Board of Education Meeting 5/24/16

001Now we're good. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the workshop regular meeting of the West Milford Board of Education May 24th, 2016. I would ask everybody that they please silence and turn off your cell phones um and notice the locations of the emergency exits. I would like to have a a moment of silence for um one of our students, Brett Strup, who was in a motorcycle accident last Friday. I understand he's coming along very well. So, I'd like to have a moment of silence for him. And please stand for the flag salute. I pledge algiance 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

002of this meeting has been sent to board members, all district schools, the Herald News, the trends, the record, AIM, West Milford, the messenger, West Milford town hall, county superintendent's office, the board attorney, and cable vision of Warwick and 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. Mrs. Francisco, would you please do the roll call? Mr. Bailey, Mr. De, Mr. Drew here. Mrs. Dwire, Mr. Foody, present. Mr. Hubert here. Mr. O'Brien here. Mr. Robins here. Mr. Schultz here. Um, Glenn, would you read the executive session resolution, please? Move and resolve that before we go into executive session at approximately 9:00 p.m. for appro approximately 60 minutes for the purpose of discussing personnel, negotiations, dips, and matters of attorney

003client privilege. Executive session minutes will not be released until responsible and confidentiality is no longer applicable. Second. Thank you, Debbie. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. Um, superintendence report, Mr. Rashika. Um, as usual, I'm going to throw it over to our student liaison, Matthew Petrell, to give us a report. Okay. Um, good evening, Mr. President, members of the board, this um, the following is my report of student life for the month of May at West Milford High School. I am confident in saying that things at West Milford High School have never been busier. So, this is going to be a little long. Sorry. Okay. First of all, I would like to extend my gratitude to all of our veterans who attended the War Remembrance Day ceremony and who subsequently ran the rest of

004the day's history presentations. Also, a big thank you to all the staff who made the event possible. Today was truly a showcase of West Buffer's finest. From the iconic Highlander pipes and drums who are as good as ever to the trumpet players who flawlessly performed taps to to the West Brook students who sang my country t of thee. Um, a sign of the success of today's program was the overwhelming student response. The applause in the gymnasium lasted for nearly a full minute as students cheered for the veterans, the band, and the students who are going to the armed services next year. Um, along the lines of character, I would like to highlight the recent character education awards for promising practices that were given to three of our programs at the high school. Congratulations to the

005field hockey team, cross country teams, and the Holocaust and genocide studies course for being recognized. I want to congratulate seniors Brendan Nagger and Teresa Fernbacher for being named West Milford High School Citizens of the Month. Um, I just want to highlight that Teresa was the one responsible for planning the first ever DUI reenactment. This incredibly moving ceremony featured volunteers from all of West Milford's emergency response services and even a medevac helicopter from Atlantic Health. Um, it was astonishing to see how many students serve on their forces in town. Words do not do this event justice and I encourage you all to look up the event on news12.com if you haven't already seen the reenactments. Um, National Honor Society has had a very busy month. On May 13th, they showed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which

006is a very successful first movie night. Um, student council helped run this event, and I want to thank Mr. Gorski and the rest of the administration for helping us to secure the licensing requirements that will allow us to make movie nights a regular event at the high school in the future. Um this movie night of course led up to the NHS induction in which its newest class of probationary members were inducted. Congratulations to all of them. Similarly, other honor society inductions were held along with a distingu distinguished scholars event um which I'll let Mr. Rajie or Dr. Yeah, Mr. talk about. Um all departments gave awards to our seniors and the evening culminated in the naming of the valictorian saludiator of the class of 2016. Uh, the senior class is having a busy month and

007is obviously intending on going out with a bank. Senior prom is next Thursday at Mayfair Farms and bids have been sold. The class is still selling graduation signs and car magnets to support the class of 2016. I'm sad to say that spring athletics are coming to a close. Many teams already held their senior nights and West Milford athletes have received numerous county team honors, including even a few freshmen. Many thanks go out to four boers and the route 23 auto mall for running the drive for your school fundraiser. Um many teachers and seniors including myself test drove the vehicles and it was a great fundraiser to support project graduation in supplement to the cable thawn. Um and last but not least, the West Milford Student Council had a very productive month of May. Highlander Day

008was last Friday and we could not have asked for a better day in terms of the weather and the turnout. Over 30 clubs, societies, and sports teams were represented at the tables. Um, I'd like to thank all the teachers and especially Mr. Gorski for volunteering to go in the student council dunk tank. Um, later that evening, student council completed a double header, spearheading the first ever Battle of the Bands competition. Four West Milford bands competed and first prize was taken home by the West Milford High School jazz band. The proceeds will go back to that program. Um, with June comes election season. I am sad to say this may be my last student report. At the next regular board meeting, you will meet my replacement still to be determined by the elections. Um, as we

009look towards June, we have many wonderful events coming up like prom on the 2nd, Cabaret night on the 9th, and Relay for Life on the 11th. Um, I'd like to take this moment to say that it has been my pleasure representing such an incredible student body and serving this board. I have gained firsthand experience in the government service and confident that I want to pursue a career in this area. Um, this will most likely be my last student report as I will be attending Boy State next month to serve as a counselor. Um, thank you again and have a great night. Thank you so much, Matthew. Um, we were honored to have you join us this year. It was a pleasure. Uh, you're a bundle of information and very, very thorough in your reporting. So,

010we want to thank you. So, as I'm talking about Matthew, what would I also like to point out that uh Matthew was our student athlete of the year for track uh and received a $500 scholarship at the lunchon from NJSA and uh we are very proud of you, Matthew. Congratulations for that. And also another big announcement is that Matthew spoke about the valadictorian and saludiatorans. I'm happy to announce that our saludiatoran, rather my valadictorian, our valadictorian is Matthew Ventrella. Surprise. Congratulations. And our saludiatoran is uh Laura Freeman, who will be our saludiatoran for this year. So, we look forward to graduation and a couple of great speeches and uh moving you on to the next phase of your life. And again, thank you from all of us. It's been a pleasure. Okay. Um general report

011for everyone. Uh the good news is that uh and I don't mean this in a bad way, but the good news is that park is over. Uh it's a little bit of a relief for everyone. Um I can feel and I do feel confident that uh although we don't have 95% as a whole participating in the uh process I I would be very comfortable projecting that we do have 95% in some of our some of our subgroups that are listed on the uh the list from from park. So uh I am very happy that that's uh taking place. We will get the final numbers eventually uh and see how those scores end up and we will move ahead from there. The future testing coming up would be the ask test and also we have end

012of course testing biology and algebra. Uh so that will be taking place in a couple of days and uh we will move ahead from there. So there goes another successful school year. Uh I also wanted to acknowledge that last Friday uh on the 20th uh Maple Road was represented at the uh character education program for the state of New Jersey uh at Ryder University and I am very proud of Mr. Kan and his entire staff everyone for participating and being part of that program especially the parents that were involved as well. So I'll have uh Mr. Novak will talk about that a little bit more in detail in a few minutes. Um looking ahead uh to the end of the school year, please remember that there is no school this Friday and there is no

013school on June 3rd the following week. So please uh just a little reminder out there to everyone. Please don't be outside waiting for a school bus. So uh we want to move ahead with that. Uh academically as I said all the testing is uh few tests left and then before you know it will we begin our final exams. Westbrook. Yes. Westbrook school will be open on the 3rd uh for a half a day. So, uh that's where we are with that. But, uh looking ahead, we're looking at our exams coming up, graduation ceremonies. Please take a look at your school's websites. Uh there are various concerts and and programs going on. I just came from Makipin School where the Makipin jazz band and the high school uh jazz band and ensemble were performing an outstanding

014job. I saw Mr. Foody's daughter taking in a very nice trumpet solo. would have thought that you have a daughter who plays jazz. I'm very surprised, but it's good. That was good stuff. And uh so again, very positive things going on throughout the district and we want to maintain that and continue to grow from there as Dr. Anamone takes over on July uh 1st. I want to make sure that we're in good shape moving ahead. So that's all I have to say for this evening. Thank you. And uh you're going to need your air conditioning tomorrow, I think. So hang in there. She's education report. We got We're going to get blinded. Not going to introduce you. No, Mr. Bell. Education report. I was busy talking about my daughter. I'm sorry. Mr. Rashika mentioned some

015of our character recognition as well as uh Matthew Ventrella. I'm just going to go through them. Um I have some PowerPoint slides to to highlight some of the effective programs that we've had as well as some of the some of the schools. Mic's not on. You got it. Camera. You're good. You can hear me, Mrs. Reinhold. Thanks for pointing that out. Um at one of our board meetings a couple months ago, there we go. All right. Uh we talked about climate and culture and what's the difference. We had questions about what you know we talk about climate and culture and every school district across the land is talking about climate and culture and surveys and and that sort of thing. Um I thought it fitting to put uh a couple very nicely manicured grass fields

016up there because we do have a report from Mr. Green tonight about about ball fields. Um I'm going to try and make a a grass uh field analogy when we talk about climate and culture. um climate and what we see through all the uh character programs I'm going to present tonight. Those are the things that we can actually physically do. Those are the things that we can put in place when you're talking about a grass field. Now, I have professionals in the room, so I'm probably going to be wrong. Um you need to have good soil. You need to have a proper pH. You need to have appropriate water. You need to have an environment. You need to have a climate that is conducive to growing grass seed and and getting it uh and getting

017it established like you see in those pictures. That's the same thing in a very um basic level when we talk about climate and culture in schools. And culture is something that we don't really have a lot of control over. Climate, however, is the piece that we're talking about when we talk about our programs and our and our school character awards and all the things that we're putting in place. Those are the things that we can control. Those are the physical things that we put in place. Culture is the byproduct of putting the correct things in place. similar to having a a properly manicured uh field. This is the uh criteria for um character.org and the character education partnership um who helps decide if a district is worthy or a school or a particular program is

018worthy of being deemed a promising practice or a or a school of character. The 11 principles are what we adhere to. It's really the um the backdrop of when we look at and we implement programs, we judge the things that we're putting in place by the 11 characters. That's also how we're assessed. So after we apply for uh school of character or a promising practice, we get feedback in relation to those uh 11 characteristics. I'm not going to read them to you. Uh this will be available on our on our website. We do have a um a character link where we're going to um be able to store all of these things including the the presentation. Uh now I'm going to go through we had seven promising practices awarded to the district this year. By

019far the largest in Pa County and possibly uh northern New Jersey for the most honored district for receiving promising practices. And we just saw that when we were down in Ryder University to receive our awards. Uh that we are a district that's certainly on the map. Um again and I've said this last time when coming to talk about you know climate and culture. These are not awards that claim that anybody is perfect or that any school is perfect but it is claiming that we are putting uh structures in our climate to help build that culture and to see these things grow and and and prosper the right way. Uh first I think the first one uh we're talking about we uh Matt Ventrella mentioned three from the high school. We had our holoca holocaust course

020with interaction with survivors. I'm just going to highlight one of the one of the pieces from it. Uh culminates with a trip to interface with Holocaust survivors, liberators, and second generation speakers. Um I'm going to go back and just read the blurb. Uh one of the few things I will read at you tonight. Uh promising practices program highlights what's going well in classrooms across America and the world. The program is simple in scope and rec and recognizes many wonderful ideas from passionate teachers who are making a real difference in the lives of their students. So when we talk about promising practice, there are specific structure. It's not an overall uh it's not an overall piece for the for the whole school. It's a specific structure. Um this is the Holocaust course for uh for the

021high school. We also had our field hockey team. Uh when you think about how does a field hockey team win a character award? Well, you can see um many of the activities that that particular team was involved in. Um in October's Play for the Cure, they did the pink pumpkin ping. That's a lot of pink pumpkin painting and decorating breakfast for youth for full youth and high school programs, the pink games. They sold pumpkins and distributed pink desserts to all the fans who came and then they raised money for the for the play for the cure. I part actually a few of us participated in military day. I thought I could run with the field hockey girls and by a third lap I was dry heaving. It was it was not a not a pretty

022sight. I didn't even try. I give it a shot. I was I was out of commission for a while. Uh cross country that the really the highlight of of um of how they you know what they honored for or what they put forward for the sportsmanship with the their promising practice was the sportsmanship run for for breast cancer awareness. So individual sports teams coming together for a cause and really doing a good job with it. Uh PK and I know we've talked about it in this room. Um they have a tremendous um event uh for Veterans Day where you know my words right now certainly won't do it justice. You know if you have to see with your own eyes and and kind of feel the emotion of the room everyone in the room was

023was pretty much in tears to see kindergarteners and third graders walking with grandpa um you know to get the award and get the standing ovation and to just have an entire school community come together and and honor our veterans. Um they won a promising practice award for it. So it's it's fantastic. Um I also mentioned on there PK was also named an emerging school of character overall. So they submitted a uh school uh school application and they were honored at the state level for being emerging school of character ready to take those take those next steps. That comes back to what I mentioned earlier with those 11 principles of character. So they when you apply and you get to this level you get specific feedback about which areas or which um which principles you've done

024very well in and which principles you need to work on. And that's really the target going forward is to keep imple implementing programs to to take it to the next level. Here's some uh pictures from the event. Um when all the kids held up the flag at one time with the song was pretty, you know, pretty moving uh moving process. They had probably about 20 uh 20 30 veterans in the room. It was it was it was it was packed. Uh really feel good feelood day. Uh Makaban, Philadelphia convention. Mr. Sitro, you want to add a little? Thanks. That thanks. Uh, every year our social studies class led by Chris the Provost runs a Philadelphia convention where they reenact the uh actual Philadelphia convention. If you see up on the right there, you can see

025staff dressed in their uh in their garb. And in the bottom uh the left and across the bottom, you can see students dressed as well. They actually reenact the convention from Philadelphia. uh and we carry it through into our language arts class where they uh read a story related to it and certain teachers serve food. Uh our science classes they actually did um a lesson on the epidemics that were plaguing our country at the time as far as healthwise and medicine and uh our secretaries and Mrs. Provost are always counted on to uh to to address and play the part. Operation thank you is something that we've been running for since 2003. Rich Digos, who's a business teacher at our school, uh puts together care packages for our military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Uh

026through the help of our home room teachers and staff, we've donated over 525 care packages. Over the last 13 years, uh that get sent to our troops started years or actually in 2003 as a small venture where we were serving just our uh former students who are in the military. But now that it's grown, we've partnered with Pquanic Township High School and Sparta High School as well. And um the WMEF usually helps Mr. Digos fund the uh the postage to get our gifts there. He also runs um sugar rush which is in uh Oh, there's Mr. Dagos in the back. Uh Mr. Digos also runs our sugar rush where we um where we take all the unused and unwrapped candy from Halloween and we ship that to our troops as well. So, we are getting

027ready to send our last shipment uh very shortly to our to our brave troops serving overseas. And uh this is a program that uh completely voluntary, but the uh the kids and the staff really get behind it. Thank you. And these were a sample this was a sample letter returned from uh one of the troops who received the care package. And this was just one of many samples that the students received to see exactly how um their their care package had an impact. Uh the upper Greenwood Lake School received a promising practice for the friendship bench. This was a this is an example of of a um cultural shift and you know this is a structure that was put in place by the afterchool program. So when you when you start talking about character and

028you start building toward culture, everyone kind of gets involved. Um our afterchool program got involved. They submitted the our sack teacher, Mrs. Bao, she submitted the application. she was the one really pushing to have the the the friendship bench put in place, put the structures in place to make it successful in the school. It's not just the bench. Uh there's training and and there's um you know process for making sure that there's students always monitoring the bench and making sure if somebody gets on the bench and needs a buddy, somebody comes over and make sure that they're involved. Um and there's just some some background on how it started. Um you know, some of the students have a hard time making a friend or feeling included when they're around their peers. Uh the friendship benches

029have really been um big in and you know trying to to make all kids feel included. We have a video. The sound on it was horrendous. So let's see if we get through it without this is a um inaction friendship bench opportunity. That's my daughter on the right. Thought I threw it in there. because because Josh and um even chasing Catherine and not not the [Music] Can you go to the next slide? She really can't just summarize. they worked out a pure interaction as kindergarteners using the friendship bench as their as their setting. Um, which is really good stuff. Um, now moving on to to the schools. Um, we have, you know, we recently um, uh, brought in a new school into the into the mix, the Maple Road School. As um, as Mr. Rashika

030mentioned Maple Road was honored as a 2016 state of state school of character um to join Mackman Middle School who was a um 2015 state and national state school of character as well as the upper lake school for 2015 state school of character. Uh very exciting to have Maple Road involved in the process. They presented and we have raise your hands over there. I won't make you co and talk but if you would like to you can but um they presented at Ryder University. They were there to receive their uh banner. They also held a session. They did about an hour and a half where they had probably about 20 20 to 30 people come in and visit their workshop and and hear about all the great things that Maple Road are doing. When you

031win this uh award, you um you not only present on that day, but you are now part of the um character consortium where you are um open to working with other school districts. You become a mentoring school for other schools who are looking to to be part of the process. So when you go on the website character.org org character.org. Um, our schools are listed there and if there's schools in the area who want to pursue the the character initiatives, our schools are listed as model places to go and look and see the things that are going on. So, it's very very exciting. Um, we're just going to go into to Maple Road and honor them and let them have their little of their um their moment here at the board meeting. U, so they did

032win this year and here's a summary of some of the um the highlights that they received um or or some of the things that they put in their application that that won them the award. uh the monthly character trait recognition. That was a fantastic process that they displayed uh down at Ryder and and really um you know kind of blew the people in the room away that they were uh having monthly assemblies for students to come and be honored solely on character and a process in the building uh for identifying students following our traits, our core values. Be here, be safe, be honest, be respectful, let go and move on. Personal best. Um the kids were honored specifically for highlighting and demonstrating a specific trait from our our full values. And uh the part that

033I thought was great was not you know we love seeing kids win awards but when staff members were were also getting honored or or kids were honored were um naming staff members to to be part of this process also. I mean it was a really you know feelood event that they were able to share with with everyone down at um down at Ryder University. Um they were also able to highlight um their class buddy partnerships and um especially some of their their work in the in the special ed. As we know, Maple Road is a school that houses quite a few different um special education programs and they are um you know not just honored in this capacity, but they are truly a leader um for an inclusive setting. in that when when you look

034at their staff and you look at the things that they do, they um include all of their programs regardless of disability or special educ education classification, everyone is part of these assemblies. Everybody feels equally a part of this process. So, and that was another thing that I mean when the hands were up asking questions that that was a lot about what the Maple Road staff was getting asked about is how how are you able to accomplish this? And it was uh really, you know, a really feelood feel good event. I think I'm done, right? Any questions? Okay, it's a poor ending. I apologize. Thought I thought I had another slide there. Very antilimatic. But let's end with a round of applause for all of our real quick. Sure. Yeah. Thanks, So, just really quickly, we

035have a couple of our school safety team members in the audience, Cindy D. Antonio and Jodie Warner, who you're going to meet in a few minutes. And um and I think that uh the the staff from Makapin and the staff from Upper Green Lake could concur with me that this process is a a whole school community process. It's a whole district process. And now that we have three schools involved, um it just shows that it takes uh staff, it takes administration, it takes parents, it takes students to be to to buy in to being a school of character and and being committed to to putting programs in place uh much like Mr. uh Novak made the kind of the the lawn analogy, we all have to kind of get together and and feed the lawn

036um to to to help it grow. And it's really been a whole school community process for Maple Road as I know it's been for Mack and have been for Upper Green at Lake School. So I want to thank our staff, our parents, and our students for helping us achieve this distinction. [Applause] Before we continue, I'd like to point out as well, if you noticed, uh, Mr. Citro has a new hairstyle uh, this evening, very short cut, and that is because it's for a very good cause. Uh, the Mackin staff, a lot of the male teachers at the uh, school decided to um, shave their heads, get rid of any facial hair, and uh, on top of the head as well. for St. Baldick's uh for cancer for children for do some research and and to

037help those children. So I'm very proud of the staff at Makipin who participated. The biggest surprise for me was uh going into the concert this evening and Matt I again has Pation one of the band directors there who had his always has his hair back and quasi ponytail and a beard is completely shaved. So it was a wonderful thing. I know he donated his hair to um the locks for for cancer as well. So uh lots of good things going on in the district not only with the students but what our staff does on the outside as well. So thank you very much Mr. Citro and everybody else from who participated. I want to apologize for not calling your name out. I was bit Mr. Rashikas, but uh I apologize. Barbara, uh special reports and

038correspondents. Um Mr. Ray Reno is here from the committee to give the board presentation on the fields. Okay. Getting set up right now. Okay. While they're doing that, um the only other thing on my agenda is the minutes from April 19th and April 26 for your review ofation. Okay. You want me to get that out of the way? Sure. Of course. Like to make a motion to approve the following board of education meeting minutes. April 19th, 2016 workshop special action and executive session and April 26, 2016 regular public budget hearing meeting and the executive session. Thank you, Marilyn. Um, all in favor? I opposed. I'm in favor. Except I need to abain from the executive session of April 19th, 2016. Okay. Any opposed? I have to refuse. Okay. And you're abstaining. Okay. And I'm getting

039blinded. Um Okay. We're gonna We're all ready bars. Okay. So, we'll move on to the present ballfield presentation. Did Mr. Bailey sit down again here and then get I just want to make sure that I keep getting you up moving back and forth. Um, thank you very much for allowing me to come and do this presentation as part of the Rex advisory committee for the township of West Milford. Um, I've spoken to um a couple of board members, but more importantly, this is about what we do as a as a town and hopefully what we do in the future to maybe put together um a a joint task force to improve our fields both on the town side and on the uh on the board of education side. So, these are some of the fields

040that we're going to look look at. And and I brought a little show and tell. And really, this is about what we can do to make our town and uh school district uh better and and make people, you know, proud to promote our fields. One of the things we do as as parents is we go to a lot of different um towns throughout the year as travel soccer parents or travel baseball, lacrosse, and so forth. And I hear from so many parents about how great fields look at a lot of other towns and how people come to our town and they talk about the fact that they're afraid of, you know, what this field looks like and because they've heard from other people throughout the years about our fields and I think they need to

041be improved. So, uh, we want, uh, an environment that's inviting to our our children and parents and obviously we want to create value because this is what helps people, uh, really move to our town. We have a great education program here. We need to continue that with great recreation programs. So, if we look at uh, fields, Hillrest is really maintained by the township, but it is a board of education field. Uh, Little League does an awful lot um, and peewee football. So again, we're lucky to have Dominic who, you know, as as I heard earlier, does this for a living, so he understands what it what is needed to take care of our fields. And you can see just some of the things that that that might need to be done there. But, uh, it's

042really a nice field. When we look at some of our elementary schools, uh, Apua Field when when I was young here at at in West Milford, this was actually one of our premier fields. I mean, we played little league baseball on this field six days a week. And when you look at the field now, it does need a lot of work. It needs new back stops. It needs I mean, you can see the infield in the top right. You know, I'm hoping that uh we can work together from a town perspective and a board perspective on this. And we'll see some of what we've already done to work together um later on. So again, what what the infields look like. Um large rocks and and gravel and uh you know, I don't know what it's

043like when they go up there to uh to play for um school. They they may not may not go up there. Um when you look at Maple Road, again, this field actually used to be used by our our JV um baseball team. We don't use this field anymore um for for junior varsity baseball, but it's a field that I think that uh the children of Marshall Hill really could get some great use out of. Um I'm sorry, Maple Road. I talk about Marshall Hill because they probably have the most slides on the Marshall Hill field. Again, a great field not just for um Marshall Hill Elementary, but other schools that can use this field because as you may not know, this field has lights. So, uh, you know, this is a field that could be

044used for nighttime activities for for, uh, the the school district and, uh, for the for the town. Um, again, you see some of the things here. Now, Marshall Hill is a field that, um, Mr. Mr. Foody was nice enough to um come to the town council meeting um about a month or so ago, a little bit more than a month ago, and and we talked about Marshall Hillfield specifically because he saw those slides on the top and that's what the outfield fence used to look like. And I don't even know that it was two weeks later um and a new outfield fence was installed. And if you look down on those lower pictures, you can see the outfield fence uh what it looks like now. And they're they're just going to clean up some of

045those things there. So, that is a great start to um this collaboration between the township and the board of education. Um there are some, you know, the side fencing and things that need to be uh replaced too because they're they're really rusted. They probably haven't been replaced in 40 or or maybe 40 years or longer. Uh but I I do think that this is a great start to uh getting this field uh fixed up. Paradise null. It's actually you can't see the lower picture, bad lighting. Um but the the the top field of Paradise No actually is a very uh very nice field. Uh the bottom field's a little little minor work but um again a good field and it and it's a school that has a a great uh playground. Um Mlin Middle School.

046So if you go up and you look at Digos Field which is in front of the the turf field uh you can see uh the water there. So again this is a field that typically JV baseball um would use. So when varsity baseball's played on Kilgal and JV would typically play up here and you know these are you probably some grading issue and and I know Dominic has uh spoken uh to some folks about simple things that we can do to to make this field look really nice again. Um this is a perfect idea of what collaboration is all about. And you look at that field from that that sky view and I don't think it gets any better. I mean, that's that's really uh the pride of of our town from a recreation and

047sports uh perspective. Um I think that, you know, hopefully in the future we continue to improve that field. Maybe we do some things to to put new bleachers and I'm fairly certain that those bleachers were there long before I was uh born and and I'm pushing 50. So, uh that'd be nice to see the work continue on that field. Um Bob Henryfield. Now, this is right next to um the softball field where varsity softballs played. I I just left it up there. Little league maintains that field, but I left it out there because they they re redid that field a couple years ago. And it's actually a great place for some of the younger kids to go play when when a varsity softball game happens to be going on. So, you know, parents want to

048watch the game, kids can go play on this field and it's a nice place uh for them to to run around. Um when you look at u this field, so this is called Mson Field, but really it's it's our premier softball field. This is where our girls varsity softball team plays. And for those of you that may not know, they're playing tomorrow. I think they got rained out today, but they're playing tomorrow in the state sectional game. Uh they win tomorrow. They go to the semi-finals. And our girls softball team probably for 30 years has really been a premier softball team. they they should be playing on a premier softball field and and I'm hoping that through some collaboration because the town uses this too. Um little league uses this. I'm hoping through some of

049that we can share costs and we can make this field the premier field again. Um this is the outside of the field, but when you look at um Westbrook is where our JV softball team plays. So again, we're talking about girls that are going to progress to um uh the varsity level. This is the field that we bring um other schools. We bring travel baseball teams um in in the spring, I I'm sorry, in the fall. Sometimes travel soccer will will play here. And you look at uh netting the field. Um really again, if we spend some um minor dollars, we could make this a great field again. Um you see what uh this field looks like today. I I can promise you, you go back 20 years, the field didn't look like this. And

050and I know there's a balance when we talk about budget. And we want to make sure we're providing the best education, but we also want to provide the best recreation we can. Uh this is uh Kilgen. Now again, um our boys, they lost in the state sectionals, but um our boys varsity baseball team, they were in the state sections. They also made it to the finals of the uh county baseball tournament. only fourth time ever that we made it to the finals of the of the county uh baseball tournament and we played at uh PCTI and PCTI's got a beautiful field. Now again, you know, I I understand what that complex is and it's it's a premier complex for P County, but we want to make this a premier complex for other school for our

051school, uh for our boys varsity baseball team, our JV baseball team, little league teams, t uh travel teams when they come. We want this to be the pride of West Milford when these other towns come to the field. And again, minor work that we have to do. We also have a great field hockey team that plays in the fall that uses the outfield of uh Kill Gallon. So, when you look at this field, um u I'm sorry. When you look at this field, there there's some uh I think minor things that that need to be done. We actually uh had some folks come in and do some drainage stuff last year. So, we are working on this and we're working to improve it and I want the collaboration to continue. Um, I just left this

052up. So, again, this is a great play area. When the baseball team is playing, uh, you know, kids come with parents to watch their older brothers and sisters. And let's face it, they don't come to watch their older brothers and sisters. They use the great playground at Westbrook and they come over here and they play on this on this ball field, which is a Ober field. I'll go through this quickly, but there these are a lot of the town owned fields and in particular I'll get to to one um as we look at what the town is doing. We have a completely new maintenance program taking place and um Tim Roman has uh put together a list of different projects that are going through the the town. Um we have grant money that we're using

053to fix up different things uh within the with the town fields. Uh when you look at Echo Lake, there are some things we have to do here, but we did also install brand new dugouts. Um we've installed new fencing around the field, and now the next step is to look at uh replacing um the fencing of the parking lot and hopefully repaving the parking lot. Uh a great benefit to the town is our uh I'm sorry, is Mount Laurel Park. We look at Noenzo Pond. Now, um this is a field that's going to be completely refurbished over the summer. And the goal of uh the parks and recck department is to get that done and finished before um the fall soccer season for uh the board education or for the the um the high school

054soccer program because high school soccer does use this. Typically, it's usually the freshman uh teams uh that'll play on here. So, keep in mind that this is a a town field that's used by um the board of education and and we have a plan to completely refurbish the Zenzo Palm Park. For those of you that don't may not know, it's right across the street from uh Westbrook School. Sand Cap is owned by um State County, but our town takes care of this. Uh and you see that, you know, there are some work that has to be done, and this is on our list of things to do over the summer also. And then um the teen center uh lots of things going on at the teen center in particular uh getting ready to install an

055elevator there and that's uh that's there for our students. So um when when I think about what we need to do, we need collaboration and I brought this up probably a month and a half ago at town council meeting and I know that Tim Roins talks to Barbara uh a lot and I know he talks to uh Mr. Trinosta, the athletic director. Uh, and those are great conversations, but I feel like we need to have some uh um more defined conversations between the board of education liaison and the town council liaison and Tim Wagner is our town council liaison who is here today. So, you know, our proposition question is, will you commit to setting scheduled meeting with town council members to benefit and strengthen our town? Um and again, if we just have phone

056conversations and we don't set those meetings, they'll never happen. Um we need to set goals and we need to stick to those goals. And the first goal is let's start some dialogue by sitting together. So I want to thank everybody here uh and in particular I want to thank Tim uh who's actually not feeling well but um he's a big part of uh what we're doing from a town perspective and I know that uh Mr. Trinosta, the athletic director, Barbara, you guys are a big part of what we're doing to collaborate. I want that collaboration to continue from um a board of education and a town council uh perspective. So, thank you guys for listening. I really appreciate it. [Applause] Wait a minute. Um, to me it might make some sense to develop some kind

057of single priority list. We're not working on this, you're working on that. As we have some meetings, let's work on the things that we think are going to have the most impact for the town. And I'm sure that's just, as you said, having those communications, but that might be one of the goals that we have there. I'm a little concerned as I sort of looked into this. Apparently, we know we've had problems with these fields for decades and it's only coming at least to my attention now um I can't help but wonder how that happened and I sure hope it doesn't happen again that that we need to try to fix these things for the good of everybody but not just push it all on the back burner after that and third uh we know

058that county probably spends less than a quarter of the money we give them back in Melford and one of the areas that I think maybe they ought to take some responsibility for is their field and I don't know how we do that Tim but we're not getting our money's worth out of Paya County now and then I think we ought to make some noise out about it. So I know that um with regard to say county I know Tim is working on that. I I I will say to to um you know your your first point about the fields and you know it being decades. I just think that um it's a matter of us looking closer and having more and more folks saying you know we we want recreation facilities to to really be

059up to par with other towns because at the end of the day that's what helps us um create that environment we want for all folks in West Milford. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Thank you. Any more questions? Okay. Legal report, Joe. We'll discuss any. Okay. Um, president's report. Mr. Rashika took care of that. I want to congratulate our uh scoop rep, Mr. Ventrella, but that's already been So I have uh have nothing further to report. Um we'll move on to petitions and requests. Petitioners who have 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-inut period transpires. Petitioners speaking during petitions and requests are

060asked to address topics listed in the agenda. All speakers are asked Thank you. All speakers are asked to give their full name, spell or last name and provide their address. Speakers may not use the names of students during petitions and requests. I see that we have one person Maryanne Mrs. Okay. She go we're together. Okay. I'm Joanie Warner. Um I am the speech language specialist with the developmental preschool at Maple Road. Maryanne Feroli, the speech language specialist at Westbrook School. Okay. The New Jersey legislature has recognized the importance of skillful and competent communication. Good communication skills are of paramount importance to children in the learning environment. We are here tonight to rep uh to present a resolution written by New Jersey Senate President Steven Sweeney in recognition of May 2016 as better hearing and speech

061month. Additionally, we have put together some information for you that we hope will illuminate our roles in helping to educate West Milford students. Part of this resolution recognizes the New Jersey Speech Language Hearing Association and its annual convention. Over the years, members of West Milford's speech department have been instrumental in the planning and presentation of the convention as the premier opportunity for professional development for speech and hearing professionals here in the state of New Jersey. I'm going to read the resolution into the record. The resolution was written by Senate President Steven Sweeney. Whereas the New Jersey Senate is pleased to join the New Jersey Speech Language Hearing Association in recognizing and observing May 2016 as better speech and hearing month in this state. And whereas better hearing and speech month is an appropriate time to

062acknowledge the importance and necessity of speech language and hearing to all personal, family, and social relationships, as well as to become aware of the thousands of individuals in New Jersey who suffer from communication disorders. And whereas the strength of our communities and the possibility of interacting with others is dependent upon the remediation and growth of competence in the use of the elements of verbal communication. And whereas speech and hearing professionals in this state are especially commended for their efforts to assist and aid the more than 500,000 New Jersey residents who suffer from a communication disorder in becoming effective and empowered members of society. And whereas the New Jersey Speech Language Hearing Association has continued to uphold its praiseworthy mission of serving aiologists, speech language pathologists, and speech language and hearing scientists through providing needed resources,

063information programs, and services to meet members needs. and that the association also works tirelessly to promote public awareness and advocate for professional standards, legislation, and regulation necessary to deliver the highest quality of care to the individuals they serve. And whereas it is both proper and fitting for the members of this house to pause in their deliberations to recognize May 2016 as better hearing and speech month and to commend the New Jersey Speech Language Hearing Association for its outstanding efforts in in benefit of citizens afflicted with these disorders. And whereas the New Jersey Speech Language and Hearing Association will hold its annual convention navigating the future at Ocean Place Resort and Spy in Long Branch from April 14th to 15, 2016. Now therefore, be it resolved by the Senate of the State of New Jersey that

064this House hereby acknowledges May 2016 as Better Hearing and Speech Month, pays tribute to the New Jersey Speech, Language, and Hearing Association for its meritorious record of service and commitment, and urges all New Jerseyians to participate fittingly in this significant observance. And be it further resolved that a duly author a authenticated copy of this resolution be signed by the president and attested to by the secretary. Signed by Stephen M. Sweeney and attested to by Jennifer A. Mcuade the secretary. Thank you for your time. Thank you for making us aware of that. Most importantly, I want to thank you for your contribution in working with our students in the district. So, thank you very much. I love what I do as we all do. And also just to also note on that, I am very proud

065of several of the speech and language pathologists in this in the town in in our in our community who have served in leadership roles at the state level. So I I commend you guys for that. Anybody else like to speak? Yes. Hello. Uh my name is Michael Gillan. G I L Len, resident of 315 Woolly Road. And I'm here tonight um as a concern to the hiring process with the board of education. For the past 10 years, um I've been employed um I've been a substitute custodian. I've worked on long-term assignments at Paradise Null and uh Upper Greenwood Lake. I've worked for the maintenance department and I've also worked for the transportation department. Um, in those 10 years, I have applied many times for a position with the board of ed. Uh, the last interview

066that I received, um, was six years ago with Mr. Novak at UGL. And, um, every time I've applied, I've had, uh, letters of recommendation from teachers, principles, fellow co-workers on the excellent work that I perform. Um, and the reason why I'm I'm bringing this up tonight is there is a position that's open at the middle school. Um, I sent a letter in, you know, stating, you know, that I'm interested in the position and, um, I received no no word back. So, today I went over to the board office and, uh, personally brought over a letter of interest, um, with a letter of recommendation. Um, I received, you know, um, different mixed feelings when I was there. Um, one person said, "I'll hand the letter over." Uh, one person said that the interviews were over. Um,

067I still, you know, I'm confused on this. As the largest, uh, employer in West Melford, um, I feel that there is a slight breakdown when it when it comes to the hiring process. Um, so over the years with all the good recommendations I have, my question is is um, could there be some type of um, could somebody look into this? um why myself and maybe others are not getting a fair shot at an interview process when some of us may have excellent reviews. So, you know, I'd just like to see if I can get something back as far as why nothing's being done and why I may be getting skipped over and possibly other people. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Hi, my name is uh Charlie Mazy, transportation supervisor. I was informed that

068there's going to be discussion concerning my employment tonight. Just want to notify the board that I am here. I will be here throughout executive session if there's any questions that you might want to ask or anything that needs to be clarified. Thank you, Mr. Conlin. Good evening, Mr. President, members of the administration and the board. Matthew Conlin, CO N L 33 Orleans Lane, West Milford. Just here tonight among my other litany of titles as a member of the parks and rec committee. But speaking as a resident, I just wanted to uh you know come here as a show of support for Mr. Gino in the presentation um and express my appreciation for the preliminary efforts that are showing we're making a good faith effort among both the council and the board to start some of

069these repairs. Um to Mr. Drew's point earlier, you're right, there needs to be a plan in place and you can see from the recreation department's end of things that a comprehensive uh multi-stage maintenance plan has been put in. Um the question always comes down to funding. as a former trustee on this board. I know that's always, you know, it's always the challenge. So, um, we're looking forward to seeing a lot of collaboration between the board and the council, Mr. Greeno said it best. If the meetings don't happen in person, they won't happen at all. So, I hope that we can get some activity on both ends. And we don't have a lot in West Milford in terms of of major business that's drawing in. But we have fields. We have kids. And I'm close enough

070to that demographic to appreciate what it was like to stand on the sidelines at, you know, the football field and stand out in the bright field at Hillrest and and and participate in some of our wreck programs. So, I'm hoping that we can we can get the these fields up to par with where they should be, especially with some of our um our premier programs such as our, you know, varsity uh high school teams that have had some great accomplishments lately. So, that's all I have to say. Good to see everyone. Have a good night. Bye-bye. Thank you, Matt. Anybody else like to speak? Seeing none, I'd like to close petitions and request. Thank you, Debbie and Marilyn. All in favor? Opposed? I need uh Steve or make a motion to adopt the agenda as

071presented. I move to adopt the agenda as presented. Second. Uh discussion. We have some hearing counties and we have some adjustments. Yeah. Can I go over the adjustments with you? Um follow carefully if on page uh number seven. Uh you have a blue sheet that replaces uh both numbers 28 and 29. on that page. Okay. Also on number 25 on page seven, uh the next to last sentence it says uh exceed 15 hours. That should read exceed 17 hours there. Um on page 25 Sorry, page 20. Sorry, page 27. We're going to pull number three on that page. So once again, on page 27, pull number three. And on page 28, uh, I'd just like to add on number 10, an additional head 2016 H-13 unsubstantiated. And of course, you have the forward not two

072hand carries, number 40 and 41 for personnel. That's a blue sheet. And hand carry number two, uh, number 15, budget finance. transportation operations and so on which is number 46. Let's modify the motion. I I would like to um pull for a separate vote number 20 under personnel and and have that vote after um executive session. Yes. Sorry. Page 22 number 37 and finance. I'd like to have that pulled and voted on after the decision as well. 22 page 22. 22 item 37. Okay, sounds good. Separated and separate and vote on after executive session. Number 37. Anything else? Okay, we we've got the motion um by Steve and seconded by Debbie with all the corrections and changes up one. number one after executive session separated out and voted on after executive session. Okay. Anything else?

073No, we're good. all right. So, with the changes, additions, exclusions till after uh executive session. Uh all in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Mrs. O'Brien, you're you're up. You kids are killing me today. All right. Um, I'd like to ask Councils because I've never had a change in the middle of my list. Should I just do just do one through 19 and whatever. Do you want me to do the hand carry separate then from the rest or how the hand because Mr. Rashik already indicated where the hand carries go? So we don't have to do Oh, okay. This one separately and the other ones are on the end. So if you want to do the 40 and 41 separately, you can. There's no need to, but you can do that. Um 27 28 and 29

074are just replaced right in. So we don't have to do that separately. All right. Thank you. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to car to uh approve items 1 through 19, through 39. 4041 will be separate. That's it. Okay. Any discussion? No. Roll call, please. Parker. Mr. Yubert. Yes. Mr. Robins. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Schultz. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. Like to move items 40 41 and carry items under personnel and student affairs. Second. Any discussion? Mr. Bailey. Number 40. I'll be voting yes for as we appoint Mr. Citro, principal of the Mcin School. Not to embarrass you publicly, but uh exactly what the West Milford process is all about in my mind. Uh you have big shoes to fill, but I expect nothing

075but the best from you from the Makipin team. It'll be a seamless transition just like it was from the bike rider to Barry to now Sitra. You're part of the Makin family. You're part of the West Milford family and you are a walking talking example of everything that's right about West Milford and I don't care. I am a grandstander and I'm good at it and I know good when I see it. So congratulations whatever you need support Mr. Bailey can help you. you know my number. [Applause] Okay. Okay. Um I also would like to congratulate Mr. Sutro. Um I'm thrilled silly that you'll be following in Mary's footsteps. So we will terribly miss Mary. Mary we'll be friends soon. The Ed Foundation, right? Got it. Uh but on a on the other note, um I

076thought we voted on item 41 earlier in a a meeting earlier this either this month or last month. Yes. Yes, we did. Uh with the June 30th date, however, um due to a new job that he was um he's now gotten work at the union, um he had to leave earlier. Okay. All right. I just There you go. I I would just like to make a statement that my recommendation for Mr. Citro uh is based on you know one of the buzzwords we hear in education and even when we do evaluations is sustainability. Uh there's an excellent program going on at Makipin School that we're all very proud of uh under the direction of the current principal Miss Reinhold and we know that Mr. Citro has worked very very closely with Miss Reinhold and really

077has worked as a team over the past five or six years in that role. um and in the interview process really came uh to light all that he knows about the school and the programs and also I did question his vision and moving forward what perhaps we would like to add to that and very good answers. So it is with pleasure that I recommend Mrs. Citro for this position and with extreme confidence and uh support. Thank you. You trying to make it funny with the word the buzz word. He cuts his head. I'm trying to grow. Any further discussion? Any and I wish Mr. Citro well as well. I know he'll do that. I've not heard anything but good things about Mr. Citro is fantastic. Um number 40 had a quick point of order question

078um to be determined. I assume we have another something future. Yes, that would be it's based on the uh negotiated contract which we're still working on. Okay, no other discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mrs. O'Brien, absolutely. Mr. Schultz, yes. Mr. Huber, yes. Mr. Robbins? Yes. Mr. Deber? Yes. Mr. FY? Yes, that concludes personnel until we meet after executive session. [Applause] Uh, Mr. Drew, budget finance, please. It looks like what we're doing is two through 36. 2 through 36. Okay. come back for one and 37. Yep. Um any discussion what what happened to the rest? What happened to 37? Did we pull anything else? No. No, I think he just stopped 36. 37. I didn't get the cliff notes. 38. Thank you, sir. Um, I see uh we have several transportation

079contracts. Um, we're over 33, [Music] 34, and I believe 35. Um, are these the only kids that we sent to these schools? These are these are parental contracts where the parents are actually. Yes. So, but these are the only kids that we my question was are these the only kids that go to this school? You know, we have the Chambers Park Lake and yes, yes, no. Yeah. Um, two of the schools, I think it's item 33 and item 34, gas is the only students that attend, but I believe, and again, this is off the top of my head, but I believe number 35, the Children's Institute, I believe we have another student there. Okay. Um, thank you. Any other discussion? Seeing none, local police. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. De, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Yes.

080Mr. Yes. M O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Robbins. Yes. Mr. Schulz. Yes. I would like to move items 38, 39, 40, 41. 42. Okay. Second 38 through 41. Correct. Okay. Discussion. Anybody? Um Barbara, I I have a question on 38 the purchase order contracts and this is through at data services. Are these numbers the these up to the right as a for instance classroom supplies 48,593 are those the totals for that particular purchase order for all the schools or is that what was came came up through data services? This is what comes up. We do preliminary ordering so that there's a bulk ordering process that goes on in April and May and these are the totals for that orders that have been processed up to this point which are next year next year. Okay. There'll be more

081um purchase orders throughout the school year as items are needed, but these are the ones that are in my office at this time. Okay. And are um bid threshold is 42,000 40,000. Now this is through through at data services. Uh 48,000 is obviously over the the bid threshold of 40, but we're okay. We don't without having to go out to bid services that for us bid that for us. Okay. So we're okay. I just wanted to clarify that. That's right. It's because it's an aggregate number. So throughout the school year, as things get added, so they might purchase from the same supplier, you know, six months from now when they might purchase $4,000 worth of stuff, but it's part of the bid threshold or the bid process data. So we don't have to worry about

082creating our own documents. All right. So this is this would be the initial purchase order let's say classroom supplies and then there would be another purchase order later on piggy back on top usually how much money they're allotted for the classroom and these are the initial class things are needed throughout the course of the school year for some addition All right, Debbie, I just like to make a comment about item 41 under budget and finance. Um, speaking about school of characters and and um I I a lot of times I think teachers get and people who work in education get a bad rap. Um I don't know the circumstance nor will I delve into it but I think it's very honorable that um those who work in the educational field help those who are sick

083by giving up their sick time to help this person get through the illness he or she is going through. And um I really I it's very heartening to see that um people are willing to do that to help each other out. And I I want to thank the West Milford educational community for their support of their colleagues. And I want to thank Mrs. O'Brien because she probably echoes she does echo all of our sentiments when it comes to that. It's an honorable thing to do. Anything else? Okay. Roll, please. Barber. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Yes, Mr. Yes. M. Yes. Mr. Robbins. Yes. Mr. Schultz. Yes. Uh item 42. I believe Mr. Seconde number 42. Correct. Okay. Uh discussion There was um one item on the bill list that I

084had a a concern about when I spoke to uh Mrs. Francisco yesterday. Um, and I'll I don't know if I can, but we're we're paying a consultant to do some work down in the transportation garage, and I would like to that to be further discussed in budget finance uh committee. Um, so I'd like to put that on for our agenda for next committee meeting. No, we're well that we got we got to pay the bill but for future. Um and that's the Marrison I believe it's pronounced. Any other discussion on any of the bills? No. Roll call, please. M O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Robbins. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Huber. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. De. I'm also going to I'm sorry. What? I'm standing. Mr. Foody. No, does pass. Mr. Drew 43. Um,

085like to move 43, 44, 45 is for a separate vote. Real. All right. So, 43 and I second it. discussion references suggestions against the district wondering what they are. We budget money for situations [Music] transferred money out of it. So we transferred money out. We didn't use that. We transferred money in. Well, we had we had this year we had two situations. One was a tuition situation for special education and the money came out of there. And most recently we had an employment um situation that was resolved. The board approved the um the agreement that was um negotiated with the attorneys and that money now had to be paid. Mr. Any other discussion? Okay. Roll call, please. Mr. Ryan. Yes. Mr. Bailey. He just stepped down. Mr. Robbins. Yes. Mrs. Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Yuber.

086Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. No. Mr. Troop. 44 and 45. Like to move items number 44 and 45. Second. Discussion. Seeing none, roll call, please. Roll 12 445. Mr. Bailey. Mr. Drew. Yes. Miss O'Brien. Yes. Mrs. Schulz. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Robbins. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Yes. Okay, since Mrs. Dwire is in here, Marilyn, would you like to carry Oh, yep. You're right. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. Thank you. Second. Uh discussion. Um, I didn't get a chance, Barbara, to look at this the surplus list. What items are these? They are um items that went out to the vans that were located in the back of the building for a length of time. minivans, the electric van or something, I think. Right. I believe some SUVs being used for

087transportation. Okay. They were advertised a while ago and it was just Okay. It was just those vehicles. It was my computer. Oh, here they are. Yeah. There were um a 1998 Ford van, a 2002 Winstar, two 2005 Dodge Caravans, um a tire machine, a mower pan, and a Snap-On wheel balance. What was the winning bid for bids? For the 1998 Ford, it was $126. It's basically for parts 16. The two caravans, one was 112, one was 116. The tire machine was 56. The lower was 25. And the wheel balancer was $5. worth more scrap. Okay. All right. Any other discussion? What can you say after this? That's all right. Mr. Yes, Mr. Yes, Mr. Yes, at least we didn't pay somebody to take it away. But the answer is yes. Mr. Wallace, yes. Mr. Schulz,

088yes. I stole your line. I know. I know. I'm bad. Under education, I'd like to move items 1 through two and 4 through eight. Second. Thank you, Marilyn. Any any discussion? What's that for? It's uh basically for legal training for our coaching staff. Um you know, it's described as hot topics, things that are coming up. There's a lot of uh a lot of litigation out there now for for coaches with the oversight of their program. So this is a good refresher course to get them all on the same page so that we, you know, can avoid any, you know, predictable situations. Mrs. O'Brien, um, we're moving one one and two, four through eight. What about nine? Oh, okay. I'm going to stay quiet though. Any other discussion? No. Roll call, please. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr.

089D. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. Mr. Yuber. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mrs. Mr. Robins. Yes. Mr. Schultz. Yes, Marilyn, before you move on, I'd like to make a motion to extend uh the meeting for executive session until say 9:30. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. Sorry. Move on. Thank you. Um under education, I'd like to move item nine. I'm gonna second it because I'm being very nice right now. Any discussion? Seeing none. Roll, please. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Robins, yes. Mr. Schultz, yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes. Mr. Hubert, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. De, yes. Mr. Uh yes, item 10 will take place after executive session. Thank you. Um Mr. De policy like to make a motion like to make a motion to move items one and two. Second discussion. Seeing none, roll

090call, please. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Miss O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Uber. Yes. Mr. Robins. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Yes. Under negotiations. Um, I make a motion to move item number one. Second as that heat there. Um any any discussion? Seeing none. Roll call, please. Barbara. Mr. D. Yes. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Miss O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Huber. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Mr. Robins. Yes. Mr. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to move item number two. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Barber. Mr. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Hubert. Yes. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Robins. Yes, Mr. Yes. Okay. Special committees and liaison reports. Um, Mr. Robbins, Parks and Recreation. Uh, nothing nothing to report. Uh, you know, to add to that. Um, Mr. Bailey, safety. Um

091this is Schultz, superintendent's round table. Okay. There was discussion about um scheduling conflicts with specials and elementary students and the real program. Uh elementary principles and sixth grade teachers will make every effort to have students available for the real program when the officer is there to teach it. um stressed that the importance of the real program is important to all students and should be available to all students to participate in order for it to be effective. Won't be asked about CPR training uh for example with the cafe cafeteria aids. There'll be a followup on that discussion in May, but it was mentioned by Mr. Rashika that the bus drivers have been trained with Epipens this year and CPR and AED training has been done with uh at some of the teachers workshops. There was a

092question asked about EpiPens being made readily available if the nurse is unavailable and they talked about discussing backup plans if that were the case. So that will be followed up in May as well which is this week. um medical emergency kits being made available on every wing in the school buildings was a question that was asked as a preventative measure and that Mr. Rashika explained was a a budget item and not sure if the budget would allow for that. So I'm sure further discussion will take place on that. Okay. Um then the elementary schools uh discussed attention that was needed or repairs needed, spring cleanup, playground equipment, some of the fences, and discussed the communication between the head custodian and the district office and the process on how things, you know, should be notified if

093there's something that's broken or needs replacement or repairs. Um but it was noted that there are many volunteers within the PTAs, PTO's, PTSOs, garden clubs, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, and that's very much appreciated. Uh discussion took place regarding channel 78 and live stream. Uh that brought was brought on by the cable and then it was asked about whether or not something like the district arts festival could have been a live stream. Um Mr. Rashika spoke about the possibility of filming those things for future events because we do have somebody new that's doing the filming for the board meeting meetings. Uh there's going to be follow-ups on kindergarten enrollment, safety issues regarding the high school walkway request, expanding the senior parking lot area so that the walkway is on the inside of the fence by the

094Senzopon Road there rather than on the outside. And that's a discussion that has been taking place, but it's also a town road. So, Mr. Rashika has gotten the town involved with that discussion. And then also um talking about fiberboard plates rather than styrofoam plates and that would be an additional cost of 10 cents per plated meal. So, that's something that um people want to see happen. Of course, it's going to be an additional cost, but we'll have uh more updates in May. Okay. On those items, thank you very much. You're welcome. Um I guess you follow up with P County School Boards Association. There was a meeting last night. I'm not sure. And I didn't get to make it either. We all got invited. New Jersey School Boards Association. Um they would they asked for

095representatives to go to PCTI in Wayne to see um how beautiful the school is and what they're doing to u make enhancements there. And New Jersey school boards wanted one representative or as many as could go to the event last night because they had a tour. And uh Ray Penny sent us all emails. I had hoped to make it, but I was unable to do so. I don't know if anybody else did. No, unfortunately. No. I'll have to ask him for a uh a little a little email report on on what occurred because I I would have liked to have attended that meeting. I would have also. I'm trying to find his email. I can follow up that I did receive an email today uh that was put together by a couple of uh business

096administrators in the county uh looking at the cost to districts and and so on and it's very uh very detailed report with multiple u attachments. Uh I'm going to review that along with Miss Francisco and then forward that out to the board so you're aware of what those numbers are. Okay. I'm glad to share that with you. So I just got that today. Um what we were sent was uh the purpose of the meeting. The discussion was going to focus on the proposed expansion of PCTI as well as its mission and practice. Uh P County School Boards Association believes one of its functions is to bring as much information as it can to member districts as it can help to better inform the membership. Um, in this case, New Jersey school boards has worked with

097PCTI to host a meeting at their facility to discuss the school's program and proposal specifically for school board members. So, thank you, Mr. Rashik. We'll appreciate getting that additional information. That was also sent by Tafari, who is the president association. Thank you. Um, I have New Jersey School Boards Association, and I'm going to address that in in old business. Um, Mr. Mr. Drew, legislative. Uh, I have nothing to report there. Okay. We're supposed to have a meeting with technology oversight next week. So, I think we kind of need to wait for that. Okay. Education foundation. Mrs. O'Brien. Our meeting is this coming Thursday at the high school, 7 o'clock. Uh, we are working on our big fundraiser for September, the color run. Um, I'm hoping that I'll have some sort of presentation, maybe a nice

098little PowerPoint. I'm technology. Okay. So, if not, I could I could do the old um, you know, poster boards, but uh, that's we're working on that. We and we have a a web um Facebook page and we have um u we've have I think about 70 runners right now for the event. So we're off to a good start. Okay. Uh Mr. De, we're we're playing meeting tag with the the township council. Um so we don't have anything to report on that. We have to we have to get that together. Um, okay. Um, old business. Anybody have I would just like to share that I was uh anticipating receiving some information uh from Mr. Rosselli's office in regards to um the student grievance uh policy. Uh but we will we will get that my hope is

099that we can get that policy u on for the next agenda. I'd like to see that uh in place before I leave here. So I will speak to Mr. Roselli uh to get some more guidance. That was actually based off of uh so if you're not aware of it uh during our communication with the uh with Kate who was here last time, she recommended that there be some some piece of it that needed to be updated. So thank you. Um I have I have two things. Um, we have a softball game coming up July 4th. I mean June 4th, excuse me, about 3 p.m. at the Macken Field. Um, if anybody can't make it, if they could let me know um by graduation, you're at a graduation. Okay. So, uh, I'll the the invitation will

100go out to Mr. Citro, Mr. fans if you guys want to play against the town council. Uh we we'd welcome we'd welcome that. Um yeah, and we got we got bag pipes. We got bag pipes. So, um I actually that brings me up a third thing I wanted to bring up. So, um if you guys if you guys are willing, I'll send you an email and and remind you, tell you all the incidentals if you can make it, that'd be great. Um, and with regards to New Jersey school boards, um, about two and a half, maybe three months ago, I sent our policy manual down to New Jersey school boards and and there were some critical policy that we had that were missing. Um, and in the process of my talking with their representative, um,

101it would cost the district $9,000 to have them rewrite our policy manual. Um, and to maintain it, it would cost us nothing. were paying approximately $2500, $24.55 to Strauss Esme to maintain that manual and they weren't maintaining it as well as as they could have. Um they admitted that they made a few mistakes um which was I I appreciate that. But um I would like to see us move on and have New Jersey school boards do our policy manual and as part of our dues have that policy manual maintained free of charge instead of us paying for it. So we might pay a little bit now over the next two years. They they said they would be willing to do the payments over two year a two-year period. Um, and that would be $4,500 a

102year and then nothing after that to maintain that manual as part of our dues. Um, I think that that's being fiscally responsible um, with the money that's been given to us by the taxpayers of this town and and I would hope that uh, the rest of the board would agree with that. So, what I would do is I'd like to make a motion right now that we have New Jersey school boards um redo our policy manual um and move on that as soon as possible. Second. Okay. Just before we before we do that, Barbara, I'm not sure if we have a contract with stress estimate. We might want to look at that to see if there's a termination clause or anything in there. We do have a contract with Joney, but I'm very concerned about

103the fact that we have a new superintendent coming in July 1, and I don't know whether he was part of this conversation or not. So, I'm not sure this is certainly not being recommended by the administration and I think that it's only fair that Dr. have a chance to discuss this with Mr. Well, then if uh we Mr. Drew, you seconded that motion. Um do we want to have some discussion on this? Does anybody want to chime in on what uh what Barber said? Why don't we stay after we can't invite Mr. in popular in session until July. Mr. Deer, the the policy has to be done whether it's done by New Jersey school board or the people were under contract to do it now. So that's that's a fact. Um it looks like we

104will save some money in the long run and New Jersey school boards is the enforce um a lot of these policies and I don't see I don't know but I don't see an issue with having a vote on this and discussing whether they want to switch gears and go to New Jersey. Okay. as part of the discussion. I know that the the SBA review of our policy a number of things you probably remember more accurately than I do. Just to start it off though, I know there were at least three critical policies that we don't have. There were 15 critical policies missing, three mandatory and mons. Uh yes, this is O'Brien. Um is there a time is is this something we have to do like right now? Like is there something the contract ends June

10530th? I would recommend that the policy committee discuss this in June. I just want to say two things. First of all, I would like to review the contract with stress estimate to see if we're doing this right now, we'd have to cancel that contract. And I don't know if there's any termination penalties in there. and I don't have it in front of me and I haven't looked at it. So that's something to keep in mind. The other thing I will say though is there was a comment about inviting Dr. Anon and he's here tonight. If he's willing, we can invite him into executive session to talk about this discussion provided it falls under one of the reasons to go to executive session which hearing the discussion I would say is attorney client privilege plus contract

106negotiations. So if he's willing to we could invite him in for that reason. If he's not that's okay, too. But I just want to make that comment. Would you would you like to Okay. Thank you, Dr. Marilyn. I was going to say, um, we just had New Jersey school board to review our policy book. Yes. So, we're pretty much up to par with the items that were pointed out that needed to be done, student, grievance, and a few other things. Um, I don't see why we have to vote on it tonight. The contract doesn't end with stress estimate till the end of June. Why can't we put it off? Can we spend how much on dues to New Jersey school boards? Another almost 25 26,000 another $9,000 and then free afterwards. Whereas we're paying $2,500

107free afterwards until as long as we keep our policy manual with them. their review and upkeep of our policy manual would be part of our news where we wouldn't pay for it. Again, we're paying 25 almost $2,500 every year for stress estimate. Like I said, I think since it was just reviewed and um should be up to date once those items are recognized items are fixed or altered or updated or whatever it is. Um why do it today when we have 15? I'll I'll one second Jamie. I'll Mr. Dr. Anamot said he would he would be willing to come in. We'll have that discussion. I'll I'll just I'll withdraw the motion right now. Mr. Drew, would you agree? Um and we'll have that discussion and we need wait until next month to make this formal

108vote, then we'll do it next month. But I'd like to hear what Dr. Enimone has to say um since he will be the superintendent come July 1st. So, um All right, Jamie, I'm sorry. Mr. Point, I just want to say one more thing to that discussion. Um we don't have to start anything until July 3rd. That's when the contract expires before we go ahead and spend another $2,500. So if you subtract the 25 from nine, you're already only in the hole for 6,500. So it makes sense to do it not immediately, but once the contract ends 30 days from now, whatever the case may be, then we're not penalized by any contract uh binding attorney. And I would like to point out that if we're going to pay stress estimate 2500 come July 1st, we

109have to come up with $2,000 because they'll put those payments out over two years, right? That 9,000. So that cost us 2,000 this year and then 2,000 next year at additional. I also understand that they will be actually correcting. Yes. And filling in and doing all that for us, which for 15 policies, just the critical ones, not the other ones that are advisable is a tremendous amount of time work that would happen over the period of time. Would you say it's going to take five months or something? There would be be a little bit of time before. So, it would be a while before we get it back. And so, for me, I'd like to have a legally compliant policy manual as soon as possible. Um, and that would take us, if we started that,

110it would take us well, you know, at least couple months beyond the stress estimate contract. Barbara, we paid stress estate already this year. The contracts run from July 1 to June 30, right? But we've already paid them their 2500 bucks. Yes, of course. I'd like to make a suggestion. I mean, currently, um, we have this in place. I think in fairness to Dr. Uh I think what we should share with him uh is the report that we got back from school boards so we can take a an educated look at it and get some good information and perhaps bring it to a policy committee meeting for us to have a a good discussion on it as opposed to just trying to do something willy-nilly for the sake of and then again we do have till

111June 30th that this is going to be in place uh and it certainly would give you an opportunity to look at it and more specifically Dr. animal would be understanding of what the pieces are that came back to us. I think that would be healthy. This just a suggestion from my seat. Okay. Okay. Um anything anything else under uh old business? You said you had softball game and Policy manual. Yeah. What was that third item? the uh bag pipes. Say something about bag pipes. The bag pipes are going to play so game for us. So little thunder. Just kidding. Um yeah, no I I can't remember. Barbara that discussion got me distracted. Yeah. Um, all right. If we're done, then um like to close old business. Second. Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay.

112New business. Any anything for new business? Make a motion to extend the meeting time from 10:00 to 10:45. Allow for executive session. Yeah. Allow for executive session. I guess 11. Okay. I don't want to stay that late, but um Okay. All in favor? I opposed. Thank you. New business. Anything under new business. Seeing none, like to close new business. Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. Petitions and requests. Petitioners who have 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. All speakers are asked to give their full name, spell their last name, and provide their address. Speakers may

113not use the names of students during petitions and requests. Do we have anybody who'd like to speak? This is Green. How are you? Lisa Green, Upper Greenwood. Um, I'm just looking at the agenda and on page 12 under one where you guys pulled it, I guess. Going to talk after executive session. Yes. Okay. And it's in regards to the attorney special ed negotiations. Attorneys finishing. Yeah. Well, attorneys, architects, auditor. Yeah. Schwarz, Simon, Edelstein, and Selzo. Are we good? Um, and it says special education. And you all know my daughter for the past five years, and she's not special ed, but yet for five years, this law firm has been involved with some stuff. I just would like to ask you guys to take a hard look when you're talking about this firm, what's in the

114best interest of the school and the district and the taxpayers. I can only imagine how much tax dollars were spent on this to this firm just on my stuff alone. Um and because of this firm I think the next level because you know I have an office of civil rights complaint will be moving from that to civil litigation. So you know I just ask that you look at that firm and and moneywise Google Google has a lot of information on this particular firm. So I'm just asking that you do that. Thanks. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Seeing none, like to close petitions and requests. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. One, you want to read the executive session resolution, please? No pressure. I move to go into executive session for the purpose

115of discussing personnel negotiation and matters of attorney. Second question. Do we need to discuss? Do you want to talk about it in executive session? Is that That was the reason why. Okay, then we should add a food service contract. So, can we add that? Yeah, if Oh, yeah. I'll add it. If you want to add that to your motion. Sure. Second. I second it. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Thank you. That's okay. Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Go into executive session. We will take action. Yes, we will be taking action. Thank you very much. See you later. Thank you. I'm old. I'm old. I think I'm not old. No, I don't think we're done. [Music] Mark, we win. [Music] Where is he? I'm right here. He's like, "You talking to me? I

116am right here." Yeah. We're at their level. You can't even do that for two years. You got your 5 seconds. They gave me the If I start storing just quickly, I'm glad you did, Jamie. They need to have these do too. Yeah. Page number one. Go. Page five. Number 20. Yeah. [Music] That's okay. Why don't I have that circle? Okay. I gave you a highlighter, too. I I thought you were going to leave. I thought you guys did leave. What are you doing here? Not so much laughing. Let's go. Yeah. Really? That's rocking. All right, Mrs. O'Brien under uh Well, we're good to go. All right, we're back from executive session. Um Mrs. O'Brien under under personnel students affair. I'd like to make a recommendation to move item 20 under personnel student affair. Second. Thank

117you. Any discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please. Mr. end. At the recommendation of superintendent and of the recommendation of the director of special services, I'm going to vote yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Foody, no. Mr. Yuber, no. Mr. O'Brien, yes. Mr. Robbins? Yes. Mrs. Schulz? Yes. Okay, that's it for personnel and student affairs, I believe. Right. Y um we're going to under budget and finance, Mr. Drew, item number one. Like to move item one. Second. I'm sorry. Um discussion page 12. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I got it. Um, discussion. All right, seeing none, roll call, please. Mr. De, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Foody. Um, yes. Uh, but no on special education attorney. I'll I'll go with it for negotiations, but not specialize. Mr. Hubert. Uh, no. Sign LCO. Yes. On the remainder,

118Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Robins. Yes. Except for Schwarz and whatever. Mrs. Schulz. Yes. How does that motion carry? There's seven people here and it was a majority of five. It's a contract. I thought it was the majority of the board. My bad. It's the majority of the board present. Okay. Um I think that's it under budget. Right. One more. 37. 37. Yeah. Page 22. Thank you. Like to move item 37. Second. Um, any discussion? Roll up, Mr. Mr. Bever. Yeah. Um, I'm going to be voting no for this. Uh the way I see it, I'm voting no for uh Ponttonian Food Service because by outsourcing food service, we're putting local people out of work. I don't like to see my neighbors and friends outsourced. I'd like to see the district run it. And um I

119know that would be a big undertaking and there would be a lot of things to discuss, but I just don't feel comfortable with Ponium. And so I'll be voting no on this. Mr. No, Mr. Drew. Yes, Mr. Foody. Well, I I hadn't called the vote because I wanted to say something. So, um, can I Yeah, you can say that. I I want to point out to the the board um the contingencies of this $100,000 guarantee, minimum of 180 serving days, adoption of the recommended student lunch price list, and practically lunch price list. Reimbursement rates are not less than the previous year. Value of USDA donated food is declining. The LEA is responsible for kitchen equipment and we are the LEA if I'm correct. I realize that this is the language that the state gives us.

120Y this is not PTON's language. The LEA is responsible for kitchen equipment maintenance repair, small wares purchases and cleaning of floors and dining room kitchen area. No change in school policy that significantly affects operating revenue expense. A special dietary policy for an individual or group that results in an extraordinary expense will be recorded separately. A change in federal or state regulations that was not in effect at the conclusion of the previous school year that impacts cafeteria operating revenue or expense will be separate. The FSMC will calculate the effect of any change to the LEA's operating performance and adjust the guarantee by the actual amount of the change. No restrictions on menu and alle cart offerings except that they meet previously stated HHFKA and USDA smart snack guidelines. Any change in cost that results from implementation

121of the affordable healthc care act will be separate from the guarantee. increased cost by the unionization of the staff would be separate from this guarantee. The offer versus serve policy is maintained. No competitive sales during cafeteria operating hours based on the labor schedules submitted. Um that those are an awful lot of contingencies for me. Um so I will uh go back to the vote. I'm I'm voting no on this. Just to clarify, I'm just going to jump in. Barbara, have those contingencies always been in the resolution right from the state department of agriculture. This is not something that it's nothing that we can write or that company wrote. I understand Mr. All right. It's my understanding that this last year theyeded that $100,000 and we had that much money to offset costs. Um, this is

122the only valid bid we've received. And I think that I would rather our new superintendent dealt with bigger fish to fry than starting up a new food service at least this year. So I'm not averse to thinking about something else later with, you know, proper preparation. But for now, I'd like Dr. Anon to to work on the more important problems that we have at the moment. So, I'm going to vote yes. M O'Brien. Mr. Yuber expressed exactly how I feel. So, at this time, I'm voting yes. I'm sorry. What was that? Yes. Mr. Robbins. Yes. Mr. Schulz. Based on the fact this was the only valid bid re we received, I'm voting yes. Okay. And ation Marilyn. I think it's just the HIVs. You could take care of that, please. Okay. Motion. Um, I'd like

123to move item number 10 under education. Incident report numbers should read 2016 back slashe-5 2016 back slashm-6 back slashh-11 2016 back slh-12 2016h-13 was added in addition to 2016 slash E6. Okay. So, I'm going I'm going to read these back to you again. Let's confirm that. 2016-e5 2016 E-6 2016 M6 2016 H11 2016 H12 2016 H13 The ones I just wrote are the ones we had. Yeah, there was no H6 in there. H11, H12, H13. Okay. Okay. All listed as unsubstantiated. Well, we're sending what one is going back. Uh I want for more information, correct? So instead of unsubstantiated that should read holdend directed to find more further information. Absolutely. discussion the discussion of this not I just want to thank my uh fellow board members that um are at least going to consider looking

124into a different food service at a later date. Thanks. as um Okay. So, any discussion? Did we have a second? I thought we Okay, I thought we did. That includes the So, you hear go second. As modified. Yes. Okay. Um no discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Schultz, yes. Mr. Robins, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes. Mr. Huber, yes. Mr. De, yes. Mr. Foody, yes. Okay. And that is it. Motion to adjourn. Second 11:18. All Wow, I'm in. I I I All right, the meeting is officially adjourned. Thank you everyone. Thank