001Good evening. Good evening everybody. Welcome to the West Milford Township Board of Education Workshop special action meeting of September 15, 2015. Could you please take a moment to silence or turn off your cell phones and note the locations of the emergency exits? I'd like to call this meeting to order at 7:37 p.m. If we could just take a moment of silence for staff members and for families of our school community that may have recently lost a loved one. Please keeping in mind in our thoughts the Stafford family and the Collier family. Also remembering and honoring all those who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. If we could stand for the flag salute, please. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation
002under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'm sorry, I was just corrected. It's the Kister family, please, to keep in your thoughts. Thank you. In accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act, a public notice of this meeting has been sent to board members, all district schools, the herald news, the trends, the record a west milford, the messenger West Milford town hall, the 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. Roll call, please. Mrs. Francisco, Mr. Bad here. Mr. Bailey here. Mr. De here. Mr. Drew here. Mr. Foody present. Mrs. Key here. Miss O'Brien here. Mr. Robbins. Mr. Schultz here. Need
003a motion to approve the following resolution. resolved that the board go into executive session at 9:00 p.m. for approximately 60 minutes for the purpose of discussing personnel negotiation matters of attorney compliant privilege. The executive session minutes will not be released until such time as the privilege of confidentiality is no longer applicable. Like to make a motion to move uh to approve the that following resolution that was just second. All in favor? Any opposed? Superintendence report Mr. Rashica. Okay. I just want to say that uh we got the school year off to a good start. A couple of bumps in the road, a little bit with transportation, no pun intended, but the uh you know, couple of delays here and there, but I think we have it all worked out now and that's finalized. And of
004course, the um the heat created some problems for especially at the high school where the air conditioning was um cut short by a uh power outage that took place in the neighborhood. Uh so it burnt out the motors and some of the HVAC systems. My understanding is that uh that's all up and running now. So that's uh we're in a good place. I believe that every student has what they need to continue during the course of the school year and my visits to all the schools. Uh the students were already working on the first, second, third day. They were very engaged in all types of activities. Uh at one school the teacher was already handing out the uh robots for the kids to assemble to start working on our STEM program. So, uh, very excited
005and happy about that. Uh, but moving along, I did invite, um, two guests here this evening. For those of you not aware of it, um, there is the Middle States Association that does accreditation for growth at the high school level. Uh, and this is not something you have to do. years ago, many schools uh participated in this practice uh to get an understanding of where you fell within the nation, within your own communities, uh locally and so forth. Uh with the new uh New Jersey standards and QAC coming into effect, a lot of schools no longer do that, but uh we chose to do that. And that exercise took place last May, I believe it was. And it was many months of preparation, probably over a year. And uh the people responsible for doing that
006are here this evening. So I'm going to throw it over to them. Uh Dr. Matt Los is here and Miss Metaf will do a presentation on the final report that we received from Middle States. Thank you. Yeah, I think we made it. Okay, we're live. Okay. Um All right. So, um, thanks for having us. And I just want to point out though, although Greg and I are both here, um, it's really this huge pyramidical structure of people that added to this program from, uh, you know, teachers, administrators, and parents, um, there's much many, many hours of work, um, that, um, are involved in putting this together. Um, the other reason that I'm glad that we're here um, is really twofold. One is that most of the feedback is really solid. So, it's always nice to
007have a positive report, especially because the group of people that came to see us were from a um an enormously diverse background. So, we had people from out of state, people from instate, people from public schools, people from private schools, different levels of experience. Um the other thing that I personally think is that in a day when um all of our education is so measured and data driven, it's nice to share with the general public that from outside evaluators um after looking at our road map that we you know we measure up to that uh standard. So while we're waiting for the slide to come up, one of the first things that's discussed on that slide is what is AFG? And in days of old when my mother was a teacher, um it was just
008called middle states. and Middle States spent a lot of time trying to measure how much space was in a classroom, trying to make sure that everybody had what they needed. And I know that Mr. Rashika and Mrs. Francisco both went through AFG processes or middle states processes in their previous districts. So um it's the program is now called AFG which stands for accreditation for growth and it's a group that comes in and evaluates both uh schools and colleges both um nonprofit schools you know an entire range of things um some districts have gone to blue ribbon schools it's a similar process um and AFG fits nicely into the um the work that had already been done with the strategic plan being done in the district as well as QAC which again is coming in uh
009this year. Um so that's what um AFG is. Um when we first started AFG, this is my second round through AFG. Um it's you know 10-year process. So that shows that I'm becoming a seasoned person um in the AFG uh cycle. Uh what you do is you map out your u plans and then you try to meet your goals. So um the high school in particular chose to do this because we were laying out this um you know this roadmap for our own success. Um so who did the evaluation at the high school? Again this uh group that came in um the most uh prominent member of which was from the state of Pennsylvania Philadelphia schools and a charter school but I think he had been at a public school prior to that Mr. Ed
010Dormer. So when you get the official report you'll see his name um you know liberally scattered down it. So, um, okay. All right. So, this lets me get to Greg because the bottom line is All right. Hello everybody. Um, looking at AFG Middle States in the whole context just to get to the the important part of the report is the fact that the high school and we are proud to say um especially being of course the employee of this district uh that we have accreditation for the next seven years. Yay. All right. Um, when do we officially receive our recognition? Uh, when Middle States gets together. Actually, right now during the fall, upcoming fall, I should say. October 2015, the official report will come out. Okay. And, um, that of course report will be available
011publicly. That sums it up right there. Absolutely. Okay. Right. So, uh, so we have, uh, in terms of the report, you have to keep in mind this was a massive document. Um, so I I summed it up as best as I could in terms of what they evaluate. So, keep in mind, these were individuals that walked through the halls of the high school. They visited classrooms. They went into the lower media center. Thank you, Sue Ever, for being a great host throughout the entire process. Um, looking at again the artifacts that we presented, you name it. And here's really what they came up with. They are just impressed. I think it's the word you want to use in terms of our 21st century college and career readiness. The STEM labs, the 21 AP courses that
012we offer, a broad array of classes. What does that mean? You're looking at obviously those tech courses to the wood shop classes, printing classes, graphic arts, uh psychology, you name it, we have it. So, I think the key term is opportunity for our students in the high school. uh of course in terms of the leadership administration of the high school supervisors in challenging those students to reach their potential working on curriculum every year to ensure that that challenge of course is there all 12 standards I am proud to say were met to earn this accreditation for the high school right of course continuing on there is more one that of course I definitely wanted to mention tonight Mrs. Francisco uh in terms of her being proactive and eager to assist obviously in terms of the
013finance of the schools um they were and in terms of usually middle states they don't mention names in their report and actually did mention uh Barbara by name so the fact that she was mentioned is a pretty big deal I wanted to include that obviously in this presentation congratulations to her uh in terms of student participation constructing projects our Eagle Scouts projects uh for example available. Even right now as we speak, we have Eagle Scouts working on uh voting booths um for Paradise Null and Maple Road. Uh so on election day, our students will have a mock vote. They'll actually take place inside an election booth with the use of an iPad, for example, like Marshall Hill and other schools are utilizing right now. So again, these are students that are again taking their time
014during the Eagle Scout project to help out uh throughout that process. And again you look at our dual enrollment with local universities for example in the history department western civilization with Satan Hall University taking a course your senior or junior year and earning of course three credits towards again the the college of course readiness there and of course moving on we still have more uh our annual health fair again in terms of again you look at a lot of the academics of course we're mentioning and they were extremely proud of that but also looking at other things that we're doing in the high school. Uh kudos to of course our nurse in terms of having that annual health fair. Each year she brings in obviously vendors to just go over again really health and of
015course safety and so forth. Uh for example you can have a a cancer basically uh skin test there if you want to at this health fair. Um sources of strength again student leadership. So in times of a crisis we have student leaders that again are capable of mapping out really the school what to do in terms of a crisis. So these are student students taking that leap and again in terms of utilizing Google Drive which again the district is now on. We have this paperless environment saving items into a Google folder onto that drive. So again picture a drive you have on your computer utilizing actually the li almost almost limitless um of course data that's on Google Drive. And of course last but not least the life skills program. again teaching our children uh
016to live out their life uh in terms of the everyday cooking, cleaning um what is it like again how to study after school and so forth. It's been an extremely important program. Our school counselors received kudos as well in the report uh in terms of proning a post-graduate culture future planning and get new clubs that we offer. If you look at the several clubs in the high school, whether it's a history club, poetry club, model UN, whatever it may be, we are constantly offering new opportunities for students um after school as well. And last but not least, of course, the herd received a uh kudos as well uh from AFG. Uh the fact that our students got together to form this group uh to cheer on our activities, our our sporting events and so forth.
017Again, studentled coalition, if you want to call it that. They were really impressed with that. and especially of course their their their heading of have you heard uh HRD uh really caught uh their ears as well and again it's it's not all highlights here you know this is also a group that says we have seven years to work on these recommendations we are accredited for seven years but doesn't mean we just stop and become stagnant and and cheer on cheer ourselves that we're we're a fantastic school no we we do have things to work on uh there's always room for improvement for example involve parents you know, and we saw that in repro in that report a few times. Uh where you know, in terms of communication with parents, again, we we have a Facebook
018page, we have obviously a website and so forth. We have several ways to communicate. We just have to continue doing that. Uh we can of course obviously become stagnant in that sense. Uh streamlining the district's web page um as well. Uh they just wanted to easier ways to navigate the site and so forth. Uh an additional athletic facility uh was also part of the recommendations. uh feature display areas for student teacher accomplishments, a teachers handbook, uh public access to curriculum and h handbooks and so forth. And the last three again in terms of those, we're working on these and that's the beauty of as as we receive the draft report again, you have obviously our assistant principles at the high school working on that teachers handbook already. And in terms of our curriculum supervisors again
019using utilizing Rubicon Atlas, you know, we are looking to go public uh in terms of Rubicon Atlas uh where the public actually can go on to look at curriculum documents. But again, this is a work in progress um at this point. And again, broad the scope of our stakeholders, you look at the district strategic plan from the board of education. Um that's kind of the same process they're looking for in terms of uh AFG. So moving forward for our next seven years, you're looking at again that same kind of plan. Let's bring in the community and so forth to talk about what what how we can improve these recommendations. So again, that report will come out in October of 2015. And although again, this may sound like a generic thank you, it is not. This
020was a 7year process of Mrs. Metaf, myself, my fellow supervisors taking on each of those 12 standards, our teachers, staff, even students as well. Uh thank you to Mr. John Gomez who of course has graduated last year, the PTSO, the high school administration and and the board of education. Thank you to Marilyn Schultz as well. Um and very important of course to thank central office too who uh came to the high school probably on a daily basis for interviews. Um as of course Ed Dormer and the AFG committee of course they were there. Um so again we have our seven-year accreditation. Thank you. Thank you all for making this happen. And again, just to reiterate, high school is a great place. It's a wonderful place. Um, we earned this accreditation because we worked extremely hard
021for it. I have to mention that. Um, and we'll continue working again as as a public servant of this community. We'll continue doing that and and we won't stop. We'll continue offering things for our students. Thank you very much. Thank you Dr. Metaf for your wonderful presentation and graphics. Um I I am very proud of everybody involved in the process. This is not an easy chore. Believe me when I tell you that having been uh both in a school going through the process multiple times and also being part of a committee that was sent out to uh do the the actual exercise. um very difficult but uh this went smoothly. I was very happy with the preparation and all the work that took place. Uh we had quite a few meetings as Dr. Matt Les
022noted uh at the high school uh where uh a good portion of people from the committee as well as administrators and central office people participated. So that's excellent. What I do like there is that they do mention using the process of the strategic plan and um that is something that I feel strongly about. So uh with that being said um I'm just going to give a a brief uh overview and talk about that. This is basically what I'm going to do. Let me grab the other mic. Shaker. Yes. Uh just what I wanted to share with the board and the guest this evening. Basically, it's the uh presentation I gave to our staff on the first day of school. Um and I really want people to know about this. I mean, you know, I'm the
023new guy in town. I came in in December as the uh interim superintendent. So, you know, you try to get through what's left on your desk and you try to correct everything that comes your way. But you know giving me this summer uh was an opportunity to reflect on a couple of things and most importantly being here now for some time I have a better feel for the district uh academically socially and what the needs are for the staff and for our children. So with that being said as soon as we get rolling here. Welcome back. Okay slideshow's good. Okay so we go to the next slide. Um I want to look at goals. Okay, the goals here um basically if we look at the district goal, the current first goal that we have for
024the district is continue to foster a physically safe and emotionally secure environment that promotes a high level of academic performance. If students do not feel safe in that environment, it's not going to be a positive outcome for them. they're going to be concentrating on other things, uh, being afraid of what's going to happen to them and so forth. So, we really want to focus and continue to focus on the environment within each school. We're not just talking about the high school. Now, I'm looking at the entire district, every one of the schools. So, it's really to have them feel comfortable. When I was talking about the strategic plan, I'm looking at goal two in the strategic plan. Develop and sustain an ongoing partnership between the schools and community groups. I think that's very important. We
025have uh a number of community groups that we're involved with the Wallish Homestead folks. In fact, I'll share some information with you uh either next week I think would be more appropriate. But also with um you know, we had Mr. Novak attended a meeting a few weeks ago uh right in the middle of town to discuss how we help some children who are having difficulties and families. So, we're taking part in that. Uh I'm involved with the Rotary. The Rotary's been very involved and very helpful to all of our schools here and then to our students from anywhere from uh dictionaries for third grade to uh supporting us for project graduation. So it's a broad direction of things that are going on, but I certainly want to build upon that. So these are the goals.
026Now when we talk about district goals, those of you not aware of this, every year the district has to come up with three goals. So we're in the process of tonight we may get a chance to discuss that a little bit and decide how we want to follow the format. But in that idea I do want to keep I would prefer to anyway I'm just going to say this prefer to keep that number one goal is number one and then add or make modifications to the two other goals. So uh we could continue from there you want to just thank you. Okay. So school culture and environment the those of you not aware with the six pillars uh that's from character education doing the right things we have our own programs in school that reflect
027that uh and we continue to build upon those programs as you know we have two schools of character in the district uh both on the state level and then one also made it to the uh national level the IMBs if you go over to Westbrook funny I had came up with this and then over Westbrook the theme over there is be this and be that and she has all the bees hanging up over there, Miss Summers. But being flexible, I think many times what happens is that everybody kind of gets set in your ways. So you come across a problem and sometimes out of nature, we just take the same steps that we took before without actually listening to a student or a parent to see what created the problem. So be flexible, listen to
028what's going on. The Google I have up there because there's been tremendous growth in our technology as far as Google is concerned in using those applications as was mentioned by our two speakers before our athletic programs both for boys and girls and for no bullies allowed. Okay. We continue to combat uh the behaviors of some of the students uh and even some adults as we look around at certain things that people say could be myself. It could be anyone that can lead to some problems. So, we want to be especially very careful about that. School culture and environment is the most important thing. As I stated before, uh, I did use, if you just want to click on that video very quickly, this is actually put together by the Blue Angels. Certainly, we're not jumping
029in planes, but sometimes being in the classroom is almost as demanding. Take off 24 taking Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Okay, I think that's enough. So, basically the the thought there is, as I said, we're not Blue Angels, but the my approach is to work as a team. All right, I you know, I'm the district leader, but I want to work as a team with my staff. And what we want to do is take that energy and encourage our students to do the best that they can by us demonstrating what the best is. So we reach out there. Two of the words that come up in there are attitude and communication. If you do not communicate, you have no chance of being successful. People have to know what your ideas are.
030I'm communicating right now what I'm trying to do for the district for the rest of the school year. That's to build communication with the community. Speak to people. Listen to problems. to try to solve those problems and work together. Synergy all coming together. Everybody has an idea. Let's listen to those. Again, going back to what a strategic plan is. And attitude. Attitude. Have a can do attitude. I believe it says attitude equals altitude. We want to take that thought process and be the best that we possibly can be. So that's basically what my focus is going to be on this year. Why is that? Because I believe if we all work together, the outcomes for student growth will be greater. That's the bottom line. If we work in silos, no one speaks to each other,
031you don't have the support of your colleagues and families in the community, you will not be successful. So, we all want to be successful. Uh we can move on real quickly. Um this is a a program that I put together a few years back or I think I was still an assistant principal at the time. Pace, peaceful academic caring environment. And again, a couple of key pieces that I have here. Take time to listen. The communication is back again. Be visible and active in programs beyond the safety zone. As I mentioned to the staff, and some of you sitting here listening to this for the second time, but it it's it just has to do with, you know, you may not like going to concerts. It may not be your thing, but once in a
032while, show up and listen to what the kids are doing. You may not like athletics. take 20 minutes, a half hour, stop out at the field, see how the children are doing, what's going on, how the coaches are doing, and just be part of the overall process. Getting back to being flexible, we need that again. We need to listen, be flexible, find out what the facts are before we make major decisions. Build support systems. Students need to support each other. They need the support from us, and educators need to support each other. uh share work together and most importantly share the positive like we did tonight with the AFG. We we'll do another presentation I think once we get once we get all the do they give us a banner years ago they used to
033give you this big banner to hang up in the school. I like those kinds of things. So if we can get that to happen that would be nice but so we want to celebrate the positive. So again communication building excellent uh relationships with the community and the schools that's what it's all about. And I hope I didn't bore you, but I just wanted you to understand where I'm coming from, what I'm trying to accomplish. So, I know I sit here and you know, I listen to all kinds of things, but there is I I believe uh Mr. Drew talks about what are we going to talk about education. This is about education and how to be successful at it. So, uh I thank you and uh just if you can get to the last the
034next one. Okay, there are a couple of slides on the the very last one, couple of quotes rather on the last slide and I have five of my favorite ones, but the number three and four are my favorites. Students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I think that's very important. And if we teach today's students, as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow. Believe it or not, that goes back to John Dwey. So, thank you and I hope you have a better understanding of who I am, what I'm trying to do, and hopefully we have a successful school year. Thanks. Good job. Just while I wait for everybody to get back in place, uh just want to make you aware that the uh back to school nights
035in all of our schools will begin I believe tomorrow evening at um Westbrook actually and then after on the Thursday Thursday evening schedule is online. I put out hard copies for our board members. If you can stop by to one of those, please feel free to do so. Okay, that's it for me. Thank you very much. Okay, special reports and correspondence, Mrs. Francisco, I'd just like to make correction to your uh agendas. Uh next on Monday, uh the 21st is our next meeting. uh August 13th meeting minutes for a special meeting from last uh month and the exact session minutes and also the August 25th regular and executive session minutes will be available on Monday nights through Please turn on your mic. Did you say August 13th as well? August 13th. My mic is on
036August 13th. Yeah, the 18th was incorrect. August 13th which was the special meeting in August. Thank you. Also uh just another note. Sure. Monday's meeting we'll have a presentation on the proposed roof referendum. Uh Kevin Senrino, our architect, will be coming in to discuss we'll do the project with the board and um some of the funding aspects. Thank you. Legal report. Um no legal report this evening. Kate Gilfinnon is sitting in for um our regular board attorney who is away on vacation and we thank you and any information that you have for us will be discussed in executive session. Okay, we're going to move on to the president's report. I did happen to sit in on the uh 201516 convocation of the school opening this year. Uh it was really a great opportunity for me
037to see all the excitement that was going on in the auditorium. It was facilitated by Mr. Ashika. I was um asked to help Mr. Novak hand out uh decade awards. We have staff members that have provided service to our school and students 10 years, 20 years. Hold on. uh as well as 30 years of service and 40 years of service. Um I think it was a great opening for the school year. It was a way to celebrate all our staff members, our new staff members, our tenure staff members, and those staff members that have actually um been in our district for many years. Uh Mrs. Sean Rinmith, our Pose County teacher of the year, also gave a little speech or presentation and she actually uh related it to the Wizard of Oz. It was very
038very creative and um it was just a great celebration of the start of the school year uh for the returning staff and for everybody that was there. So, thank you for inviting me. You're welcome. In addition to um the president's report, I just wanted to mention that I was at a CASA meeting last night. Uh CASA is the West Milford Community Against Substance Abuse. It was a meeting that was also combined with the Health Advisory Board. I did get a little information that I just kind of wanted to pass on to you all. I met or actually at the meeting um the REAL program was discussed. REAL is an acronym for responsibility, education, accountability, and leadership. The West Milford Police Department works annually in conjunction with the West Milford Township Public Schools to provide the
039real program for our sixth grade students at all the elementary schools. The topics of discussion include, but are not limited to, personal safety, violence, physical, emotional, social, and cyber bullying, facts about alcohol, drugs, tobacco, dangers, avoidance, and accountability, and making good, responsible, personal choices. The youth leadership program is funded through the township's community against substance abuse, which receives state grants and support from local residents and businesses to provide programs to reduce substance abuse and violence in the community. This year, officers George Richosski and Amy Hancock have received special training to present the program to our students this school year. They're working in conjunction presently with the building principles on ideas for possible contact uh contests, student commitment, prizes, and awards to get the kids excited for this program. Um, Officer Hancock also briefly discussed an
040idea for anti-bullying campaign, which uh she felt should be geared toward the middle school age children. She will be reaching out to Mr. Ronald Gro, the district anti-bullying coordinator, along with Mrs. Mary Reinhold, Makipin, principal. I thought that was very interesting. I also have some information with regards to um the county teen summit. That is something that I think West Milford Schools has always been given the information and it's been passed down to our students. So maybe um you Mr. Novak might want to take a look at that and get that out to our students. Um what's the other then? Uh CASA just discussed other ideas um for having programs throughout this school year. Their funding was specifically focused on um heroin this year. So they really want to provide programs that deal with um
041the abuse of that drug. And um I think that the real program is going to be, you know, it's always been a very good program for our sixth graders. And um having an idea of having Officer Hancock come and present something to our middle school students, I think will also be beneficial in going from our sixth grade to our seventh and eighth graders. Um they also have other ideas. They've been working with uh Makipin School student council, Mr. Jake, and there's parents that have been working um I believe that pro that wasn't with CASA, but that was more so with the health advisory board. And there are two parents that were working with Mr. Jake on Red Ribbon Week, which is the drug awareness week. Uh Karen Weedman and Dory Torp. So, their efforts sound
042like it's going in a good direction. Is that in October? Yes. I believe the dates are Friday, October 23rd to Saturday, October 31st. You're welcome. Anyway, contests are going to be going on and they're going to be working in conjunction with Mrs. Ryan Hold and Mr. Jake and the students. That should be good. Good. Yeah. Positive. Okay. Moving on to petitions and requests. Petitioners who have requested to speak prior to the meeting will first with five minutes for each petition for a period of 30 minutes and then time permitting other petitions and requests limited to 5 minutes per petitioner will be allowed until the 30 minute period transpires. Petitioners speaking during petitions and requests are asked to address topics listed for special action in the agenda. All speakers are asked to give their full name,
043spell their last name, and provide their address. Speakers may not use the names of students during petitions and requests. Would anybody like to come up and speak? Seeing none, move to close petitions and request. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. Okay. Next, I need a motion to adopt the agenda as presented. Like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented this evening. Second. All in favor? I any opposed I should ask any discussion. I I just want to say that on the um special action number one education um pulling that we're going to do that next week only because we have enough presentations this evening. So we will go over the self assessment uh next Monday. Thank you. Okay. So we will move on to education. Mrs. Keepy, would you
044mind moving special action items under education? Yes, under education. I'd like to move items two. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, roll call. Miss O'Brien? Yes. Mr. De? Yes. Mr. Drew? Yes. Mr. Foody? Yes. Mrs. Key? Yes. Mr. Babbett? Yes. Mr. Bailey? Yes. Mr. Schulz. Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Kempy. Mrs. O'Brien, personnel, student affairs. I'd like to move items 1 through 15 under Personnel Student Affairs. Need a second. Second. Any discussion? Mr. Booty, I'd like to call number 12 for a step, please. Anybody else? Discussion. Mr. Booty um um six and seven transfer between the two schools, Mr. Rashik. Yeah. Any any particular reason why? I I believe there was a need to cover some classes and uh to do that um generally would be very easy if we could just do it but it always
045needs boards board approval uh based on uh numbers of students in the uh business this is a business teacher so it's just a couple some of the classes there. Okay. Okay. Then any other discussion? So we're going to do items 1 through 15 - 12. Yes. Roll call. M O'Brien. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. Mrs. Steppy. Yes. Mr. Babett. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Schulz. Yes. I'd like to move item 12 under student personal uh personal student affairs. Second. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Drew. Mr. Foody. No, Mrs. Kebie. Yes, Mr. Babbot. Yes, Mr. Bailey. Yes, Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Budget and finance. To move item number one under budget and finance, please. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Deon. Yes.
046Mr. Foody. Yes, Mr. Drew. Let me make sure this is outline item 16 and one and then we have it. I'm sorry, 15 and one or 16. Okay, that's it. Yes, Mrs. Gabby. Yes, Mr. Bab. Yes, Mrs. O'Brien. Yes, Mrs. Schulz. Yes. Moving on to workshop and discussion for budget and finance. Mr. Bailey. Well, as you can see on a special night, not Monday night football, but Monday night board of ed meeting, there'll be 17 items and maybe a couple of more added for our consideration. The budget and finance committee is working hard for you. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions with regards to those items presented under budget and finance for the workshop? No. Okay. Then moving on to education. Mrs. Keepy, would you mind? Hold on just a second. The DVDs will
047all be filled in by Okay. Thank you. Um we moved if they're not available under education there are five items as well as I'm sure there'll be hips as well. No it no hips since it was summer. Any discussion moving on to Mrs. O'Brien Personnel Student Affairs workshop discussion. Okay, there are 10 items under Personnel Student Affairs that we will be voting on this coming Monday. Any discussion? Okay. Does anybody have any old business? Mr. Booty goes along with what um Mr. Rashika had talked about earlier which is our strategic plan. Um as most of the board knows the strategic plan was adopted last October. Um and I I I attended all but one of those uh strategic plan meetings and in discussing uh things with our field rep during those meetings. Um she said
048it was a good idea that we review the strategic plan at least once a year. Um and really should do it every six months. We haven't reviewed it as of yet and and I hope that this board can lay some time aside to review those goals in in our October meetings whether it's a workshop or um our regular meeting. Um and then with regards to our goals um for the year last September, the beginning of our school year um our goals were laid out for the year. Um and we haven't done that yet. And I and I think that's uh it's robbing us all, students, teachers, um staff alike, that we haven't sat down and given ourselves some concrete goals for this school year. We we don't know where we're going. We're going to end
049up somewhere else. And and I don't want to end up somewhere else. So, I hope again that this board can find time during the next month to come up with some some goals. It's nice that we try to work what with uh the goals that we had last year, but um I think that's just taken a lazy way out. So, I hope the board can can find the time within the next month to to do that. Thank you, Mr. Booty. Anybody else? Can I Can I comment? Yes. Okay. Um, you're right, Mr. Foody. And one of the things I only found out recently was that uh has been uh in the past, I believe the board, unbeknownst to me, has had a retreat in the summer with the school boards and uh I have to
050tell you honestly, school boards had did not reach out to us at all, which is not an excuse, but certainly uh that would have happened. We would have had the retreat. So, with that being said, this is something we do need to work on. The only the only goal I would like to see stays number one. Uh, but again, that's up to the board of education, but it is something that we're going to address quickly. Hope so. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else for new business? I'm sorry, for old business. Seeing none, move to close old business. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? New business. Anybody for new business? Mr. Bailey. Um, I realize with deadlines and I don't I don't know when this is broadcaster who sees it, but this Friday night, tremendous event is
051going to take place here at McCormick Field. And I'd like the record noted and the public advised to invite everybody to come out and see what tremendous school spirit athletic competition uh skilled marching band, cheerleaders, the whole bit. The Lakeland Lancers will be driving up Westbrook Road, our arch rival, to play the West Milford Highlanders. So whether we go down the hill or they come up the hill, it's a phenomenal night. It's it brings the community, both communities together. I know there's a buzz down the hill cuz I'm there every day. Everybody looks forward to it. The weather will be cooperating and it's an opportunity for us to highlight our athletic administration, our game management, our sportsmanship, our uh police are on board making sure everybody stays safe. It really doesn't get much better than
052a good old-fashioned backyard football rivalry on a crisp, cool September evening uh here in West Milford. Now, my final question is, as the leader of our district, whose last stop was down the hill at Lakeland, you're now a Highlander. And I expect you to make a presence, hopefully in some type of a Highlander type garden. You're welcome to go across the field and say hi to some of those people that you were. You're a Highlander now and I would expect you to act like Friday night. I I will uh show my pride for the Highlanders and our football team and the entire district on Friday night, but I will go over and shake hands cuz it's just the right thing to do. All right. Isn't there time change earlier? 6:30. game is earlier 6:30, which
053I don't quite understand why, but that's another story. And and just to um bring this to an end, I had conversations with uh Barbara after last uh week's budget and finance committee. I think it's high time that the board begins to consider some, as a matter of fact, it was on one of those slides tonight about additional athletic facilities, but failing additional athletic facilities. I think as we talk about the referendum and and put together future budgets, it's time for rehabilitation of McCormick Hill because the bleachers although they serve us well, they've been there now for 40 years and I think it's time for us to look for some money to get to rehab the field with new bleachers which would lead to bigger events such as a band competition, etc. So, I want to
054plant that seed and uh I'm willing to take on that that issue as we move forward and I think it's a worthy one and Mrs. Francisco told me that she thinks we can make that a reality. So, hopefully the board will get behind that in future budget cycles and uh make the place even better. As a person who knows every high school football field from here to Piscato and back, I have to tell you on a September night in West Milford, the mountains as the backdrop and you know all that goes on here and highlighting the country, it really doesn't get much better. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. You're welcome. Anybody else? Mr. Foody. Um, I know we're going to be going into executive session and I don't know if I should bring it
055up here, but um, some parents brought something to my attention regarding our drug policy and our and our and our drug testing that's going on. And I don't know if this is the spot to discuss that or executive session is the spot to discuss that. without without say we're if if you're speaking of the policy in general then that's that's fine. That's an open um session discussion. If there are specific concerns that have been raised to you and we cannot have and if we cannot have that discussion without some identifying information being given out then I would suggest that is a closed session. Okay. Then I would like to um at this point amend to include student matters and executive session. Executive session resolution. An executive session resolution. We amend that at this time. Need
056a second or no? Yes. Second. We need a second for that. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. Any other new business? Seeing none, move to close new business. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? 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 5 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 not use the names of students during petitions and requests. Would anybody like to come up and speak? Seeing none, move to close petitions request. Any second? Second. All in favor?
057I. Any opposed? Executive session. Need somebody to move this at 8:30 p.m. I make a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing personnel negotiations, matters of attorney, client privilege, and student affairs. Second. Need a second, please. Do we expect any action to be taken? No action will be taken during executive session. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. So, we'll be going into executive session. Okay, we are back from executive session. 9:16 p.m. I need a mo a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay, we're officially adjourned. 9:16 p.m. Thank you everybody for coming. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. My pleasure. Nice to see you. Sorry. That's okay. Is the dark out