001starting to register. We don't have any kind of number so far as to how many online but I presume by this Friday we'll take a look and see uh what each school is received so far and move ahead with that. Um and the rest of this information I will present to you later on. Thank you very much. Sure. Uh we're going to go over some school board ethics and from school boards our representative here, Miss Robin Mandan, who I've worked with in the past with strategic plan and I'm sure that you did too. So Robin, come on. Hello. Hi. Good evening. I um just wanted to make sure that you know you you probably don't get credit for towards um you are a board recognition, but I will say that you probably won't get credit
002for this to going forward because you do need seven out of nine members here. Um, unfortunately, there are not. Um, also the members that are not here will need to have ethics. Okay? So, they will not be marked off as having their ethics training done for the year. Okay? Having said that, let me just I did bring some packets. I'm trying to go green. So, if you don't want a packet, just say so. It has the same as last year, but being that you might not have one. I don't I can't uh some of it is not I know, but my presentation can be No, I don't have No, that's fine. I brought enough I brought enough for everybody, but I just brought up. Absolutely. The um but I did put the presentation on a
003flash drive. So, inside your packet on the left hand side, there is actually a form there that will um tell you if you needed to get in touch with the ethics commission, how to do so, ethics and legal issues. There's also things you can listen to. On the lefth hand side, there's a yellow paper. It says blog talk radio. That's with Ray Penny, who I work with. Those are great to listen to. perspective. You can uh listen to that and also um the ethics commission one and social media. They're all really good. On the left hand side is mostly just reading material on ethics opinions that have come out. I will tell you an interesting fact that happened at the um delegate assembly this last time in November was that a board brought forward a
004resolution that they wanted to have the ethics commission change their rulings. If they um Now they can do a ruling that's a private ruling. So if someone if I bring ethics charges against Deb if I were to bring ethics charges against you it could be given as a private ruling means that only she and I and the board would really know. No one else in the state of New Jersey would know about this. And what the board was concerned about is there may be some interesting information that someone might help someone avoid ethics rules at that point or ethics violations. So they are bringing it forward and um school boards is going to stand behind that because they all voted at the delegate assembly to go forward with that and to see if they can't
005get the ethics commission to make everything an open opinion. They redact names. They redact information that has to do with the district but the information comes forward. So privacy is protected. Yes. Absolutely. But at least the information which really kind of makes sense, right? So okay. Okay. So some things you might not know. The ethics act was established. It was passed in 1992. It's essential that the members of local boards of education and local administrators hold the respect and confidence of the people. These board members and administrators must avoid contact which is in violation of their public trust and which creates a justifiable impression among the public that such trust is being violated. It's the sometimes the illusion of collusion. So the act established the ethics commission code of ethics came along years later, conflicts
006of interest, disclosure statements, training requirements for board members. Okay, so mandatory training. The state ethics commission is made up of nine members appointed by the governor with threeyear terms and as you can see, two are school board members, two are school administrators, and five are non school officials. Also, no more than five from the same political party. I just thought that was kind of interesting. This is from the entire state of New Jersey. Yes. So they're appointed by I found interesting just recently one of the members removed from the commission because he took money from the charter school. So I find it funny I find it funny that a guy who was appointed to the ethics commission and was removed for being ethical. I saw that myself. I That one blew my mind. Well, you
007just never know, do you? Right. Exactly. So, the um the ethics commission, the difference between complaints and advisory opinions, obviously, you want to stick to the right. If you think something is coming up, you would ask for an advisory opinion. Um otherwise, if you make a mistake and you do something that you shouldn't, someone can bring you up on ethics. So, what if I who does not live here in West Milford, can I um can I bring an ethics complaint against somebody? Absolutely. Absolutely. don't have to live here. Do you have to have some I can be a community member come in and because you're an elected official I can bring an ethics it could be anything and the ethics commission has to board me doesn't want you don't want to go there but you
008know You do need to check with your attorney on your insurance policy. Okay. So, yes and no. So, conflicts of interest. Do you have anyone on the board that actually has that's conflicted that has an immediate family member? I know you did, but do you now? So, no immediate family working in the district. That's good. Okay. That makes things much easier. really does because then the confliction, you know, they couldn't um be a part of hiring a superintendent, couldn't be a part of evaluating the superintendent if you're conflicted. So, it does make So, if you have an immediate member of your family, that'd be spouse, dependent child um residing in the set. Yes. Retired teachers. As long as that as long as would that be you? No. Oh, okay. So, say say Ingga is retired
009and collecting a pension from the um NJA, that is absolutely fine as long as she's not active with NJA. If she's active and is a I don't know what you can still be, but if you're active, whatever that word means. Um, and I would have my attorney check that to see what exactly reason not even right in this school district if they are if they have been they could be yeah because you can be anywhere being retired fine what if you are a teacher not in the school district you can be on the board but I mean there's no conflict there right yes there is a conflict if you um Marilyn was just asking if you're a teacher in another district but you sit on this board then Yes, there is a conflict when it
010comes down to negotiation as of the contract. If you have somebody living in the house with you, you're a board member and your daughter's a teacher. If they're um if you're paying for them, I believe somehow, you know, and they live in your house, it is a conflict because you could benefit more than maybe if I was on board and had nobody, then they could benefit you could benefit more. So, it would be a conflict. The piece of it is is that for example, if you worked in another district, a part of that JA, you sit on this board, you can actually vote on the on the last part of the the contract. Once the um memorandum of agreement has been signed, you can then vote on the contract. I chuckle at that piece because
011honestly, once it's done, what can you do? You can you can vote no but it's probably not at that point but possibly to you it's your set right so that is what the only piece that you can have if you are still partuca or There you go. And there's only like two or three in the whole Jersey teachers. No. Okay. So even if you and you had a relative that's still a conflict but a little less in a step back if you thank goodness I don't think you guys are in this position. So if you did have a conflict you would receive you would recuse yourself if there's a benefit to you as a school official or a member of your meeting to any of these pieces. So, you know, for example, like teachers who
012sit on boards, um, obviously when you're talking about things like class trips, for example, they vote on those because their child, even if they're in the district, they're not going to get anything more than anyone else in that class. So, things like that are absolutely fine. But if it does create a benefit of something any of these, you would not be able to, we talked about this evaluate and hire the superintendent. You can't take part in any part of that search selection for a new that did come up at the delegate assembly also. When you say relative could be anything staff, nurses, substitute teachers for which part of it? Like for give me an example like um If you're I'm a boardman, so I don't know my son is in the school district and I
013don't know he's doing something there, but maybe if he's not part of NJA, it's not a problem. Yep. Not a problem. As long as he's not part of and there's also there's always exceptions. There's always that gray area. Part-time employees, there's an exception with parties. So they could be they could be in the union employee that's covered. Well, usually part- timerrs are not in the union, but some of them still are. So there's there's that discrepancy. So I would say if you have a situation like that, check with your attorney. Yes. Right here. It depends on what you're talking about when you say the description of relative though. Um, okay. With a conflict of interest over the evaluation or hiring of the superintendent, a relative means spouse, child, parent, or not an immediate right here
014when you're talking about hiring the superintendent and evaluating the superintendent and really negotiations. I was asking you statement and not recommend to the board. Sorry. Not recommend to the board a relative of the board or chief school administr. So well that goes for anything really. You can't recommend his son to work in the district. Obviously, all of our recommendations come from the superintendent, right? Superintendent I now relative under the definition that we had a couple pages. Yep. And and your superintendent cannot recommend any of your relatives or his. Okay. You know, I consider It depends on what you're talking about because relative in another manner means something else and it's huge but that's a legal matter. So I'm not going into that part of it. Okay. Um when you're here when you're talking about nepotism
015this is actually what you're talking about. Okay. So now the definition of relative becomes more expansive. Okay. Do you notice anybody that's my grand sister-in-law? Son or daughter-in-law? sister-in-law. Sister-in-laws are not created equal. They're not because there is one sister-in-law that you could hire and there's one that you can't. So, if my Now, I have brother who has a wife, right? And I have a brother-in-law who has a wife. No blood. Actually, no. You're actually What did you say? You said my brother-in-law's wife. Yes. My mother's wife. My brother's wife. There's no blood at all there. The brother-in-law is married to sister. That That's what I was getting at. But my brother's wife, there's no blood at all. I did not make this up. Do not kill the messenger. I can just laugh about it
016and tell you that all sister-in-laws are not created equal. Um, so nepotism in collective bargaining is completely. So let me just real quickly go through the code of ethics. If you don't mind, would you read the black part up there? I will enforce all laws, rules and regulations of the state of protecting schools. Desired changes shall be brought about only through legal and ethical. So uphold and enforce all state board rules and regulations. So obviously we want you to do the right thing. Don't bend the rules. Don't rules. You think you can accomplish anything as an individual that compromises the legal guidelines established by the right children of all children, race, sexual decisions in terms of all children regardless of who they are, who they belong to, what they look like, um, you know, and
017special interest agendas. I will tell you that there are definitely special interest agendas and I have to tell you, I was 13 years on my board when I first got on, I thought special interest groups. What are they crazy? kids, you know, I have four. They're wonderful. Holy cow, did I get rude awakening, especially at Shopright, you know, like, and you guys will attest, I tell everybody, you have an invisible bee on your forehead. You do not remember it's there, but it is there and other people see it. And as soon as they see you, they make a be line for you. Happens all with females, unless it happens authority or something, but typically, you know, and and I will tell you that Special interest groups always go for the weakest link. What would what
018constitutes a special interest group? That would be someone who has a platform that they want you to work on. You know, if they want you did not have all day kindergarten and they were a group that was behind all the kindergarten. It might be someone that's um special uh special needs groups that sometimes the parents will form a group and they will become very strong and they're going to be outspoken and obviously they're passionate about it but sometimes those folks will board members not knowing that that's not the right avenue that there's a chain of command. It might be um it might be a group I know I have a district that Exactly. Oh my gosh. I wasn't going there with sports. It's not just sports. No, I'm just saying. But it does happen. There's
019an awful lot of groups that get, you know, really strong and they want their voice heard. So, they will approach board members. Yeah. Go ahead. No, I like this. Every time they meet the requirement, you caught on pretty quick. That's why we can't certify only five. We don't know. We don't know. So, hypothetically, the personnel committee in response to complaints from parents sending the elementary school principal a negative evaluation of a third grade teacher along with a note saying they have grave concerns about renewing here. First of all, I have to tell you that's the longest sentence I've ever seen, but I didn't write it. Um so the answer is absolutely no because the only person the board evaluates is the superintendent. The board does not evaluate teachers does not evaluate business does not evaluate
020anyone except the superintendent. If a board member is also a parent and they have a concern it needs to go through the chain of command also. So for example you have a second grader that you're having issue with the teacher, you take the board hat off or like I did, I used to send my husband and then um and you would go in and meet with the teacher and then if that wasn't you would follow the chain of command. If you did not get a response that met your needs, you would go to the principal. If that didn't work, you would go to the superintendent. If that didn't work, you would then come to the board. What your community also has to know is that just because you're coming before the board doesn't mean you're
021going to get a different But it means you get a voice. Okay. It doesn't I love this one. It says I forget where it even came from. Maybe it's Robert. I can't remember where I read it. guarantees that you have a say that you might not get your I think it seems that I'm sorry I will confine my board action to policy making planning and appraisal and I will policies and plans consulted those. So basically um you need to leave the role of the professionals to the professionals. You hired an educational leader. That's your superintendent. They need to make the dayto-day decisions. Now what that's telling you right there, there's four functions of a board member. Policy making, planning, oversight, and appraisal. and also communication. So there's four functions of a board member. It lists
022three of them right there. Anything that you do falls under those four functions. And if it doesn't fall under those four functions, you're doing something you shouldn't be in. And you're micromanaging. All right? So you want to don't become involved in the administration organization. When it says policy making, you set the policy, but the administration carries out the policy. How inside the school. Okay. And the goals, you set the goals to move the district forward, but those goals are done the action plans and the followation. So, you're setting a framework. Next one. I'll carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools, but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well. So again, your responsibility is to work as a are wellun. That's why setting the policy, setting your framework up.
023Um, don't think your role is to be involved in dayto-day running the schools. That's the administration's job. Same thing. So, a board member visiting schools to check on technology upgrades or if you have a project that's going on, your building project, um, board member visiting those sites, that's absolutely wrong. I have one right now. I have a board president whoist calling the man the site manager and superintendent called him and says I just called the site manager and they said we just got off the phone you were president they had no idea it happens all the time you know it's not sometimes it's accidental and they some people don't know what they're doing sometimes purpose and you really have to that's when that conversation happens but absolutely not board members should not be in the
024schools walking around the schools unless you have a specific purpose and Superintendent I know that you are there and you have a reason to be there. Okay. Personnel committee directing superintendent to rotate the principles in district schools. Absolutely not your job administrative job or directing the superintendent to develop a process that engages community parents in a strategic planning initiative. That's a big yes. You guys did that. Absolutely. And what I will probably I think it goes into a little bit later is the fact that when you give a directive to your superintendent, you want to make sure the directive comes from the whole board or majority of the board because if you know there's four or five of us that are asking the superintendent to look into special things and it all comes back and
025the rest of the board doesn't vote on it anyway, you've now wasted that superintendent's time with all these different initiatives you want to investigate. So it really should come from the majority. I will recognize that authority rest of education and make no personal promises or take any private. So you know um only the full board has the right to make that decision to make decisions. You know, when you're out in the street and somebody's approaching you, you know, and they say to you, "Hey, what do I do about this? Can you help me?" You know, the worst thing you can do is say, "Oh, sure. Let me call superintendent. I'll see what I can do." Wrong answer. Complete wrong answer. The answer that you need to give is follow the chain of command. You need
026to take it up with the principal first or whoever it may be. If it's an issue that's above the teacher, it has nothing to do with the teaching staff, it's something else, you could go to the you could go to the principal um and then you go to the superintendent, but there's the chain of command. You should always um encourage folks to go to through the chain of command. Now, if you are out and about and somebody approaches you with something that's extremely important and it's something that you think might have an important impact, absolutely call the superintendent because the worst thing you can do is have a surprise. You don't want to come to a board meeting and surprise the superintendent or the business administrator. That is absolutely the worst thing in the world.
027I think all those 13 years that was the worst thing that happened or for to have your administration surprise you. It goes both ways. Even with that sometimes. Yeah. It depends. It depends on how your structure is set up. It's that critical. If it's that critical, I would tell you you call the superintendent, right? What do you think that's usually how you guys that critical you would send it immediately to the superintendent? Um I would think and I would think Tony would you know contact that's certainly how your however your boards you know I'm not saying change anything it's how your board functions what your bylaws say you have anything you just want to make sure that you're functioning how your bylaws say you should be right you have policy, but typically it's there's no
028real set rule on that. It's whatever you guys feel works best here. And that's a conversation complaint to the chief school administrator. We could call it CSA direct. huge make sure the superintendent knows no matter who else but make sure the superintendent knows that's the biggest normally something I would do both time. Yeah. I think you know if somebody goes to to gym and touch it up the school bus has been late for the last two days at this bus stop. That's something that has to come. Exactly. Absolutely. Exactly. But if it's something, you know, I heard the kids were talking about somebody having a weapon high school. Right. Right. Absolutely. And that's really the differences that I'm talking about major. If you and you guys work in committees, correct? So I don't know if
029you run every district is different. So some districts I have where if you had a the bus issue, you'd call, you know, if you have a transportation committee, you call them or maybe Barbara as the Um, but you know, don't go hard. But, you know, every district runs just a little bit different. So, it's however you have it set up. If you have it that your committee chair would take a call about something minor, you know, but something just like, you know, just like you said, maybe the bus was late three times. I just want to give you a heads up. That may go to a committee chair. I'm not sure how you have it worked out, but however it is, keep doing it if it's working for you. Okay? Not saying you have to
030I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to specialist parts and political groups and use schools personal opinions. Exactly. So make decisions based on your district goals and policies. That's why you set them. Don't be swayed by your special interest groups again or the political groups which again So the board president ask Wrong answer. That is definitely not a good idea. Um the candidate running for his first term on the board promises in his campaign that he will do anything in his power to help the district start a nice hockey team this year. Actually they can because their candidates. They haven't signed the code of ethics yet and they can promise whatever they want. Is it a smart idea? Not really. Unless you know that the board's gonna, you know, stand behind you. But honestly,
031you really shouldn't be making promises. But because it's a candidate and not a board member, they can. How about now? How about if you're on the board and you're running for election again? Well, if you're still a board member, Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No, because you've already you're still that board member. Yep. Good point. U board member who has to serve as advocate for his brother and sister-in-law when they meet in the chat to discuss. No. Not best practice at all. So in other words, New Jersey school board members are the only politicians in the United States have actually supposedly. Yes. Yes. Uhuh. I don't know. Every every I will tell you that every state has some type of code of ethics. Florida actually has um three hours of ethics training. So one one's not
032that bad. You have one to go through all this G1, G2. That's not all. That's not ethics. Your ethics training every year is basically going over the code of ethics and it's about an hour. So maybe we ought to go to Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. I will call all matters which informed. That's your fourth function is communication on the progress and needs of the district. You really key communicators to the district, but it has to be the correct information that you're getting out there and not confidential information. Don't discuss confidential matters with any of the board and I won't add my hypothetically a board member during executive session texting confidential information to a member of the public who's waiting outside so he or she would be able to ask specific questions to of the
033board during the public comment session just happened again more than really does and you know we figured years and years ago when cell phones were first coming out I remember we all had our phones out but texting wasn't quite that big at that point you know but phones were and you know everybody had really members taken pictures of thatwhere. It's not a game, but they're using phones for everything. So, consider the recommendations of the superintendent on all matters to education. undermine the decision of the board. In other words, um you have hired your executive or your educational leader, your superintendent, and hopefully you will be on the same page so that you're all looking for the same type of person who recommendation for a hire so that you will um understand why he or she
034is recommending that person to you. And it doesn't take away your right to vote whatever way you want, obviously, but If a decision does not go your way and say it's a 62 vote, would it be? It'd be a 63. Yeah. Or a 72. Say it's a 72 vote and I'm one of the two and it didn't go my way. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to walk out and start bad mouthing that because I think people made a really bad decision or do you want me to put on my big old pants and start dealing with it and say, "Okay, you know what? It wasn't my choice, but I support the board. If that many of us voted for it, then let's work towards it and see if it
035works. You know what? It's being a team player. It really is. It's really what it comes down. Go ahead. Isn't being a team player also supporting the recommendation of the superintendent even though we might have second thoughts about that recommendation? Sure. And and it is it really But sometimes there may come vote or you just feel so strongly about it that you feel you need to vote no. What I would tell you is that if it's a personnel matter, I would really be supportive. And here's why. Because I'm that teacher that you're going to hire and it's a 63 vote, 54 vote. Do I really want to work here when you guys I know that almost half of you don't want me, you know? That's something that you really need to think about when you're
036doing a personnel vote. But if it's anything else, and there there may be, you know, sometime somebody is just so passionate that they feel that they need to vote no and maybe there's a reason. Maybe they actually state why they feel that need and and the superintendent's okay, they understand that and that's why. But you're right. I mean, we do want you to be a team player and that is part of it, but you can't take away someone's right to you know, yes or no. So there you have it. But being a team Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Typically not. Typically not. Um, can you ask him questions? Absolutely. You know, the board can ask him questions. Um, but that would be the exception. So, it wouldn't be that. No, no, no, no, no. The
037board the board hires the super. Absolutely. That's the biggest job that you do. So, we say so we ask Tony um not names or anything of our superintendent. What would he recommend us to be something like that? Those are would that be a question that would be okay to ask? Sure, you can ask. Absolutely. Sure, you can ask for those things because he's been here for a while, but get the lay of the land and, you know, kind of know the culture and Sure, those are questions, you know, and and actually the firm that you're usually using hopefully will have met with your staff, administration, and your um and your community to find the criteria that you're looking for so that you have a tone of what everyone wants. Okay? And you know, Antonio might
038actually be in that administrative group to answer the same questions. So, a board member writes up an evaluation of his children's teachers up to speed and gives that to the principal. That's a big fat no, right? Show it to the teacher. What? And I go right back to the only person that the board evaluates is the superintendent. Not any teachers or anyone else. Even as a parent, it's not your job to write an evaluation. If you have a complaint, go to the teacher and then take it through the board creates policy that directs the board at least two finals for every administrative position. You actually can. Is that best practice? I'm not sure because actually he will only recommend one person. So bringing you Does that make any sense? You know, I I do I
039do know that my superintendent, we had the board felt like, you know, they they were kind of becoming a rubber stamp. They wanted to just know he he was an amazing guy that actually hired phenomenal people. So, it wasn't a matter of who were questioning the choice. It was just how did you get to that? How did you know? How did you know? And we just wanted to kind of pick his brain a little bit. So, we actually he created it was kind of neat. He created a where he we didn't want names, we didn't want anything else. Not really background. Just tell us what stood out on candidate A and candidate Bur like during the interview that that made you say this is an amazing teacher and then he'd bring it to us and
040we'd kind of listen and say, "Wow, makes sense." You know, and it was really kind of neat and this is why I'm proposing and I'm going to present to you candidate A, you know, and it was really good, but it was communication piece. That's all that was. Um, you can do this, but honestly, again, you're being recommended one person. So, it doesn't make sense for that for the superintendent to bring you the two because if you say you want candidate B and the superintendent brings you candidate A, now you have a little protect performance. So, support and protect your personel. the chain of command publicly criticized that I can't tell you how many times I've heard football games standing next to people and hearing all the complaints and hopefully it's not a board member because
041you know what I complaints administrative officer will act on complaints public and don't make any promises to help or act on those. Okay. soccer personnel committee setting up a process that enables teaching staff members to bring issues directly to them in order to clear the air and improve morale. That is probably one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. Absolutely not. Okay. As much as and I will tell you flat out as a disclaimer, most of my best friends are teachers. So I say this very openly and I tell them that the NJA makes it very clear to their members that they have a chain of command also. That chain of command does not include calling a board member and saying hey can you do this for me? Hey I've got this going on. I
042have one I have a district right now where it's rampant. the president of the NGA is constantly on the phone and it's just it's becoming overwhelming. So, it happens a lot and it should but they know better. Also, as much as we tell you as board members, you know, your chain of command and your chain of command is not to be calling staff members and saying, "Hey, how do you feel about that new program?" Or, "Hey, how's moral going?" That's not a board member's job. So, you shouldn't be reaching out to staff and staff should not be reaching out to board members. There's an exception if you are a parent and you're talking to that teacher about your child. That's absolutely fine, but it shouldn't have anything to do with what matters. There's always thatusion
043that you never know. That's it. Um, I will tell you in your packet on the right hand side is one of my favorite little pieces that actually says, "How many board members does it take to uh screw in a light bulb?" None. It's not your job. The board says, "Let there be light." And the superintendent says, "How much, how many, whatever." And the board pays for it. And that's as far as that goes. Um, there's the same The dos and don'ts are kind of like a marble color I guess. Um common areas of concern are in here. Um recusing advisories. There's some of the theory and practice. Um second to the last on the right hand side is the acknowledgement of receipt. You need to sign that. It's a white piece of paper and you
044need to give that to Barbara so she can have that on hand for Q. Shall we get You get credit for your ethics training. Yes. Yes. Now, those who aren't here, they have another opportunity. Have to wait until October when uh school boards is how does that work, Robin? We already signed this last week. Okay. If that's what you'll accept as them knowing the code of ethics, that's that's up to you guys. That's certainly your call if you have them signed and you have them on hand and there's a copy in the folder for you and that's up to you. I I'm not I'm not the ethics police. Okay. if you wanted me to meet with them and to go over because there's some new board members. Yeah. So, I mean, I could certainly set
045up a date where I can sit with them. Yeah, absolutely. It's not a problem. All right. Any other questions? I'm really losing them. I'm so sorry. I'm like crackling like a teenager here. Sorry. Um, okay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Oh, you're welcome. Thanks. And uh Marilyn, congratulations. Who's VP? Uh Jamie De. Okay. Beautiful. Beautiful. Good. Well, congratulations. Good luck. Good luck with the search. Let me know if you need anything as far as governance goes. When are you next year? Next year. Maybe. Maybe. Well, if we're in good shape, trying to figure that all out, then we can just get a pass. Yeah, they're they're working on this, you know. Hopefully, maybe I just See see what our score All right. Good night everybody. Do you need your evaluation? Absolutely. Thank
046you for a short recess now. A second. Yes. Recess before our before our meeting reconvenes at let's say 7:30. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We will reconvene our meeting at 7:30. You can all up and get ready for your picture. I just have a question with regards to the workshop 2014 that they're having to pay $200, but you're not going to necessarily see all the workshops that are being offered or are you going to attend a Yeah, first when I first read it, I thought it was easy on all the highlights from the workshop at this whole meeting. I realiz I wanted to see I was thinking You've already got other. No, I I totally overlook it because I didn't focus. It got focused. last night. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You guys ready?
047Well, we don't have we don't have everybody here. Oh, that's right. I don't have I don't know. Is that kid? Yeah, that's not Test. Test. Hello. Hello. Test. Hello. One. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Yeah. Test. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Last test. Test. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Yeah. Oh my god. Test. 1. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. As your screen, how you Can I bargain for one big group shot of everybody? Yeah, we got one. Do I need you guys for a group shot of all board members? No. All right, bro. You have to be in the picture. Hello. How are you? Nothing. never comes in my hand. How are you? We're going to Washington.
048I heard Is it once again? Great idea. There you go. There are Right. How are you? Oh god. One of my favorite things to do. Well, I just got my hair done. How's that feel? We just got Danny back to school. He started school today. But he did have a job interview. Haven't heard anything yet. It seems like he keeps getting all these offers. He goes for it and you know hang there. I think you're going to You definitely got slightly. Thank you. Hey, happy to. Thank you. How are you? Hey, did you get to be jealous? I think he's doing that. She just Yeah, we already Good. Good evening everybody. I'd like to reconvene the meeting. Um we left off at superintendence report just went through a ethics training course from school board. So
049that's what we completed and we're going to move forward. Um the first thing I'd like to do is invite a very important gentleman up here. Uh post commander veteran of foreign wars, Mr. Patrick. Come on up. and also the district commander, Bill Johnson to come up because we have some students we'd like to recognize this evening for I'm going to let these gentlemen explain it to you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're we're here to present the awards for our Voice of Democracy contest, which is a scholarship contest. And if you are not familiar with the Voice of Democracy contest, I just have a little official diddy here to let you know what we're talking about. Each year, nearly 40,000 high school students from across the country enter to win a share of the $2.2
0502 million in educational scholarships and incentives awarded through the VFW's Voice of Democracy audio essay competition. The VFW established the Voice of Democracy program in 1947 to provide students grades 9 through 12 the opportunity to express themselves in regards to democratic ideals and principles. The National First Place winner receives $30,000 scholarship. Ladies and gentlemen, $30,000 pay directly to the recipients American University College or Vocational Technical School. Our national scholarship range from 1,000 to $16,000. And the first place winner from each state department wins an all expense paid trip to Washington DC and $5,000 and $5,000. That's pennies. So uh this is a a worthwhile competition and uh through the help of uh the school of the high school uh we run this competition every year and we have three winners. First, second and third. Uh
051our first place winner has an excellent essay and he's going to read it to you so you can hear what we're talking about. And uh we also have uh their awards and plaques from the post. Uh unfortunately uh it only went this far for our three contestants. Uh I hope that does not discourage them or anyone else. Uh I hope next year they do it again. They now uh sort of know the rules. The rules are kind of stringent and uh you have to follow them to the letter. So it's always good to have somebody repeat and come back and uh we hope that they do and not get discouraged this time. And at this point, I would like to turn this over to Mr. Bill Johnson. He is the district commander of the of
052the district here for the BFW. And he was nice enough to come here and support me and to give out the awards to these special people. So, with that, I'll give this over to Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Pat. Actually, I used to work for Pat. Now I'm his boss. We always like that. Uh this is a really a valuable program that the BF been doing for so many years. And most of the winners at the top end have participated for four or five years, gotten better at it as they went along. And uh so we want to encourage the parents and the teachers to encourage the kids to participate every year and uh they also get a little stipened even at this level. So, uh, we're very proud of them and we're very proud of
053the the, uh, things that they write and say. It is sort of refreshing in this day and age to find out that there are some kids out there who still understand what's going on and why and uh, how we became the country that we are. So, our first place winner was Matt Ventilla. Matt talk later. Just stand where they can see. We'll get We'll let you talk. Uh John Gomez, congratulations. Right. This uh says that Veterans of Foreign War uh and the Voice of Democracy award citation presented to this one's for Andrea and sincere appreciation and recognition valuable cooperation and assistance rendered on behalf of the Voice of Democracy audio essay competition. each uh our little envelopes there are sales receipts for uh Ferraris. Oh, no. They're they're uh what what we award our winners.
054And third place is 50 bucks and second place is 100 bucks and first place is 150 bucks. Uh I I wish it was the $30,000 award, but at least ink they use to write the essay and if it's all right with our first place winner uh I would like to have him read his very excellent essay for us Good evening, members of the board, members of the DFW Post, teachers, students, parents. Thank you everybody in attendance tonight. Um, I'd like to share a little story that I wrote for you and it's about a young boy named Johnny Smith who goes to Washington DC for the first time on a school field trip. One day, the energetic Johnny Smith ran excitedly over to his grandfather, a Vietnam War veteran. "Grandpa! Grandpa!" cried Johnny, "Guess where I'm
055going for my eighth grade field trip. He could hardly wait for his grandfather's guess and exclaimed with emotion, I get to go to Washington, DC, our nation's capital." The boy's grandfather gazed at him with a smile on his face, a look in which of itself expressed an ineffable proudness. He was glad to see that his grandson would finally get to travel to our nation's capital and experience our nation's history. The grandfather spoke with wisdom toward his grandson, saying, "That's great, Johnny, and I'm very happy for you, but there's one question that I want you to investigate for me while you're exploring our nation's capital. That is, why are veterans important to our nation's history and future?" The boy nodded his head and was eager to discover the answer to his grandfather's question. As the bus
056drove down Constitution Avenue in Washington, Johnny Smith gazed with amazement at all the white marble buildings which towered over him. He had just spent the year completing his first American history class and couldn't wait to experience all that he had just learned. His class saw the typical field trip sites in DC, the White House, the Capital, the Smithsonian, etc. He enjoyed all of them, and when seeing each one, he felt light-hearted and carefree. He cherished all these brilliant sites, but Johnny did not yet fully comprehend why all this was possible. That evening, Johnny and his class visited the National Mall, the home of the Vietnam War Memorial. As he stroed along the path which led to the wall, the solemn atmosphere around the wall struck him immediately. He felt the somber silence, and the sight
057before him was unfathomable. There stood the long black wall of stone upon which the names of our nation's fallen heroes were inscribed in order to be honored infinitely. As Johnny stroed along the path, he could not believe the sight before his eyes. There were hundreds of names on each panel of the wall. And there were hundreds of panels on the wall. over 58,000 names in total. The names seemed to stretch on without limit, and each one remembered a fallen soldier. The boy shed tears thinking about what was before him. All of these men and women had died in this one war. And to think about how many wars there have been in our nation's history and in the history of the world. Too many deaths, too many casualties. It was not It was at this
058moment of viewing the wall that the boy experienced a revelation. Their sacrifices must not be forgotten. Their effort shall not have been done in vain. The boy realized that all the other sites which he had seen and loved were possible because of the brave men and women who had fought and died so that others may live freely. Our nation was won by the courage of veterans and we must honor them and preserve our history. Since those who forget history often repeat it, future generations must not forget the war. They must be educated of humanity's past in order to better the future. What Johnny in this story is trying to express is that veterans are important to our nation's history and f and future for two main reasons. First, that nearly all of our history has
059been able to occur largely because of the bravery and selflessness of our nation military. Secondly, that veterans are vital to the future security and freedom of our nation. This is because by honoring our nation's veterans, we not only repay them with greatly deserved respect, but we also teach our future generations the importance of sacrifice and of valor. From our nation's founding, veterans have played an essential role in America. During the Revolutionary War, it was the brave soldiers and militia men who offered their lives fighting for our nation's independence and fighting to better the lives of their posterity. It is inarguable that today we are a nation because of their efforts. Their descendants later fought bravely during the Civil War in order to preserve what their forefathers had won 90 years earlier. In doing so, they
060helped to promote the American ideals of universal freedom and the equality of all citizens. They truly saved the Union. Flash forward another 80 years to World War II. With a world in chaos, our soldiers once again answered the call to arms and fought to ensure freedom around the globe. They protected our nation while simultaneously promoting our ideals to better the world. This virtue has been seen more recently in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the ongoing war against terrorism. American men and women have bravely answered the call to lead when others would not. American men and women have stood up to protect our nation's rights and the rights of other nations when others would not. Today, the world is in need of leaders. And who is better to lead than our nation's veterans? As
061we look towards the future, it is essential that our students not only learn about these important periods of history, but that they also learn about the actual men and women that define those eras. These men and women are none other than our nation's veterans. They're the definition of sheer dedication and selflessness. By personally interacting with, assisting, and learning from our veterans, it is the first step of expressing our endless gratitude. We must now stand up for our veterans as they have done for us. They will teach us volumes about the importance of self-sacrifice. In order to look towards the future, we must first learn from and honor those brave men and women that came before us. Upon returning home, Johnny Smith approached his grandfather. As his grandfather looked at him, he said, "Johnny, did you
062get to look into that question that I asked you about earlier?" His grandson smiled proudly at his grandfather, saluted him, and said, "I did, Grandpa. I just wanted to say Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to thank also all the teachers and the parents and the students that participated and the board of education for allowing our program to exist in the school system. Thank you. Thank you. Patrick and Bill, thank you so much. Uh we like working with the community. We're happy to work with the BFW and certainly uh honored to be part of this program and we're very happy for our students. And with that being said, Matthew, that was an excellent speech, excellent writing, and we're very proud of you. Uh have you been to the war memorial over in DC? Have you
063seen that? I have. It was kind of an illusion about like my personal experience. Okay, great. It's that and the Korean War Memorial was the one that really uh seeing those figures up in place is very touching. So, great job. And on behalf of the board of education, we'd like to each one of you please come on up to Matthew again and John and to Andrea. This is from us. Congratulations. We're very proud of each and every one of you. Says, "Well, I was waiting for Mr. Foody. He didn't quite finish writing out the check. So, and it has here that attained recognition for the as a winner of the VFW Voice of Democracy essay contest and is hereby awarded the certificate and it's signed by our fourth president, Miss Marilyn Schultz, also by me.
064So, congratulations. We're very proud of all of you and keep up the good work. All right, I think at this time I'd like to Nichollet, are you ready to give a little report and then we can do our presentation? Thank you. Good evening ladies and gentlemen and personal for me this year with new opportunities and success for students at West High School. Beginning with athletics, all of our wonderful sports are officially in session. The bowling team is off to a great start and is 110 with victories against Hills. The ice hockey team is also doing well with victories over valley during the regular season. Recently, our varsity wrestling team has had an exciting experience at Madison Square Garden. And speaking of travel, our boys basketball team at Disney over winter break while girls basketball. As
065for individual athlete recognition, congratulations to senior Eric for being included in the New Jersey football coaches association super and congrats to senior Joe Hockey team who is named the New Jersey Devils player of the month for December. Regarding academic competitions, this month the high school English department spearheaded a school qualifier for poetry out loud, a national poetry recitation contest. Um, poetry out loud encourages students to memorize and explore poetry while promoting public speaking skills. After winning the competition at the West Coffee House, freshman will advance to the next level. Also this past weekend, our model United team experienced success during 4day conference at Columbia University in New York City in which 20 delegates took on the roles of ambassadors, statesmen, council members, and CEOs in order to take on our world's most pressing issues. Ultimately,
066we won one third place title and fourth place titles. I'm also uh I'm also proud to announce the success of our band students and their auditions this past weekend for the New Jersey region band. 16 students recently placed into our region's bands with two students earning the distinction of first chair for their respective. Next, thanks to the facilitation of our guidance department, January has been an excellent month for exam, college, and career preparation. After a break, juniors received their PSP score reports from guidance alongside tools that will help them interpret their scores and view them online. On Thursday, January 8th, alumni day was followed in which graduates from the classes of 2013 and 2014 visit our visited our students in order to inform them about their academic, extracurricular, vocational, and living experiences at college. On
067Monday the 12th, our PAL National Honor Society members led freshman transition groups um briefing the freshman on how to prepare and effectively study for midterms examinations. Afterward, seniors participated in a soft skill workshop that focused on important skills such as interview confidence and resume building. All of these end endeavors definitely speak to recent parent survey results which show that about 73% of West Mer parents feel that their children are being adequately prepared for their future after attending the high school. A figure far above that of the first survey taken in 2004 which was in the 60th percentile. As for upcoming events tomorrow students will attend an assembly on suicide awareness and on February 4th at 6 p.m. there will be a workshop for the parents of our college round seniors in the media center. Lastly,
068the second mark period officially ends on Tuesday, February 3rd, and all grades will be finalized. That's it for I didn't know if I missed something. Did you have the one in this past Sunday with the indoor had a uh a competition here at the school with about 13 other teams and we were concerned about the weather, especially with all the ice, but that did So that was a good event for all of us. Um and certainly I just want to comment on the alumni day. That was my first time to actually sit in a little bit to see that and very impressed with the first of all the number of students that actually came back to share their experience in college. Uh and they met with supervisors. They were in classrooms with teachers and students.
069I overall Mr. Hler, thank you for hosting at the high school. I thought that was a wonderful uh program for everybody. So great job. Uh this time. Who am I calling on first this evening? Two presenters. Okay. So, Miss Jennifer Miller will be doing a presentation from Paradise N School. Uh, as you know, each uh board meeting we've been having a featured principal or two and tonight Miss will be doing again. Thank you, Jen, for being here. Thank you everybody. It's okay. I think I'm gonna speak from this side. I tend to notic anybody my standard. Turn the screen. So, good evening everyone. I'm Jennifer Miller, the principal of Paradise Middle School. Um, besid me, new new board members getting the pictures taken tonight. You know that gentleman who's taking the pictures and you'll happen
070to notice that in my presentation I have more slides with photos than I have with words. Um, because I like to show you what's really going on at Paradise Hall with with teaching and learning. So, you're going to you're going to see a lot of pictures of teachers and students interacting um based on the three areas that we're focusing on in building this year um for for improvement. Our first uh building goal for this year is that we are going to be applying for a promising practice award through school of character as we prepare to apply as a school of character next year. So the promising practice award um is a smaller award but still um still a very honorable award to receive. Um and working with in conjunction with the uh building based character
071education committee that's comprised of teachers. What we did this year is we added another layer to that where we created a character ambassador club of students. And instead of um using the teachers to kind of run uh what we call asmbies at at Paradise Null. We're now using our student ambassadors, our character ambassadors um to run those assemblies and make them more meaningful. So, some of the things that we were doing last year that we've kind of tweaked and have enhanced this year. Um we're still doing our character token incentive, meaning that students are given uh tokens of good character that they can come down to the main office and visit with me and share with me their their act of good character and um receive a small kind of token from me. Um, but
072we have focused each month on an actual character trait. So, we do all of our teaching that month about that particular trait. So, September was respect and so on. Um, whereas last year we were we were kind of including every every trait within each month. This year we're this year we're more focused per month. When students do come down with their tokens, they're also awarded brag tags by me um which they get to wear for the entire day and they symbolize say what their act of character was. So, for example, if they were um helping out another student or another friend, their brag tag might say um helping hands or helpful friends. And then throughout the day, other students can say, "Hey, what did you do to get that brag tag?" And then we're kind
073of spreading the good message of of their act of character to their classmates. Um we do have spirit assemblies each month where we recognize all of the students for their acts of good character. But again, we're using those student ambassadors, those character ambassadors this year to actually teach formal lessons on the next month's trait to get students ready for what they're going to be focusing on in the next month. And they're using the students who were recognized that month for receiving a token of good character within the assembly. So, it's all completely student driven and student involved. Um, I was kind of all out of ideas last year where I was kind of running them and and writing the agendas for each of them. The students have far better ideas than have and including them
074more um has been just so so much more fulfilling for them. Um we also have some challenges going on throughout the year either yearong or monthlong to motivate positive behavior and to incentivize character um and encourage widespread use of our project uh adventure core values. So here you see some students who received um uh character tokens. They came down to my office. They get their brag tag. You can see them hanging around their necks there. They also receive um a little slip of paper that goes home to mom and dad that kind of outlines what it was that they did in school that day that was a particular good act of character. So, mom and dad can talk to them about that act at home and encourage them to continue along that path. This is
075our current challenge incentive that we have going for the month of January. is our behavior on the school bus as well as our polite interactions with our bus driver and with our friends on the bus. So students are encouraged to use their um appropriate manners, say hello to their bus driver in the morning, speak to each other kindly on the bus. And then what I did was I went ahead and took all the bus drivers pictures. These did not come out as well as my husband's pictures of you all I'm sure will. Um, but just to also kind of put a face with the name and to have students get to know their bus driver. Um, bus drivers are then um using a little rating sheet that I gave them just rating the interactions between
076the students that day. Um, and at the end of the month, we'll tally up all the rating sheets. As you can see, I have a running tally going right now so that so the students can see which class is kind of in the lead as far as we have the best bus behavior. At the end of the month, they will receive a handsome reward. That strange ugly thing in the middle is the golden spatula. The golden spatula is motivating our wonderful lunch and recess behavior. My phys teacher, Mrs. Jill Cullen, has the golden sneaker in PE. So, I decided that I would um kind of rip on her idea and create the golden spatula. So, as you can see on the left, these are the rules that are um followed during lunch and recess where
077we are um cleaning up after ourselves. We're being we're following directions and listening to our lunch aids. We're lining up quietly to head out to recess. We're coming back inside in an orderly fashion. So, as long as each day they meet all of those requirements, the students lunch aids are then putting a stamp on their spatula that is also hanging in the cafeteria. The stamp is a fourth of a spoon. It's really sure you can't see it from there, but so each class has a spatula and when they reach 10 stamps on their spatula, the golden spatula hanging there in the middle is in their classroom in the morning. and I announced over the PA speaker room in the morning which class has the golden spatula and they absolutely love and enjoy being recognized for
078um their polite and respectful behavior in the lunchroom and and that recess. Um I did dip that spatula in butter. We also use our spirit assemblies to u to focus on our core values through project adventure. So these are just some examples of the spirit assembly from September where the teachers um separated their classes out within the allp purpose room there and we set goals for the year as a class short-term and long-term goals. So this is an example of each class working together to set some short and long-term goals and then those large bow tie sheets are hanging in each classroom so that the teacher can refer back to those goals. this month being January and kind of New Year's resolutions and midway through the year as an activity. During this month, they will
079revisit their goals and look and see how many of them they have already met um and how what they can do to strategize to ensure that they meet any long-term goals that they have not yet met. Our other area of focus this year is English language arts instruction. We're constantly focusing on implementing best practices and guide reading as it is shown to be the best tool to move readers along the lad of progress. As a school, as a as a faculty, we collect data and analyze all of our founders and panel records, our conferring notes. We have regular communication between all the teachers, the encore teacher, the reading specialist, the resource room teachers. We also have a school-based guided reading committee that we did start as part of building school last year. We're continuing that
080work as well. And what they do in addition to the rest of the faculty is they move us forward in terms of they are studying professional books. Right now we're reading the next step in graded reading. They're attending workshops such as the Saturday uh reunion at Columbia University and they're turnkeying all of these great ideas and good practices back to the faculty in faculty meetings and we're constantly to learn and move ahead. So again, we're we're continuing the work of the teacherbased guided reading committee that was started last year. The book room um is for the most part finished. Uh at Paradise Mall, we did not have a location for materials that are needed for guided reading. Um but we were fortunate enough to kind of complete that and turn an unused space, actually an
081old custodial closet into the book room. So now teachers have a place to go to find these materials that they need to facilitate uh graded reading instruction. And we're adding now this year we're adding to those materials by creating centers so that teachers also have a place to go to find center materials that they can just actually bring right back into their classroom and begin to facilitate those centers right away. just some examples of what some of our um classrooms look like in terms of related to literacy or broad reading. And our third area focus this year is again continuing our focus on mathematics. We started a very specific focus last year at Paradise Mall to create and implement instructional uh and learning opportunities for students so that they were more actively engaged in mathematics
082um and god forbid having a little bit of fun at the same time. So again we're continuing work with our teacher based making math fun committee. We are also creating centers for ma for mathematics so that we can implement a guided math model similar to guided reading where the teacher can pull students to a small table and work with them more intensely one-on-one or in small group. We also needed a place for these math materials um for teachers to find manipulatives and centers to be able to pull them to implement into their classroom. Um so again, I was resourceful and found an unused space in the building. There are not many left. Um an old closet that had lots of things in it that needed to be moved out. So we have the And now
083we have the math closet. Um, and that is where we are housing all of our math manipulatives and where teachers can find centers that they can easily take out and put into their classroom and begin to implement those right away. Our building based math committee has a lot of teachers on it that also serve on the district's committee that our math coach Rachel Rachel Sean has started. So that's a great dialogue between what goes on on the district level and then back um to the building level. Okay, we also are discussing creating these engaging lessons and using these centers and how to collect data back from students so that we can quantify whether they are truly engaged, whether they are truly um learning through these engaging lessons. And then we also share those ideas out
084in faculty meetings. We also share out again those ways to collect data back from the classroom teachers to ensure that students are becoming engaged with some of these ideas that we that we've implemented. One of these such ideas last year we created third and fourth grade teachers um and myself we created a competition called math wars where students worked collaboratively in groups across the two grade levels and they competed in solving highlevel math word problems and they they worked on that in the classroom over several weeks and then ultimately the competition took place at school during one afternoon. um and they had an absolute blast and it was just really fun watching them problem solve and work through mathematics together across grade levels. So we are going to expand math wars this year. We will
085not only have a third and fourth grade competition, but we're going to move it up to fifth and sixth grade. So we'll be having two math wars this year. This is an example of a data collection. Uh this teacher uses a what's stuck with you board where each student has a student number and one of her fun, engaging lessons that she created. She asked students three questions. They answer those questions on sticky notes and then they leave them right on their student number so she can go back later and look through their feedback. Um, so she's checking for understanding with one of those questions um or two of those questions. And then the third question, again, she was trying to collect data on did you have fun? Was this lesson engaging? Would you want to
086do something like this again? Um, so that's just another level of data uh that we're trying to collect from our students to continue to move forward with the fun, engaging lessons that we're trying to plan for students. Again, just some examples of the different center ideas that teachers may be using in their classrooms. The top photo there is um a fun and engaging way that our encore teacher has her her students who are struggling a little bit with math working on their math facts on their own. They each have their own little leprechaun and they are trying to get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And we finally have some place to house these wonderful things. Again, going back to that now we have book room and math closet. This
087is inside the math closet where we have everything organized. Teachers can go in, they're doing a lesson where they need manipulatives or counters or blocks or counting cubes. All these things live in the math closet. They can go right in, pull these things down and facilitate those lessons right away. They don't have to scramble around, ask colleagues for things, and just have them right there as a go-to. And teachers are also creating centers where those tubs on the in the righth hand photo there will just be taken into a classroom and again facilitated uh right away. We are always focused on student achievement at Paradise Hall and helping every student meet their their greatest success and we really believe with these three core areas of focus that we will again do that this year. So
088thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Nice to see all the activities going on and how you tie them together. If you don't mind, I can get everything set up for the UK. Um, I'd like to report on the midyear report from our policy. This goes to the state sent to the state. Um unfortunately I was going to print out some information for you but the font is about size one. So I will I will discuss this verbally and then give you the package because we do have to vote on accepting this next meeting. So I just wanted to run through quickly and it's kind of a good transition from what Jim was talking about. So the things that they look Core element number one includes all H programs and initiatives within
089the district. Core two is training of the board of ed on the board of approve policy. That's our policy. Core element number three other staff instruction things that we do uh in the schools other than what's in the policy itself. Go on to curriculum instructionated information and skills. This would include things that come from attorneys. Many of the that the specialist advisor part of so forth and then we move on to personnel incident reporting investigation procedures that you know the hit policies will be reporting them to the board of education they are quite extensive as far as investigations that take place and number eight is reporting how we report these so I am happy to report to everybody in the community and to the school board uh basically I look the scores from 2012 and
09013. Um the highest you can receive on these scores is a 75. Last year we scored a 64 uh was okay. I mean you know moving uh moving along but happily I just want to give you a little breakdown as to the current scores for the 2013 14. This is called the midyear report because the information was given to us in December. So in the category of programs and approaches the maximum score is 15. We our scores were between 12 and 14. The maximum score for training on the board that approved policy is a nine. We scored between six and eight. Uh staff instruction maximum is 15. We scored between 12 and 14. On the curriculum and instruction embedded into our schools, the highest score is a six. All of our received a six uh
091personnel hip personnel high scores of nine. We score between seven and nine when I say between because we have so many schools that's the range of numbers that we have. Uh school level hip incident reporting procedures maximum number is six. We score five and investigation procedures. The highest score is 12. We have a 12. uh and reporting straight six. No, sorry, it's a six, but we score between four and six. And finally, the overall grade for this year for the West Co schools 70. So, we went up six points. Again, the highest score is 78. So, uh six points is uh something to be proud of and I think we're in the right direction and you can see that happening. You know, if you visit your children's schools, uh us as board members get these
092reports and presentations from principles. Uh you can clearly Everybody is focusing on in on having students understand the right things to do and that when they make mistakes because everybody makes mistakes, we're going to have to support them and then finding the right ways to go about these things and make things right. So, I'm happy to report that to you. I will have a nice package for you to the next meeting that we just agree on hopefully. And but it is it's it's good stuff. We moved at six points and moving in the right direction. So, All right. So, um the other area where we would like to go, you know, of course, looking at students success, uh would be in the area of testing and as most of us know, starting in March of
093this year and the end of May, we will have the park assessments which are brand new to every school district in the state along with a few other states. But it's been very very taxing. It's created some anxiety amongst everyone because we don't know exactly what's happening. Uh we've had some uh trial testing going on last spring which went well for us and but the the real program the real testing starts this year. So with that in mind uh Miss Brennan uh Kate Brennan who's our test coordinator for the district has been going around to a couple of different schools. There's a schedule on our website uh that explains where these meetings are. I did attend the very first very nice job. But I did invite her here this evening so that you other community
094members could see this and also more importantly I would like the board to understand what this testing is about because we talk about it an awful lot. We talk about spending money on computes and other software and things that we need to make this happen and uh I thought that it would be beneficial for all of us have a better understanding. So without any further ado I'd like to thank you. So, thank you very much for your attention this evening. I would like to welcome for those of you who don't know me, I am blessed to be the district coordinator. My name is Mario Brennan. And I'd like to start with this slide that is on our fourth families tab on our district website that not only this contact information, but as well as all
095of the members of the testing team. We have a building testing coordinator and each building and um I have listed the contact information for each one of those numbers. Also on that page you will find a list of all of the state assessments that we do throughout the course of the year as well as some of our district. However, just as Mr. said this evening I will be focusing our conversation on the which is subt. So I just like to spend a little bit of time discussing what is park and what is the acronym? It's the partnership for assessments and readiness for college and careers. The assessment consortium there's two of them in the nation is one of them goes goes to measure a student's readiness for college and careers as well as their proficiency
096against the common four state standards. I have provided some factual information about park. I'm not going to go over everything that's on the website this evening. I encourage you to attend one of my parent sessions for some more indepth look at what is and the various types of test questions that are involved as well as some of the sample items. So if you attend a parent session, one of which will be at high school, um you will actually sit at computers and look at some of the sample I also encourage you to look at one of the videos that I posted a link to. It is a video that I think is very worthwhile because it comes from the national PTA. So it is not a source that is connected to park. However, they have
097created a series of videos to explain to parents what is park, why are we doing park, and how can it be beneficial to our students and to our school. So who is participating in park? All students from grades 3 through 11 will be participating in this year's park assessment and we believe that will be the case going forward. The park assessments are administered in two 20day window. So that's a total of 40 days of testing capability. That does not equate to 40 days of testing. We'll get to the actual amount of time we will spend testing in just a moment. However, the testing window that is provided by the state allows us to test at any during that window. Okay, so 20 days for the PBA which is the performance based assessment that begins in
098March and then 20 days again for the end of year assessments that begin in late April. You'll notice that for the EO, which is the end of year assessment, there is a difference in dates between grades 3 through 8 as well as for grades 9 through 11. And that uh difference in the week is to accommodate the AP testing that will happen in the high school in May. So, we get to start the EOI park assessment early in the high school and trust me, we will be taking advantage of that extra week of time. Okay. So, I wanted to give you a rough schedule of when students in which grade levels will be testing. Okay, so if you take a look um those are the times that we have scheduled for the majority of the
099students to take that assessment by grade level. Okay. However, if there are students who are testing with extended time or other setting accommodations, and by that I mean small group, one-on-one, etc., etc., then their schedule will be slightly different because it is based on the students as well as our availability of technology and facilities as well as fact. Now again I would like to just return to the idea that even though these are the dates that we've scheduled for testing we can test students any time during that 20day testing window. So that gives us time if there is a closure during uh in weather. There is an ability to be flexible with our schedule in the case that we have a hiccup with technology. We are testing in all nine buildings at the same time.
100Okay. And I have full confidence when I developed that schedule that we will be able to do it. Our technology team is ready. We have vetted the system via the pilot last year. Our technology has surpassed many other districts. We have met all the readiness standards. We surpassed all the readiness standards. And I truly believe that we ready to tackle this. But in the event that we are not, we do have that extra time built into that. So I mentioned the testing window several times and on the website what I have actually done is created a table to show you the actual testing time in total. So this is a chart in minutes. Okay, so if you're looking at the chart, you'll see that the average third grader is allotted 360 minutes to take the
101assessment. The third grade will be taking one unit per day because this is their first state assessment. We didn't want to wear them out. We wanted to make sure that we were testing them in the best case scenario. So they will actually take a full week to test. Now the number underneath the 360 is the estimated time on task. So based on the pilot, the park consortium has decided that their data supports that an average student will take this amount of time to test for all There's quite a difference and as you can see there's a lot of extra time built in for students and every student is entitled to that extra time built into the unit. Students in grades three through eight will take uh will be allowed 375 minutes of which they should
102probably be using 255 and the ninth grade and high school students will be taking 360 minutes of which they expect to be utilized for testing. You'll see that there is a difference between the way that the chart is organized for grades 3 through eight and the high school. And that's because the high school is different based on the course that they are taking for mathematics. So while grades three through eight are based upon their grade level mathematics assessment, students who are enrolled in algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry are taking coursebased assessments. And it does include, by the way, some of our students in honors and eighth grade at There is a similar chart by the way up there which again we will begin in late April. So what are the devices that are being
103used? I have to say once again that we put a lot of thought in working with our technology department and what devices are most appropriate for our students to be tested. How are we going to facilitate this testing? How are we going to manage the bandwidth and so forth and so on. Uh you have been very generous in providing us with in every school and I am very very grateful for that and we do intend on using them first in the PBA grades five and six as well as students in the Highlander Academy and any students with a setting or timing accommodation we hope to test them in the media center going forward in the EOI we're hoping that more classes and grade levels will be utilizing for testing we also make sure equity and
104that is why some of the decisions we made regarding what grade levels are using devices were made because we wanted to make sure that every student in a grade level regardless of which building they're testing in is utilizing the same class. I also like to have you rest assured that students who require special accommodations are provided those during the park assessment. I provided the link on there to the accessibility features and accommodations manual. Accessibility features are universal design design features. They're actually available to all students regardless of an IEP or 504 to help the student better uh engage with the assessment. The accommodations on the other hand are for students with IEPs with identified. So for parents who might have concerns about the assessment and how it is being facilitated to their students, the state
105has asked us to provide that link to the entire manual is there and again I work very very closely with student and in regards to making sure that our students truly getting what they need. The park website is actually from park and has a whole bunch of resources for understanding the assessment. Uh there's a glossery of terms which I provided as a separate link if you're interested in specifics of what is being tested, what kinds of questions are going to app guidelines. I'd like to be clear on what this is. This is not the requirement of the students were being asked to write but rather guidelines that were provided by the park consortium in creating the blueprints for the test so that they could find appropriate texts. Okay. So for instance ELA assessment has students
106really engaging in writing to illustrate an ability on analyzing text. It starts with an anchor text which introduce introduces a topic and then has supporting media. The supporting media could be indeed another text, several texts, it could be an audio or a speech, it could be a video and that's where the students have to head for the assessments. Um, however, the word count guidelines is a a specifier for how long the text is allowed to be by grade level. That really to what is appropriate for the students. There are also some key terms that I would like each parent to engage those students in the conversation to prepare for the assessment. There has been some research done in both consortiums regarding assessments for the common core and several educators have come up with a list
107of terms that have been found most commonly in this assessment. So what is the difference between comparing and contrasting and explaining? It's really necessary for a student to understand the difference between those terms before they can truly master this assessment. And I will assure you that our teachers across the district are aware of this list and have been working with their students and they truly understand these terms. The other thing that is provided here are the samples and again I encourage you to attend one of my parent workshops where you sit down at computers and look at the grade level assessment that your child will be taking. There is also a link to rubrics there so you can look at how their essays or pros constructive responses uh how they would be assessed. So with
108that I to invite you to parent workshops. There's a list of the ones moving forward again high school tomorrow evening prior to parent night in the media center. I would like to just take one more time to discuss the no opt out policy that our state has accepted. And I think that this is very important for the board to understand because know that this is something that is coming up. I will also tell you that in preparation for conversations with parents, I have joined several blogs talking about the opt out policy so that I could answer any questions or concerns that we have. So, a lot of this was driven from her. Um, in late October, Commissioner Hes issued a letter basically outlining that the state has adopted a no opt out policy. There is
109no way, so to speak, to opt And in doing so, he cites the New Jersey administrative code 6A, which I in order for a student to not participate in part, they would need to be absent for a total of 40 days. So 20 days for the MBA, 20 days for the EO because if the student is absent when I have scheduled fourth grade assessment, let's just say, and then they return at any point during that 20day testing window, we have directed to test. So if they are in the building, they can be given a name. I have also included on this website our district policies in regards to attendance and I'm sure that I don't for you a student who was abs very very significant problem. There are issues with negligence. There are issues with
110truency. One of the common topics that come up is the stare policy. And what that really refers to is that a student will not engage with the assessment but rather sit and stare at a wall at their examiner. There is honestly nothing that we can do to stop a student from choosing to do that with their child. If they decide not to take the ass offering that assessment just as it was scheduled for the rest of the students and again if during window we have to continue to offer that assessment so I offer the administrative code as well as a link to commissioner's letter October and the reason that I included that is because Unfortunately, as a result, parents have been equipped with some incorrect information. I would ask you to be supportive of the
111fact that this district has been part of this assessment to participate in this assessment. And one of the other things I would say is that if your child has to take the assessment, think about why it is worthwhile of your time. Every person that I've ever seen has said this is definitely an interesting text. So has a slogan. It's a text worth reading. test worth taking because it's made up of text reading and problem solving. You will truly learn something from taking this assessment and that is what I would like to in our students and in our community that make this something that experience. So again, I offer all of this to you as resources and I ask you to help support us and our schools in participating if you have any further questions on
112our website. Thank you. If you are a parent, uh I really urge you to go to one of these meetings. The uh on computer practice session is well worth the time. get to ask some questions that helps out being somebody new in the district here since uh beginning of I came actually end of November. Um I'm happy with what I see as far as the readiness for this exam uh and the support that we've received from the board of education. Uh the special been very involved Kate Brenon obviously del Taib known as Tar B over there our technology coordinator and of course Barbara Francisco for uh loosening up the so we can buy the necessary uh computers. In fact, there's a brand new lab going into this building uh as we speak. So, we are
113comfortable with what we have and what we're offering. And one last thing I want to do is the um school boards. This is other new information. I'm not going to be discussing the calendar tonight. We're going to hold off on that for uh next month. But school boards is uh New Jersey School Boards Association has declared January to be the school board recognition month. The time that all uh residents might acknowledge the contributions made by our local school board members. And one of the other areas I'd like to point out is that these folks are here multiple times during the month. It's not just the Tuesday night meeting that is open to everybody, but there's all kinds of meetings that go on daytime and in the evening. Uh so we want to recognize our board
114members who do not get paid for doing this. Uh so we want to give them a big hand and thank them. And I do have a little treat for each one of you and it's not cookies in this box that's underneath the table. You know, often the only time they get anything is when they leave the board, when they retire from the position or something like that. So I thought it might be good to hang something in your well, wherever you want to hang it. So you can see it and remind you, you know, when you don't feel like showing up. Well, at least I got that plaque. I got to ask, why don't you want to talk about the school year calendar? We still want to look over. Keep it in there. Superintendence Day.
115Well, it's contract. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Brian, thank you. Okay. So at this point we can move the meeting on but thanks everyone on the board for support. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Rasha. That concludes the superintendence report special reports and correspondence. Mrs. Francisco. Good evening. December 16th meeting and executive session. Need a motion to approve like to make a motion to approve the workshop regular meetings of December 16th, 2014 and the executive session of December 16th, 2014. Is there a second? Second. Second. Mr. Robbins. All in favor? I. Any opposed? I'm sorry. Were there any discussion on the minutes of the executive session or the regular meeting of December 16th? I'm just I'm going to abain from this vote because I can't session workshop. Thank you, Mr.
116Booty. Thank you, Mr. Drew. So, um, can I have a voice vote? All in favor? Any opposed? So, that would be one, two, three, four. Four yeses. Okay. Excuse me. You're in the audience. So, I'm voting. Yes. Right. Yes. Doesn't matter where I sit, does it, Miss Mar? Not at all. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Thank you. Okay. Legal report. Okay. Um, since my legal report is confidential, I will discuss that in executive session. Thank you very much. That is legal report. I'm taking that that it's in the agenda. Couple things. one that you agree that it's in our bylaws. Our wasn't changed or altered by 164. Actually, there was a resolution that was approved to eliminate it from the bylaws, but it needed a second reading. It was never done. So, bylaws are
117all going to be reviewed by the policy. Yeah, because there's a bunch of the bylaws actually. Um, one other question. I I saw in our our bills um can we um adopt the agenda as presented and then if there's any questions um at that time then you can I guess we can. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay, I need a motion to adopt the agenda as presented or amended. I believe that um under budget and finance there needs to be a change. Item number 12, I believe, is listed twice. 11. So, we're just we have to change the numbers. It's listed twice. So that would be actually on transfer would be 12 correct on page 16. Correct. Um and did you want to pull item number two under education Mr. Rashika? Is that what you had said
118on page nine? That would be the recommendation um for the 2015 16 calendar. Yes. What about the calendar for 12 month employees? Hold everything well. We're going to pull that one as well. Could you repeat that, please? Page nine. Page nine. Thank you. Under education. Item number two and item number three are administratively withdrawn. Okay. From this agenda. And everybody has the change for uh budget and finance. Yes. Okay. That's just a numerical change. Okay. So with those changes, Mr. Foody, is there any reason why Barbara secretaries report? We have it next month. Okay. What has been reported executive Okay. Motion to adopt the agenda as amended. I move to adop adopt the agenda as amended. I need a second. One. Okay. Uh any discussion, Mr. I saw now that we have legal report back
119on the agenda and it will be reviewed in in policy. Um will we be getting any report from the other attorneys because I I we have Simon and Schwarz bills in the in the bill list and having been working for us for our legal counsel for oh god I guess uh 2011 um yet they're still handling um the bill press release lease and if we could I'd like to discuss that in executive session because I think that that work really should be going with Mr. Rosel's firm instead of Braberg. It's not a a very complicated lease. Okay. Your question is, will we be getting legal reports from Porsio and Bronnberg and Simon Schwarz? Yes. Okay. Let's stay on topic as that is on the agenda. Okay. Um I believe we have received updates. Last week,
120uh, last board meeting, we got an update from Simon Schwarz in executive session. We reviewed the negotiations labor attorney special education on special educ. As far as labor goes, um usually the negotiations as far as I believe. Okay. Um, we have a motion on the table to adopt the agenda as presented. If there are no other questions, I'd like to have a voice vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. Petitions and request. 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 or requests limited to five minutes per petitioner will be allowed until the 30 minute period transpires. Petitioners speaking during petitions and requests are asked to address topics listed in the
121agenda. 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. Barbara, have we had anybody sign up ahead of time? Would anybody like to speak at this time? Seeing none, move to close petitions and requests. I need a second. Second, Mr. Babbot. All in favor? Any opposed? Board resolution. Who would like to read that? thing or who would like to uh we need somebody to move the motion that we resolution from our January 6, 2015 reorganization. I need a second second discussion. Mr. Um I see that uh the things that I had discussed um at our reorganization meeting are are still in here. Um Robert says that general rules of parliament are used for every board
122meeting. Robert's rules of order may be used as a guide at the meeting. It's and it's important that we have a parliamentary authority that that governs our meetings. I I had a small conversation with you this morning and and I'll tell the rest of the board um real quick what we discussed. They're there for a reason. They're there that we can run our that they're structured to our meetings. They're run in an orderly fashion and not having any parliamentary authority to guide our meetings and and general rules of parliamentary you know I mean what general rules what are they I don't think that we as a board have the ability to figure out what they are and that's why there's Robert's rules of order um our our bylaw says that Robert's rules of order is
123our parliamentary authority and that should read Robert's rules of order shall be used as a guide at the meeting not may be used um if we're going to change that by law and it's going to come before the board will do it at that point but when Miss was here from New Jersey school boards the first thing in a code of ethics is that we're going to abide by state statute state law and our policy and that is our bylaws is our policy and we should abide by. Just to clarify uh Mr. Foody, the reason this motion is on the agenda like this is because at the January 6th meeting, you move to postpone the resolution. So, it would be improper to put a change resolution on from a postponed resolution. The exact agenda item
124has to be presented. If you want to change it, we can do so. I'm not saying that you're wrong about what the bylaw says. As we heard, it was never had a second reading. So, it never got the change that we thought it did. But the reason it's on the agenda just like this with the word may is because this resolution was postponed until this meeting. Correct. Correct. And that's why I said we should change that to shall be used. So now I will make the motion that we Okay, Mr. Foody, let me interrupt. Those are very good points. But right now, the motion that's on the table is the one that's the resolution that's presented before us. So, I actually have to ask if there's any other board members that um would like to
125add to the conversation at this time or have any comments to make. I believe it's amend. That's true. I think you were just asking for any other comments before we did that. Correct. Do you want to please reward that motion, Mr. Drew? Uh, I believe in paragraph 13, the only thing that's required is to uh change the word may. Robert's rules of orders may change that to Robert's rules of orders shall be used. Change the one, right? You have discussion. Yeah, that's the only way to make it in compliance with their bylaws. To pass this resolution that is not in compiance with our bylaws makes the resolution in. Thank you very much. Any other discussion? Uh can we please then have a roll call vote? This is just a motion to vote on the vote.
126Correct. Correct. Mr. B. Yes. Mr. Bailey. No. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mrs. O'Brien. Um, all right. I just want to make sure what I'm voting on is the amendment from the May to SH. Yes. No. Mr. Robins. Yes. Mr. Schultz. Yes. The resolution as amended. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none. Roll call vote. Mr. Yes. Mr. Bailey. No. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Yes. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Robins. Yes. Mr. Schulz. Yes. Mrs. O'Brien. Personnel Student Affairs. Yes. I'd like to present items 1 through 25 for board's consideration this evening. I need a second. Thank you. Any discussion, Mr. Booty? I I see that from our reorg meeting that we're reoting on the hand carry from that meeting. Um hand carry one. It's the uh let's see let me get the right number. It's the number number
12714. We've reinserted into this um number six from that meeting is in there as number five. Correct. But I maybe I just number 17. Number 17. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that that that was included in there as well. Thank you, Mr. Anybody else questions? Call vote. Mr. Bab, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Foody, yes. M O'B Mr. Drew, would you like to move items under education, please? It looks like we want to move items one separately. We can start with one. You want to do that separately? So, I would need a second for that. Any discussion? We're voting on number one. Mr. Yes. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Mant. Yes. Mr. Robins. Yes. Mr. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Drew, you can continue. I need a second.
128Debbie O'Brien. So, we're moving items four through nine with the second from Deb O'Brien and vote. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Any discussion on items four through nine? Seeing none, roll call vote, please. Mr. Bett, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Foody, yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes. Mr. Robins, yes. Mr. Schultz, yes. And Mr. Drew will number 10 after executive session. Thank you very much for doing that. Okay, moving on to budget and finance. Mr. Bailey, like to move item number nine under budget and finance, please. Have a second. Second discussion roll. What is the highlight? What is that workshop? It's highlights from the 2014 workshop. It's just an overview of what you went to in October. Yes, we've gotten several interviews from New Jersey school uh emails from New Jersey school boards with
129regards to this uh first time ever offering the highlights of the workshop in 2014. Yes. And just to clarify the reason why I'm going to this one, I was unable to attend the convention in October because I have no in my work. So that's why this is um cliffnotee version of the convention very popular. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Drew. Trying to make sure there's nothing I don't think. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. Mr. Ryan, I abain. Mr. Robins, yes. Mr. Schultz, yes. I'd like to move the final item, which I believe is the new number 12 under budget and finance, please. Second discussion vote, please. Mr. Bab, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Foody, yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes. Mr. Robinson, yes. Mr. Schultz, yes. I'd like to move number 11 under budgeted finance,
130please. Second. Discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Bab, yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. Miss O'Brien. Yes, Mr. Robbins. Yes, Mrs. Schultz. Yes. I'd like to move item number 10 under budget and finance, please. Second. Discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Bab, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. M. O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Robins? Yes. Mr. Yes. I'd like to move items one through eight under budget and finance, please. Second. Discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Bab, yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. Miss O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Robinson. Yes. Mr. Schulz. Yes. This is a we're getting close to 9:00 and I'd like to make a motion to postpone executive session till 9:15. Any discussion on that? All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you, Mrs. O'Brien. Okay. Special committee liaison reports.
131Mr. Robbins, you have anything to report? Nothing to report. Thank you, Mr. Foody. Yeah, it was a interesting meeting last week. It was um the safety task force committee got together to discuss um with the police department. Um what we do in the case of a situation that like occurred in New Town, Connecticut. And you would think that would be an easy thing to do. Um, but it's really not. It was It was complicated. I got to take my hat off to our transportation supervisor who made some really valid points that nobody thought of. Um, and and that was what if we did have an incident like that? What would we do if there were children that were I don't even want to say the word, but seriously injured? Um, what would we do to
132pull them out of the line and take them off to the side and and console them and because it would be horrific if you you come and they can't get your kid, you're going to be so I mean it was it was very complicated, but some of the things that they discussed that I wanted to bring to the board's attention. Um they talked about evacuating the main campus um being Westbrook Mapin and a high school if something happened on the main campus and our transportation supervisor said he can move about 2,000 kids in one shot which is pretty impressive thing to be able to do. But one of the things that we have to look at as as backups is, god forbid something did happen and we need to move children off campus into their
133their designated, you know, safety area and then to their reunion area. Um, what do we do if something happens and, you know, takes 45 minutes to get a school bus driver? So, some of the things that they were talking about um would possibly be to get maybe some staff to see if anybody's got the ability to drive a school bus. Maybe we should look at custodians and maintenance staff being so because they're pretty much in this area that we could utilize them to drive a school bus to take children to safety. Um and and then that brings in another thought is if we ever outsourced all our school bus drivers, we're up the creek without a panel if something like that happens. So we really need to when we go through this plan as a
134as a district um take that into some real serious consideration. You know, we're never going to have whether it's uh first student or Jordan transportation, those kids aren't going to be those buses aren't going to be sitting on our property with drivers in there waiting for them to be used. But having our own transportation department in a district this size, although it's a monumental task to finance, you almost have to when you look at the possibility of what would happen if there was a catastrophic event such as Sandy Hook of, you know, New Town, Connecticut. So, um, they really got their work cut out for them. Um there's a there's a lot of things that they still have to work out and I should have another report on this by the March meeting. They're hoping
135to have another report if not March then May. So if I can just add to that a little bit. Uh I also attended the meeting and you know some of the some of the big issues that Mr. Foody pointed to where you're going to do a complete evacuation that's a major task and it's being reviewed and I I think we came up or they came up with some really good ideas for us to look at. Uh on the smaller piece, um my concern is and one of the things we're going to look at, I have a meeting and kudos to Mr. Citro and Mr. Kane uh who ran the committee just uh within the buildings themselves is having staff members available to guide students and parents because you you look at each one of the
136doorways in all the buildings, somebody has to be there. Now, any given day, if you just have different schedules, uh it happens, you know, it's not going to happen all during the same time. It's not going to fit our needs, god forbid, if anything should happen. So, I really want to fine-tune um those topics so that we can add something into our handbook for teachers, guidance counselors, anybody in a building that they know where they should go and what they should be doing just in case this happens. So I did call for a separate meeting again with those two individuals I just mentioned and perhaps uh with one or two officers from the police department to look at those smaller pieces because we we look at this big global catastrophe but sometimes it may be
137one building or two buildings and either scenario you really need to fine-tune so it has to work like a machine. So that's one of the things I really want to focus in on and and they are going to attempt to do a dry run school if they can get a day where we have we didn't use all our snow days and there's some extra time near the end of the year that they can do this. They're going to try to do a dry run. So hopefully that works. Sounds like they're covering all bases. Thank you very much. Uh the superintendent's round table is actually um well the liaison is actually Ms. Ke and she's sick. And I believe there was a meeting last week. So we'll just um get a report from Mrs. Keppy next
138month. That would move us on to the state county school boards association. Mrs. O'Brien. Well, my little report is uh ties into our early presentation by Katherine Brennan. Um, next Monday there will be the annual joint meeting with the New Jersey Education Association at the Brownstone and Patterson and that's the county school boards association meeting. Representatives from both New Jersey School Board Association and New Jersey Education Associ uh education association will participate in a panel discussion on FAR Common Core and the teacher evaluation system. I will be going to that meeting and could have a full report as will I. Oh, very good. See you there. January 26th this Monday. Be there. Thank you very much. That's why you're going. You're invited. Check your email. You got to go to find out Mr. Asha if
139you want to know. Food doesn't hurt. Okay, Mr. Legislative report. Um, I'm very new at this and I think it'll be a long time before I can fill the shoes of Mr. However, made some effort with his advice. Assembly bill 304 has been passed by both houses of the legislature. So it's almost assuredly going to pass unless the governor vetos it. Requires all schools to maintain a supply of epinephrine and permits not requires administration of epinephrine by qualified personnel to a student who might be in anaphylactic crisis. Uh assembly bill 1796 has been passed by both houses of the legislature. Schools cannot deny lunch to any student because their account is in a rears. So, we have to do something to feed the um Assembly Bill 3224 requires suicide prevention training as part of the
140teacher professional development. Estimate is that that will take approximately two hours. It's been passed by the assembly. It looks like it's probably going to pass. the Senate when it's taken up. Unfortunately, my family has personal experiences, not in my own family, but in fact, this last weekend, my son came out to Philadelphia from his college in Elon because one of his best friends committed suicide last week. And this is just happening all too often. Sometimes it's just one person, you know, can touch the kid and let them know they're loved, that there are ways out. So, personally, Not a board statement at all, but I seriously support anything we can do to identify those kids. Assembly bill 3441 uh was changed to Senate Bill 1946. Was passed by the assembly. Senate is taking it up.
141Uh it permits districts to inquire the motor vehicles department about the address of parent or guardian to determine eligibility. in the school district. I probably need to speak to somebody with regard to what the intent of that was. I believe it has impact on athletic programs and it may also have impact on transients, migrant workers, undocumented families, so on and so forth, but I'm not really certain. Um, but at a minimum, coaches have to be aware that of course the problem is it's not our coach won't do that, but the other coach will do that. Uh, Assembly Bill 2597 allows the AP course computer science to be counted as part of the state requirement for either math or science for students who are currently in the ninth grade, 10th grader, 11th grade or 12th grader
142would not be able uh Senate bill authorizes a study for a later school start time for students in middle school and high school. So, and it looks like uh it's past the Senate go to the assembly. Having seen some of these studies in other states, what happens is that early start times um wind up giving in particular high school students less sleep and poor learning. I know how this is going to come out when it's been done elsewhere. a year or two down the road, we may well have a new state law that says we have to start high school and or middle school later. That's why, you know, it's not happening right now, but um New Jersey spotlight, who is apparently the authority on what's going to go through the pass the legislature and
143not seems to feel very strongly we're not going to cut education that is politically impossible. However, there's severe pressure on the state budget and so it's unlikely that we'll get any sort of significant increase in state. So, you know, the cut in state aid would be a disaster for us and everybody else in New Jersey probably won't happen, but there's probably not going to be anything substantial. Thank you very much. Very thorough. Okay. Uh technology oversight. Mr. Bab, thank you very much. West Milford Education Foundation, Mrs. O'Brien. Nothing to report at this time. Township Board of Education joint committee. Thank you. I don't have anything. Thank you, Mr. Oversight on my part. No problem. Thank you. Okay. Um, is there any old business, Mr. Booty? January 6. Resolution six and seven um were passed as
144is and I would like to if we can um at our next board meeting have um legal reports inserted in that so that we can unless there's I mean we can we just vote to do that Joe or do we have to redo the whole resolution? Now you can just we can just vote to add it in. Okay. And I would make the motion um right now um for resolutions six and seven that we add in the words legal report after the board secretaries report and that's to keep in compiance with our violence. Correct. I need a second. Second discussion. Okay, seeing none, um I guess we need to roll call vote, please. Mr. Bab, no. Mr. Bailey, no. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Foody, yes. Mr. Brian, yes. Mr. Robins, yes. Mrs. Schles, yes. Thank
145you. Any other old business? Seeing none, move to close. Need a second. All in favor? Any oppos? Do we have discussion? I'm sorry, Mrs. O'Brien. No, if you're done, I just have to I'd like to request we're almost at quarter after we can delay this start of an executive session for 10 more minutes. We have five minutes. So, let's move on to uh any more questions regarding old business. Okay. All in favor of closing old business. Any opposed? Okay. New business. Mr. Booty. Um we get a um Are you reading the new business? It's on our agenda. No, no, no, no, no. If you want me to read that, I'll be more than happy to do that. I was looking to have that moved, please. Yes. Let I'd like to make a motion to move
146the um I guess the resolution about whereas the New Jersey School Boards Association has declared January 2015 to be school board recognition um month. Um do you want me to read the whole thing? Okay. And again, I want to thank Mr. Rasha for for little plaque, but I make a motion that we move this this resolution. Second discussion. See, no discussion. Voice vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion. Passes and Um we collect um Barbara parking fee for seniors. All right. Um and the intent of that was to use some of that money that use that money for parking lot maintenance. So it appears I mean it was before. Yes. Yes. But that's that was the the general idea behind that. Um and that money currently goes into the general fund. Okay. I I
147would make the suggestion that um and I don't know Barbara when you issue all the permits if there's some done in the middle of the year or they basically done all in the beginning. All done by the high school. Okay. Okay. Um but I would make a motion that we take that money and we we move it into maintenance reserve. monies that we collect because that's basically what we said that that money would be used for. Um reserve because it's not required out they would have to go on a capital reserve. Okay. I would make the motion that we we take the receipts from the uh high school um senior parking permits and move that money into capital reserves. Um I believe that we need to discuss it but that's part of the budget process.
148So I think that discussion is a little premature. So we do that discuss that budget finance and we normally capital and try to look to see the last time the parking lot was paid because I think it was a few years ago but um you know we have a limit on the capital how much included in there and we really can't designate it for that particular it's a percentage of the budget percent buildings. So why don't we move that um to refer to a committee which would be budget and finance. Okay, I'm going to refer it to budget and finance money capital fund. So But at least put it where we we we intend to use it. And if it, you know, it's put somewhere else, then so be it. But as long as we
149have money in capital reserve to do those parking lots at a later date. I just think it would be a then it comes out of the revenue source. Can we uh move this discussion over to budget and finance? move it over to discussion of budget finance. I think that might be uh worth discussing in committee. Um any other new business? Mr. Robbins. Yes, I would like to, you know, I guess put a motion to have attendance records. I'm concerned, you know, actually everyone's concerned about the higher education department students, you know, by Uh I would like to see attendance records uh by grade by school including teachers uh for particular month. How many how many students are in attendance and the number of students that are absent discussion? Mr. Bailey. No, I want I want
150Roselli to go first. I think he's going to answer my question. Thank you. I'm just not that's really some I mean where would you want the information in in the packet information supplied to the board you know just concerning the status of attendance you know each month I'm sorry I I think what if if I got it right you're not asking for student names and You just want to know what are I mean because that's one of the things that one of our goals is to increase learning through through you know more student participation. So I think you just if I get it right want to see where where we were where we're going and what our trends are. So you just want an attendance report basically say there's 400 kids in 12th grade six
151of them were absent on whatever day like something like that. Uh you know we have Let's say we have 200 kids in ele one of the elementary schools and we have 20 absences. Okay. And we can compare that with other school in my past district. What we did was we ran reports. Now it could be monthly other month. Uh but it's based on percentages. That's what you're going to look at. I don't think we can break we can break it down to where it's going to be number of students but you break it down to percentages because the state actually looks at that too. So that's something we can we can look into uh instructing having that available for everybody. Those numbers are are available. The problem is if the answer is only one then
152you could identify an individual student. So I think it is well I mean I don't have an issue with it but why don't we just We can have committee meetings. We can run some samples and kind of look at them and decide what's going to work and go from there. You know, it may it may make a difference. Uh, you know, trying to fix a problem before it creates a big uh, you know, we find a certain grade at a certain school doesn't, you know, are lacking their grade levels are down. That's fine. Attendance, uh, you know, is a sure indicator of student success. So, we can look at percentages and falling short that we might incorporate that Mrs. O'Brien. Yeah, I like the percentage better. I like to keep things as confidential as possible.
153I think if we may delving into a little too much information even though we're looking at numbers, um person who can dig far enough into into a school or into a a grade can kind of figure things out. I don't like that. I don't I'm not out to play gotcha with the classroom or with a student. Um the other issue we need to take consideration of is that we have homeless shelter in West Milford. So um and those most of the time are transients when coming through. So it um and it's we consider all children to be important but since it isn't of a transient nature um the reflection of the numbers may not actually be conducive to what is actually going on with the long people. We need to take that into consideration and
154it's not the child's fault in any way shape or form that they are in a transiting position. Just one more question. Mr. Okay, just to clarify, every time you meet those numbers, they raise them. Just to clarify, there there actually is a motion and a second, but I don't think you need your motion. I think Mr. Rashika saying he's going to see what kind of report he can get and then and then send it to the board is sufficient. Um, There is a motion to direct and to do so. Again, whether it's necessary is up to the board. You can withdraw it or you can keep it going. I'll do it. Would this also include special education? Uh I know that we have uh 100 students in special education that travel. Did you want to
155withdraw your um motion, Mr. Robbins? Mr. She is going to be providing the board with the report anyway. Yeah, I'll take a look at it. I'll take a look at So, you're going to resend the motion? Yes. Thank you. Anything else? Under new business. Seeing none, move to close new business. Need a second. Any discussion? to close. Okay. All in favor? 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 five minutes per petitioner will be allowed until 30 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
156of student during petitions and requests. Would anybody like to speak? Seeing none, move to close. Petitions and requests. Need a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Executive session resolved that the board go into executive session at 9:00 p.m. for approximately 60 minutes. the purpose of discussing negotiations, student matters, personnel, HIVs, the superintendent search, and matters of attorney client privilege. The executive session minutes will not be released until such time as the privilege or confidentiality is no longer applicable. The board reserves the right to take action. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. We are going to start executive session here. So I ask that the public step out of the room for a short team, please. Yes. Thank you veryision. Yes, it's affirming the decisions. Does he? I thought he might.
157Does he have to read it? No, he doesn't have to read. Oh, he doesn't have to read. All right. Marilyn always did, but it's on the agenda. I second. Okay. So, Mr. Drew is moving um the agenda item number 10 affirming the HIVs uh the board determinations and um seconded by Debbie O'Brien. Any discussion? Roll call, please. M Mr. Bab, yes. Mr. Drew, yes. Mr. Booty, yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes. Mr. Robins, yes. Yes. Okay. I move to adjourn. Second 11:05. All in favor? Any opposed? This meeting is officially adjourned. Thank you very very much everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Anytime.