and committee meeting dates for next year and I'm going to forward them to the town council. um they can forward us theirs and then we can set up a I guess every other month unless we need something you know more a little bit more time on we'll do a meeting every month next year. Um, and one of the things, Marilyn, uh, I think the first thing we should work on with the joint committee, um, is moving the poll in place to where you suggested I drove by makes a lot of sense really. Well, yeah. Well, this year it was just it was a it was a horror show, so it's probably a good thing. But, um, next year I don't it's not
062going to be a presidential year, so probably wouldn't be so bad, but still we should I think that's our first line of business that building. Yes. I don't understand why it wasn't proposed. Yep. And they hold events there. So there's no reason why they they can't have their poll in there. So that'll be the that'll be the first line of business when when when we meet I think um other than that uh that's done. Um old business anything under old business Mr. I have discussed it before. I'm going to bring it up again and hopefully we'll do some of that this time. Um, you know, as we try to improve um education and behaviors. Uh, we find that on the one hand we try to encourage positive reinforcement. critical when things go wrong. So as
063a parent, for example, you tell your kids, "Get your elbow off the table with your mouth up. Don't talk while you're chewing." And over the years, hopefully they get some. But what I found is that positive reinforcement works way better than all of the negative reinforcement. boss, coach, parent. Um, and for all of those things, eventually you get to the point where you want to say, "Wow, you just did really great at dinner. You got it all your math. You you finally got this." Um, I have found, for example, that, you know, if you correct math homework or something like that, every once in a while, you got to say, "You're really starting to get it. You know, you're you're getting good at math." And and when you do that kind of thing, it it
064it builds in the child. They start to believe in that and and these are the kinds of things that actually encourage them to move on to push a little harder. Now, I know that uh and in fact, you look at the uh top thousand public high schools in the United States, we find that those school districts make a concerted effort to encourage kids. You look at our topic county teachers of the year and you talk to them, we find out, you know, they find ways to encourage kids to say, "Good job. You really got that." And these are the kinds of things that drive kids to to to work harder and and actually have much more positive influence on on outcomes than all the coaches. I found that in coaching, you know, when you tell
065the kid that wrong, you did whatever, you know, maybe they get it right and then eventually you say, "You just really did a good job of that. That was a good thing. It starts to think better." Now, I bring this up because it's it's just so easy to forget to do that. So much easier to criticize to give the positive positive move that we had an event recently that I think is just absolutely outstanding. Maybe mentioned it where we had some of our children invited to perform. Now I'm a musician in my family. That is a lifetime achievement. There are musicians who work their entire lives to get that invitation. It's a big deal because it is probably the most acoustically accomplished building in the entire United States. Now, it's very easy. You live in
066an area like this. Maybe you never been to the car. If you go is so finely engineered, so finely built. You can hear every single instrument. You can hear every single voice. There's a reason people want And I think there's an achievement on that truly is a lifetime achievement that is worth remembering for your entire life. You ought to write a letter home to every one of those children and and and I volunteering to do it. Um and as you go in there permanent file that should stay with them forever. Um, so I'm I'm suggesting I'd like the list of the students, administrators, teachers who involved in that with their address. I'll write a letter. Um, any other board member who would like to sign that with me invite you to do that. But this
067is the kind of thing that when you send that home to parents, they recognize the job that we're doing to their kids. kids when they build these files. They can use that job application. They can use that in the college application. I think it needs to be part of what we do this standard world. There are things that we're doing in West. We're really not getting recognized. I think we're one of the fine best fine arts high schools in the state of New Jersey. perhaps I think we may be one of the best special education schools in in New Jersey and perhaps in the United States and we need a written record and now one other serious I believe that's a huge huge who can do that if you need that and frankly I think
068in the future I'd like a polic these kinds of things of what we should be. We should talk about that after a question. Go ahead, please. Legally, can we as board members have students addresses? So, no. Um, I wasn't that letter should come from Dr. Anahon and the board should authorize him to do that. and Steve, you can work with him on the letter if the board authorized you to do so, but you cannot personally send the letter out to the students. I like the letter. Yeah. And I would like us to send it out. I can tell you, you know, I I can't vote for the entire board, but anybody who contract bonus will only get my vote if we start written. recognition performance. Yeah, I don't think a letter to the students is
069a bad idea, but the board should authorize Alex to do it and you can work with him. But we need to start being this is I'd like to add possible this is the direction we go. I think it would be the signatures. Well, that's what I mean by the board authorizing superintendent. Whoever writes the letter is fine, but should the board should Okay. So, you're saying Okay. I wasn't sure that's what you got. Piggybacking on on that with the the tattoo performances. I wanted to send you be another out to the people who who help and perform there. Is that something that Yes, they might do. I mean, we're not getting kids information. Well, I don't know what the tattoo performance is, but you and there were there were schools that came. So, like Clifton
070came and performed and I wanted to send something to their board of education saying thank you and your students, but that's not the same thing. Okay. You can write that letter as board president student addresses. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I I would like to write that letter and have the whole board sign. That's fine. the same thing as I just wanted to just wanted to make sure I didn't want to step on any toes any um I I I agree Steve it's uh it's it's an important thing um and to go I I know I told Debbie I um or I didn't tell you you weren't you weren't there I told Marilyn and I know Terry I mentioned it to Steve at at nationals Um, I they have air greens where it's like, you know,
071mom and dad's, you know, great job, Susie. Senior year, you know, go get them. That kind of thing. And I did one for the board. Um, telling the West Milford Highlanders, "We're proud of you and um to kick some kill." And I s and I put it from the West Milford Board of Education. So, I just thought that was kind of a nice thing to do. Is that why you hit me up for $5? I didn't hit you up for five bucks, but I will now if you're in there. I'll be back. I'll be back in a little while. But no, it's it's things like that. And, you know, they came in second. I don't know. It wasn't I'm not saying that that was the reason why, but it's a good thing to do and
072and let the kids know that we care and that that, you know, when they do a good job that we're there and and telling them so. So, I agree with you, Steve. And if uh if you want to make that motion um that we direct the superintendent, do you want to is that direct the board work with superintendent to write the letters? Congratulatory letters. So, what was the event you mentioned before in the Carnegie Hall? When the kids were invited to come home, that's excuse. Yeah, a letter of commendation. Yeah, I have an administrative council meeting tomorrow. I think this is something that be done at school level. I think they're a little bit more direct connected to the students and they're probably more aware to these type of events, but it's more than just
073that. There's a lot of events we do in addition to honor. Yeah, there are other things that probably ought to be recognized. teachers involved in that should somehow yeah right everybody in favor of that you want a second I'll second yes you second okay any any discussion or it's direction so all in favor yeah do we all all in favor any opposed okay um anything else your old business. Uh yeah, I have something else segue right in after Steve's comments. Uh I'd like to throw a congratulatory shout out to um Monica Heinage. She's a 2005 Wester High School graduate that just received her PhD in mathematics from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. And uh she is currently working I believe in medical research at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. So, congratulations to Monica
074and uh good job. Thank you. Anything else under old business? Okay. Um going to move on to new business. Excuse me. All in favor of closing uh old business. I'd like to make a motion to close old business. I'm trying to Jamie snack me. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Um, new business. Is there anything under new business? Debbie. Um, really quickly, and first of all, I'd like to give credit to this to um Mr. Novak. Um, he had said something tonight that kind of triggered an idea in my head. Now, We have, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's called Beauty Cross America. We have guest speakers that come in each of the children. It's a big literary week that goes on. We do too. And Huh. We do. Oh, I know. We
075do too. Right. I was trying to remember if was read across America or something else. I was wondering if we could think about doing something like I can't come up with a catchy phrase at the moment, but something do like a math or science or social studies where you know it's like a lesson that we were brought in and the kids could teach us or we can work with the kids something that's besides out of the realm of reading. It's very important to read, but if we're pushing something, we we do have numerousy night uh family numeracy night in all of our this on family numeracy night in all of our buildings, in all of our elementary schools. Um I'm sure um I'm sure the board would be welcome to, you know, see them in
076action. You know, you go to you're welcome back at all these events and I think you really um enjoy what you see. You know, it's similar to during Read Across America Week, we have family literacy nights that take place. Uh families come in, they work side by side with their kids in a in a session. Um someone we did digital citizenship night and parent went session to session. Family numeracy night, it's the same sort of process. They parents come in with their with their children. They learn some hands-on math strategies, some things that they can um carry back home with them. Um you know, for example, taking a handful of apple jacks and using it as counters to teach a student how to divide. you know, you take a pile and and you count them
077out. So, it's it's a it's teaching some hands-on stuff for for parents who are um looking for a little bit of help in in helping their students at home and having a good time with with math. And and I know Mrs. Gratina would be happy for me to throw out that, you know, we all love math and that, you know, we have to get past the we have to get past that idea of of of math phobia and family numeracy night is one of those events. We also have, which is actually a great idea now that you're talking during family during read across America week. Uh we could probably incorporate there are thousands of titles. Thousands might be exaggerating. Hundreds of titles that are children's picture books that have math themes. Math Curse is one
078of them. Um 100 Hungry Ants. There's a there's a quite a few um picture books that are available that teach math lessons. So, we could probably incorporate that into What do you think, Mrs. Walker? Can we build that into our time of the risky nights everywhere? Specialist I throw her out there. Um, yeah, I think uh I think that would be be a good idea. Now, I but my question I I knew about the math activity nights because that started late 90s maybe. Marilyn kind of because I remember taking I think you went with your girls, I went with my boys. Um, I did not know that was open to the to the public. Well, it's open to those schools. You're the board, not the public. So, we I'm sure we can talk at that
079new council tomorrow about uh invitations to invitations. Similar similar like you would be invited to back to school night and that sort of thing. It's it's an event we do in our schools. Um, family literacy night are their invitations to the parents and students of those of those schools. All right. as it's a durable night. It is. I agree. I just didn't I just again had the mindset that you know we that it was more of an uh closed by invitational notation but you know it's for it's for them but it's good to know that we also have um pi day that's celebrated in our schools that you know it's a it's a day for it's a it's a math center uh math center day in all of our schools watchers day the next day
080Thank you. Anything else in new business? Seeing none, I'd like to close new. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, we're going to move on to petitions and requests. Petitioners who request who have requested to speak prior to the meeting will be first five minutes for each petitioner for a period of 30 minutes. and time permitting other petitions and requests limited to five minutes per petitioner will be allowed until the 30 minute period transpires. All speakers are asked to give their full name, spell their last name for by their address. Speakers may not use the names of students during petitions and requests. Did anybody request to speak? Would anybody like to speak? Hello, my name is Stephanie Barkard. I'm just gonna say West Milford. I work in the high school. Um, my son attends Westbrook and
081I wanted to say thank you to Mr. Monaco, Dr. Over, Mrs. Vanzyle, and the entire staff and all the students at Westbrook for the Veterans Day program. I think you should know that my brother-in-law who's deployed in Kuwait and his squadron watched the whole program there and are so impressed by what we do here. And my seven-year-old came home and couldn't wait to get on FaceTime with him to tell him everything that he had learned. And it was just probably one of the most wonderful programs that I've ever seen. And it was great because my sister who was here with my two nephews while he's deployed was able to see the program and she was blown away. So huge huge thank you to Westbrook and all the other schools that do it. And they should
082just know how much it means not only to the veterans but those who are serving now to see our kids be educated on the veterans and what they do and the sacrifices that their families make as well as them. So I just wanted to say thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Seeing none like to close petitions and require second. All in favor? Any opposed? Um, executive session. Glenn. Okay. Uh, 9:00. I'll make a motion to go into executive sessions for the purpose of discussing HIV's personnel negotiations and matters of 20. Second. Okay. Uh all in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. We'll we'll adjourn into uh executive session. There will be um action taken afterwards to vote on uh HIVs. Thank you. Welcome aboard. This is the school district and um we have one issue
083left to to vote on the HIVs that were discussed. So Terry Okay. All right. move to uh approve the recommendation of the superintendent. Um whereas in accordance with requirements set forth in PL210 chapter 122, the Westminster Board of Education has received results of the HIV investigative reports on November 15th. Therefore, be it resolved that the West Milford Board of Education approve issuance of written decisions affirming, rejecting, or modifying the superintendent's determination in the following HIV investigations. Incident report number 2172 unsubstantiated 200 2017 E3 unsubstantiated. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mrs. Dwire. Yes. Mrs. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Huber. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. Motion to adjourn. Second. All right. It is now 9:35 and there is a motion to adjurnn. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, everyone.
084Enjoy your Thanksgiving and we'll see you. We'll see you in December. Thanksgiving. [Music] Yeah. All right. Yeah. My take.