BT BOE Meeting June 13, 2022

001good evening everyone hi everyone um this is a regular public board of education meeting the board has already met an executive session and we saluted the flag in there so at this point we're going to have the roll call please mr mclaughlin mr salmon here miss shaffer she'll be here in a couple minutes this is great here mrs white here ms light here mr connor here ms hira here mr marcarion here mr saya here is fox here mrs mckeon here madam president thank you um i'm just going to quickly read the statement of public notice i'm going to try to consolidate it a little bit because i know there's a lot of people here who are very excited to hear our presentation so this is a regular meeting of the board of education that's been

002advertised as per the law for those unable to attend in in person there are two live stream links of the meeting posted through the district website um they're both but they're both identical one is simply backing up the other we very much welcome input from the public there are two times during the regular meeting that public is invited to speak one time is early in the meeting before the board votes when you can speak about any item that's listed on tonight's agenda towards the end of the meeting there is another public forum to address any matter of public concern related to the schools when you approach the microphone please state your name and address as a courtesy individual is unable to attend our meetings in person public comment may be made through zoom interested individuals

003shall navigate to the district webpage and select board of education followed by public comment to review the instructions or click on the link in here public comments made in person will be processed first then comments via zoom no public comments will be accepted before 7 pm or after the last item board form of the agenda begins please understand that public comment portions of our agendas are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they are offered as an opportunity to share your thoughts with the board the board and or administration will respond to public comments to the extent possible any responses to public comments will generally be addressed during board forum or during committee reports however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate if it's necessary for the board

004to go into executive session at the end of the meeting we'll provide an estimated length of time and whether any action is anticipated to be taken upon returning to the pelvic session okay at this point we're up to our student representatives we have two here we have gordon lee from ridge and grace lee from willie mannin thank you and good evening everyone with ridge entering our final week of classes the student body is incredibly excited to celebrate all of our accomplishments that we have achieved this year has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination however i am incredibly proud of all of the personal accomplishments that every student has achieved many of bridges clubs hosted their final meetings during these past two weeks celebrating their years work and the dedication of their members

005clubs are an integral part of ridge student life and ridge thanks the clubs for furthering ridge's diverse hobbies and interests strengthening friendships and most importantly giving us a sense of community and belonging the ridge forensics team is still busy as ever hosting a night before nationals showcase on may 26th the team also competed at the national catholic forensics league tournament with several team members entering final rounds ridge congratulates all of the team members coaches parents and volunteers for a job well done ridge hosted its annual awards night on may 31st recognizing some of bridges athletic and academic accomplishments among the junior and senior classes this event is truly a fitting way to honor the students who have gone above and beyond in their schoolwork and extracurriculars ridge thanks the administration secretaries and all of the

006volunteers who made the ceremony possible in the arts department the ridge music program hosted their annual spring band orchestra and chorus concerts all of the ensembles performed incredibly advanced repertoire showcasing not only the talent and effort of the students but also the dedication and passion of the very talented ensemble directors ridge also hosted the rhs art show displaying the hard work of the many talented ridge artists and i believe that the art show is still currently going on in arts ii gyms ridge extends a sincere thank you to the teachers volunteers and everyone working behind the scenes to make sure that these events run smoothly the ridge student government has concluded the election of new officers and is very proud to announce the results to the student body i look forward to officially welcoming them

007into their positions tomorrow and i am fully confident in their drive and ability to not only work within the school but to also continue the productive conversations that this year's student government has had with all of you as this is my final meeting as the student body representative i'd like to take this moment to thank everyone on the board as well as the community for such a wonderful experience serving in this position has been an incredible honor and i have met people and accomplished schools i never thought i would get to do as a student i hope that you have found my reports to be as interesting and informative as i have found them to be exciting and enjoyable i have no doubt that the next student body representative petra will continue to represent ridge

008to the very best of her ability thank you everyone and i wish all of you a happy healthy and safe summer [Applause] thank you gordon and good evening everyone my name is grace lee and i'm representing william annan middle school over the past couple of weeks the school has enjoyed various events and activities as we quickly approach the end of the school year here are some of the many events that have recently occurred at the school the student principal advisory council has been continuing to work hard on various aspects of the school members continue to provide students perspectives on backpacks and dress code for the 2022-2023 school year two members of the council recently met with the parent advisory committee to give a presentation on these topics the committee is currently discussing revising our mascot

009to be more representative of the diversity in our school additionally the spring sports season has ended and our athletes once again showed the amazing athletic ability of our school with the rapid turn of warm weather came exciting field trips for all three greats during mid-may the sixth grade went to camp burney and the seventh grade went to medieval times during the start of june the eighth grade went to hershey park in addition over 100 of the school's most talented musicians went to six flags to compete in the annual music in the parks competition the school did extremely well and took home several awards for their hard work an exciting program has just launched at wims during every wednesday the bell schedule has been slightly altered to allow a tenth learning lab period to be run

010at the end of the day during this time students can work on school related work as well as organization and other school related skills many students have significantly benefited from this program because they now have extra time to do their homework and meet with teachers the week before field day the student council organized spirit week a week in which students could dress up based on themes that they chose these themes were chosen through a student council run voting where students voted from eight predetermined themes by donating all of the 136 dollars went to the katie's crew foundation and created an enthusiastic atmosphere leading up to field day to truly celebrate the end of the school year the entirety of lambs participated in a school-wide field day on june 10th students worked in groups consisting of

011all three grade levels and participated in games activities and team building fun students and teachers agree it was a great day at this event the school was awarded its schools to watch recognition banner and trophy wims was redesignated through 2023 this national award is given to schools for their progressive excellent programs a graduation for each team will be held this week and as we move towards summer we look forward to our time next year whether we we will be at wams welcoming the incoming sixth graders in another district meeting new people or in the high school navigating our next chapter we will remember and appreciate our time in blams thank you and good night [Applause] thank you grace and thank you gordon it was a pleasure to have you both here and grace thank you

012for coming to represent william and we love hearing about all the different schools and gordon you have been amazing this year um we've loved hearing your reports all year long and we are confident that the student government is going to continue in your tradition um going forward um does anyone have any questions for either of the students i just have one comment gordon good luck in your future and what you choose to pursue last year it's been very very enjoyable listening to your updates and i appreciate your enthusiasm well thank you so much for the kind words this has been an incredible experience and an incredible honor and i am so happy that all of you at least took something out of my reports and found them to be at least entertaining if not entertaining

013and informative anyone else have any questions or comments well thank you so much for coming tonight and as usual you're welcome to stay we're welcome to go if you're busy i'm sure it's a really busy week for you gordon getting ready for graduation and stuff but thank you okay at this point um i just wanted to make a couple comments before the board moves down to the audience for um our presentations um i'd like to thank the members of the public and the many staff members who attended the bt connect meeting last week on technology and education it was another informative and collaborative evening where parents got to hear directly from teachers about how technology is used in the classroom and about the ways that technology has revolutionized teaching and learning we also got to

014hear about some of the challenges that both teachers and parents have when facing trying to help our children navigate this new world of technology um parents and teachers expressed concerns and had lots of questions but it was clear that we all want to work together collaboratively to do what's best for our students i think mr mccarran you said an faq is going to be posted from that evening sometime shortly so um if you were there and you had questions that were unanswered or you wanted to see what was said at the meeting and you weren't there you can check that out we look forward to having many more bt connect meetings in the upcoming year where we can continue to have these kinds of dialogues about various topics i think ms fox has a little

015bit information about what the next one is going to be sure thank you hi everyone i was going to give you a little bit of an update on our plans for revising the health and physical education curriculum this summer so as this busy busy week winds down for the schools the curriculum department is ramping up with all of its curriculum departments that are set to start running after the school year ends so for the health and physical education curriculum project the teachers will be approved at the next board meeting and will begin the project um the week gen i'm sorry june 23rd two other things that we're working on to gain some community input and provide you an opportunity to to look at the standards and look at the work that needs to be done

016before it's been done and then also after it's been done our first a survey will be sent out on or about june 24th with a website to share the resources and the information that you would need to really dive into that project and then provide your input on those standards at the outset of the project the teachers will work throughout the summer with the administration myself mr shellow and some others on developing the revisions based on the new standards the revised standards and then on august 24th we will have our next bt connect meeting at 7 pm the high school location i think to be to be determined probably the cafeteria but possibly in here and so at that point the teachers the team would share with you all any updates that are made to

017any grade levels or grade bands in the curriculum first and then give you an opportunity to talk about it and provide us with some input thank you miss fox um so we look forward to getting all of your input as we go through that process um before we move down i just like to welcome all the teachers and staff members that are here tonight and i see some of their children and family members here also we're very excited to recognize and honor the teachers of the year and our retirees we really look forward to this meeting every year although it's very sad to see people retire and leave our district this meeting is always very uplifting and positive because it reminds us about how lucky our children are to go to school in berners township

018and we get to hear about all of the different people and their passions for education and how they've given their their lives and their careers to um supporting our children both academically emotionally socially and every other way so we're very excited to come down and hear about all of you we're going to move down so okay well good evening everyone uh as uh our board president miss mckeon just shared this is a special time for us uh it's really terrific to be able to take a little bit of time out and do some staff recognition so this is really exciting and it's super to see all the folks that are out here in support of their colleagues and or family members so thank you so much for joining us tonight i'm really glad that the

019lacrosse tournament game cleared out in time to provide you all a place to park because if you would come here at six o'clock um i probably wouldn't have wanted to be around uh to take responsibility for that one but fortunately that worked out just fine and there was plenty of parking so i think from what i saw earlier this evening at the btea retirement event some of you have already begun celebrating and and having some great fun uh i'm sorry that i couldn't stay and listen to the rest of the speeches that were going on there uh it was really quite impressive to hear tim howard's rendition of uh bruce springsteen's glory days so that is not something i will soon forget tim are you here okay good um so anyway that was a lot

020of fun we're gonna keep the fun going on uh we're gonna start off tonight with our 2021-2022 retirees and really this is awesome because um i always i i don't know why i always think about my dad when i when we do these retirement uh events because i i look back um on on his career and it just it just inspires me to um want to have a great career to look back on and i think you guys should all feel the same way you should feel really proud um of the work that you've accomplished i'm sure your family members are very proud of you and and we're certainly really proud of you as well and we thank you so much for all the years of service that you've given byrnes township school district so

021enjoy the moment uh and we're going to get started right off the bat here with cedar hill and i believe uh mr simpola miss vitale miss euler are here to help talk about our cedar hill retiree so i get the pleasure for paul chrissy and myself to talk about linda mecca so linda grew up in basking ridge and she herself attended liberty corner cedar hill william adan and graduated ridge in 1984. she told me i could say 84 she wrote it for me just saying i'm not putting out anything that she doesn't know um she graduated from the college of saint elizabeth with a degree in education and special education she worked at cedar hill for the past six to seven years in bernard township as an instructional aide in our lld self-contained program at

022the beginning of her career she worked for 20 years in several preschools in somerset county and also in hunterdon county this was all while she was bringing up her four children of her own good job good job [Laughter] all of linda's children also attended and graduated from bernard township school district after many years of teaching in preschool linda was ready for a new challenge and took on the role as a director of preschool in the pluckmen in preschool church in bedminster right okay and she did that for 10 years she did have a desire to return to the district and work more closely with children so she began substituting she took on her full-time kindergarten leave replacement position at oak street after this assignment she was asked to become part of the special education department

023at cedar hill as an instructional aide in our lld program um i still remember miss or stephanie or finding you and saying you have to get her find her she's calm she does meditation she does yoga we all could use that so it wasn't just for the children it was also for us so thank you in addition to her flexibility kindness and initiative and always a positive outlook and a smile she gave us and the students yoga and meditation lessons in the classroom she also did this outside for parents through the pec group she is patient and firm but students respect that they have her mutual respect and trust for linda and it's very evident the moment you walk into the classroom some funny memories from linda that she shared be being petite in statue

024not that i know anything about that several times walking down the hall in fifth grade she was mistaken by a staff member as a student this led to some shocking and humorous encounters linda is very very approachable many times in lld linda accompanied our students in science or social studies many times during the timeline of social studies such as henry hudson going up the hudson river in 1609 she was asked did she know him outside during recess some girls were hesitant to jump in to the spinning rope linda in an effort to encourage them went up to the rope with her heels on she felt the need to help and make them feel comfortable about taking a risk as linda did that she fell right on her behind all the kids were shocked and obviously

025the attempt at encouragement did not go so well but linda's pride was injured but the girls and her took a teachable moment they all learned that taking that risk and jumping in rope jumping rope was a good idea just not when you're wearing heels linda the students and the staff have benefited from your patience positive attitude and relaxed nature i've loved our talks both about your children and my children you always check in on me and i check in with you and i really really deeply appreciate that it is all of our hope cedar hill family as well as your special education family that during your retirement you your husband and your four children can spend many days relaxing and enjoying each other's company it's been a pleasure working with you and the bernards township

026students are better off knowing you and having you in the district thank you so much for all your work and patience and dedication thank you okay thanks lisa uh congratulations linda next up uh dr oliver is going to present on behalf of liberty corners retiree i don't see is deb savage here there you are come on down i haven't seen you in a while tonight we're here to honor mrs debbie savage for her years working at lcs with students during the lunch and recess program as one of our lunch leaders mrs savage brought a little extra fun to our lunch program many days i'd walk down the hallway and i'd hear her telling stories to the children and believe it or not they were the quietest lunches we've ever had thanks to deb savage when

027thinking about what i wanted to write for tonight's speech i thought the best thing to do would be to talk to some fifth grade students to get their perspectives of mrs savage i asked our kids for character committee to share their memories and what they felt was the most what were the most important attributes of a lunch leader so this was just last week so here's what they said mrs savage was always really nice to us she always kept us safe during recess and most important she was always helpful to us kindergarten through fifth grade another said a lunch leader needs to be someone who cares about children and likes to work with children someone who is responsible reliable and most important patient because there's a lot of students to work with they also shared

028that the job of a lunch leader must be done by someone who is a role model and always knows how to mediate a conflict that there might be on the playground a lunch leader should know the school rules and be able to explain them to the kids well i think when i think of deb's career at liberty corner what comes to my mind is her friendly smile um how she was always there for the right reasons which of course is our students and her dependability deb was always there always on time ready to work deb's focus was not specific on merely managing students she was there for the children she was there for our school community deb our lcs community thanks you for fulfilling all these responsibilities and most importantly your dedication to our students

029and our environment thanks so much congratulations congratulations okay thanks dr oliver congratulations debbie uh next up we have joanne hozeny on behalf of mal prospect school i'd like to ask barbara clinton to come on down that's it how come you didn't do your catwalk that was good you should use sachet i have the distinct pleasure of congratulating mrs barbara clinton on her retirement mrs clinton began her career in kindergarten at oak street school in 1996. when i first met her i was just a deer in the headlights as a first year second grade teacher i was walking around with mrs slutsky and barbara greeted me warmly over in room number one remember that room good times right and i would always remember her walking down the hall with her little chickadees reminding them to walk

030quietly around the third square and i would always tell my second graders to look at that class as role models when they passed us and then when mount prospect school opened up in 1999 we both had the opportunity to move to the school to start a new chapter her role as the kindergarten teacher changed through the years like when the program went half day and all the kindergarten teachers were responsible for the health lessons remember that good times she strived to do her best no matter what new structure program or event came our way mrs clinton is the quintessential kindergarten teacher for over 25 years barbara worked with students and whole class small group are in a one-to-one setting she worked carefully with staff and other building administration to implement so many programs for her

031students her professionalism and proactive approach to her duties are so greatly appreciated mrs clinton has shared her love for the environment throughout all subjects she brought her own passions like gardening and quilting to the classroom her classroom has always been such a warm and inviting place mrs clinton taught students how to look beyond their own backyard and to strive to reach their potential in so many ways having worked with mrs clinton as both a teacher and administrator i can truly attest to her dedication to her craft i'm gonna miss you wow mrs clinton is the consummate storyteller and always has knowledge on so many subject areas her students were excited to see her every single day mrs clinton ran her class with high expectations and with a multitude of love her enthusiasm and her tireless

032work ethic were always made working with her a pleasure she searched for everything that she could to make her students have fun and to learn mrs clinton always went above and beyond the expectations for the curriculum a consummate problem solver she always offered counsel to her colleagues also she was a very active member in our school community most recently she was a member of our literacy committee and her read across america events she served as the grade level leader on our staff advisory team she's always a willing participant in such things as the pep rally video and school spirit days among other community building activities she continued to grow professionally by attending staff college courses and she played a vital role in our overall school community she's a role model for everyone who encounters her

033her colleagues have said the following fantastic she has a great rapport with students parents and staff i love her she's an advocate for staff and students alike she asked the tough questions and boy sometimes they were tough but she always always followed through she's funny and charming and she we all love how she loves her dogs so much her enthusiasm love and passion for teaching is contagious i always look forward to chatting with barbara her quick wit and one liner has always left me smiling i personally will always remember her connections to students and other teachers barbara is always the person who you know would come through for you no matter what she was never afraid to be honest or to speak from her heart i have learned many lessons for barbara and i am

034utterly thankful to call her my colleague but most of all my friends barbara is the kind of person i would entrust my own kids to her structured and gentle nature is the perfect fit for students of this age mrs clinton i am going to miss you very very very much we have gone a long time together and you always made me smile and laugh and i wish you the best on retirement come back and visit congratulations this is perfect you're helping me out a lot okay thank you miss hosni next up we have uh karen hudak who's here for william adam middle school i am fortunate or unfortunate to have two retirees so i'm gonna call up mary nell first mary i will try not to cry and this is us said to mary is

035the pg version of my speech so mary nail began her career at william bannon school in 1987 when she was hired by then principal joan tonorelli to be the principal's secretary so after 35 years here at william annan and working for 55 years in total mary is surely ready to begin her retirement and me for the last 20. so for sure mary graduated high school in 1966 and attended berkeley secretarial school and after graduating berkeley secretary school in 1967 her first job was secretary to the comptroller of nomco chemical company in newark new jersey after two years at namco chemical mary was hired by bristol myers pharmaceutical in hillside new jersey and was then the secretary to the director of information services and technology before two years before moving to research and developing as the

036secretary to the director of pharmaceuticals where she was there for 11 years after her adorable son michael was born in 1982 mary began working part-time at st clare's hospital in denville new jersey working a few evenings there in the admitting department and again in the information technology department then in august of 1987 mary began her career at annan mary has always enjoyed the respect and camaraderie that her colleagues throughout her years have shown her she especially enjoys helping the administration really absolutely now what i would have done without her and all the staff here at annan whatever they need in whatever capacity mary's very active in the btea first as a treasurer and then as the vice president she has also inactive in negotiations for the district secretaries for five rounds and then on the

037negotiations team during her tenure on the team she made significant improvement in secretary salaries yes yes yes mary feels blessed but truly we are to have been a part of the bernard township school district it's been her privilege and honor to be at the annan for over 35 years so after 35 years here at annan and working for 55 years in total mary is ready to pass on that baton as she says into her retirement as she likes to refer to it her time to be footloose and free as a bird to do whatever she wants well being the fifth principal that mary has raised or worked with sorry in her tenure here at annan nick being one of them as well it has been our absolute honor she has a large heart that has

038always been filled with love and forgiveness a closeness to god in her faith and an admirable and tireless strength for whatever has come her way good or bad mary as you begin your footloose retirement years i hope you enjoy spending time with your adorable daughter-in-law and son at their beautiful lake home you find time laughing and loving and building memories with your extended family and you celebrate all that you have accomplished those rewards that the gift of time will now give you in your retirement years and if ever as you know you find yourself bored and you would like to occupy your time with something my door is always and forever open for your peach cobbler i love you and we'll so miss you [Applause] and we're going to do mary henry who is also

039retiring from william annan at this time come on down mary mary has worked in bernie's township school district teaching 7th grade mathematics for the last 20 years of her 31-year career in education for those of us who have had the pleasure of working with mary we know that she has a strong command of her content area and is passionate about his delivery to her students her classroom is a space where students are able to be comfortable taking risks have challenging dialogues with one another and are encouraged to do so freely manrie is a strong advocate for her students and provides her colleagues with her very open and honest insight into her students academic and emotional needs after mary received her undergraduate degree in mathematics education she worked for two years as a seventh grade math

040and ninth grade algebra teacher at the maplewood junior high school following that mary taught eighth grade math and algebra at chatham borough middle school for four years and while at chatham she served as the chairman of the mathematics department mary temporarily stepped away from the teaching profession for 10 years in order to stay home and raise her beautiful children as her children started to enter their school years mary started to consider rejoining the profession and was asked by a local private school to teach mathematics she spent an additional five years at this private school teaching pre-algebra in algebra to the 7th and 8th graders and found that she's back where she wanted to be in the classroom mary began looking for public school positions and was fortunate i should say we were fortunate that she

041find her way into the seventh grade math teacher opening at basking ridge at william manden middle school she had shared with me that she was a little intimidated at the time because then principal joan tonorelli and had interviewed her and she heard that she ran a really tight ship joan handed mary a book some overhead markers and a few transparencies and told her you have an hour get prepared to teach seventh grade math mary vividly remembers walking into that classroom turning around seeing joan nick marion columbo and pat gambino sitting in the back of that room pretty intimidating group of individuals so she said she took a deep breath and she knew that she was just going to show them that her love and her passion for students was there and that would guide her

042through well mary nick thank you marion and joan and pat knew that she needed to be a member of our wham's family and i hired her mary has been fortunate to spend the last 31 years of her career working in a profession that she truly loves she is scared that she's so lucky to have worked with her wonderful co-workers her four fantastic math supervisors as well as her four supportive principals during her time here at bernards township she was also able to earn her master's in middle school mathematics which was a goal of hers that she held mary as you get ready to begin your retirement i wish you nothing but the best your love for your profession was eminent in every lesson that you created every interaction you had with students parents and colleagues

043and i know that that love you have for your family runs very deeply in your heart just like you stepped away from your time in education at chatham to begin a family and raise your children it's now that time again however this time you are stepping away to not raise your children but to continue to grow and build your legacy with your beautiful five grandchildren who i know are on top of your retirement bucket list to spend time with so as you enter this next phase of your jury mary i wish you nothing but the best and know that we will truly miss you congratulations [Applause] thank you mrs hudak and congratulations to mary and mary and next up we have dr laszvik who's going to be speaking for ridge high school good evening everyone

044and congratulations um i have the honor to talk about two of our distinguished teachers who unfortunately will be leaving us this year mr brum would you join me please [Applause] everyone this is john brum he's been a teacher here at ridge high school for the past 16 years teaching different levels of biology and environmental science and he has had an indelible impact on our students our staff and the larger community whether a struggling ninth grader a high achieving 12th grader or anything in between mr brown was always able to establish a connection to meet the needs of any student who walked into his classroom prior to coming to education mr brum had a successful career in the corporate world and his experiences and achievements shape his classroom management and his instructional approach enabling him to

045provide the real world experiences for which he is known and celebrated by his students the senior internship program here at ridge was advocated for and spearheaded by mr brown this endeavor required an immense amount of work on his part and he happily endured this out of his desire to provide something new unique and meaningful to ridge and it is certainly part of his legacy that will live on beyond his career and time with us mr brum so valued his position at ridge high school that while his home here in basking ridge was being built he commuted from connecticut and back daily to make sure he could serve the students here at ridge high school for the past several years he has routinely been the first person into the building and the last person out each

046day including routinely coming over in the summer to update his classroom instructional materials and mr brum was one of the teachers that i got to know best most quickly when i started here just short of two years ago because he is literally at everything if it involves our students competitions performances proms graduations you name it mr brum is always there supporting them in the words of his students these are their actual words mr brum is from one student such a passionate teacher he taught me so much while being such a kind and caring guy he was extremely helpful as both a teacher and a mentor and always was interested in what we were doing as students another student said mr abram is a wise soul with a comedic edge and that makes him an extremely

047affable figure in particular he provides a wealth of advice to his students that will help them for years to come i know i will certainly use his advice in my life moving forward another student said mr brum has told us before about his previous work experiences but what stuck with me was the fact that after all these different jobs he chose to be a teacher at ridge high school he truly cares for our world's future and the students here who are working to change it all of our projects included something some kind of futuristic aspect where he taught us what we can do to help our earth and each other his kindness and compassion for others will forever stick with me and i hope that one day i am even half as passionate about my

048job mr brum as you have been for yours and finally one student concluded uh his remarks by saying i wish mr brum the very best in his retirement as i know he will continue making the world a better place mr brum there are certain things you are permitted to do in retirement this comes from your colleagues you can travel feel free to relax in your adirondack chairs with umbrella drinks you can bike ski and ice skate and attend the many awesome and sc awesome after school events at rhs not as an employee but as a beloved and caring member of the community what you are not permitted to do in retirement sneak back into rhs and mask yourself as a teacher rejoin a competitive full-contact hockey league and come out of retirement to go anywhere

049other than rich mr brum you have a master of your material and a consummate student of the art of teaching but as you heard from your students it is your most important quality which your students have labeled both your caring and your kindness we are grateful for the time we have had with you um mr brum and we wish you all the best as you continue your journey congratulations will miss karamaruska join me up here please [Applause] again i've had only the honor to know these teachers for a short amount of time so i've reached out for help to understand miss mareska has been teaching here for 19 years courses including government economics current issues and sociology in the words of her colleagues and her students she has impacted countless lives and become an integral

050and respected member of her department and our larger team prior to common education ms moreska was in private industry most specifically in fashion in fact she has served for quite a while as the de facto fashion advisor for our social studies teachers um those of whom are now worried what they are going to do without your comments and critiques and help each day moving forward in the words of miss mareska's students miss mareska is a pretty cool teacher she's passionate about teaching us about our world wanting us to be informed and educated and to get involved the projects we did were always fun and allowed me to learn more about current issues that i found important others i didn't know anything about she always pushed us to understand more about the world around us and

051in doing so more about ourselves another student said i am very glad i decided to take this class and that's only because i got to have miss mareska as my teacher there was never a dull day in her class she taught us how to be tolerant of everyone's varying opinions certainly something we all need to learn another student mentioned that miss marasca's passion and interest which she brings to teaching every day is unmatched and she always makes class more interesting for all of us challenging us to think more and more of ourselves and finally i'll miss mrs maraska so much she has changed me in ways i can't even describe i hope she enjoys her retirement miss mareska you are passionate about helping others learn to listen find their passions see the importance of being

052engaged and as i have witnessed inspire those around you to become engaged in the world in positive meaningful and impactful ways we will never be able to replace the energy and the drive that you bring to us we certainly will miss you and we wish you all the best in your journey congratulations now i'm going to introduce mr richelle our athletic director to take a microphone from one of our teachers good evening and pardon my disheveled exp appearance but i was out there at that lacrosse game that caused a little traffic issues out there it was a little warm so i was scrambling to get here after closing up and here we are so i'd like to invite uh my good friend and colleague bill tracy [Applause] why so close [Laughter] that's a joke from

053his banquets um glory days huh he did a great job american idol is next there you go all right so bill tracy has taught health and physical education at ridge high school for the past 13 years in total bill has served as an educator for 29 years including his stints at perth amboy westfield and livingston high schools bill has been a highly successful head football coach for 20 years 22 years including his 11 at ridge and the prior 11 at livingston high school where he won sectional championships at both schools as a person teacher and coach bill has always demonstrated the highest degree of personal integrity and ethical professionalism he has a friendly and positive personality which has enabled him to be well respected by his colleagues and an excellent mentor and role model to

054the students that he leads as the head football coach at ridge bill has had a profound impact on many of our students while leading the red devils the team was a regular participant in the playoffs winning a group four section championship in 2013 with a perfect 13-0 record on multiple occasions bill was named coach of the year including the new jersey state coach of the year award as a teacher and coach bill has firmly believed that he was a servant of the students and student athletes that he worked with it was always their team never his team it was his good fortune in his eyes to have the opportunity to lead and prepare them to be their best bill was never one to cut corners and believe that hard work detailed preparation doing it the

055right way were the keys to success he believed in treating every player on the team with the utmost respect and in coaching every player every single player to ensure that each one felt they were a valued member of the team this philosophy was a non-negotiable one that he instilled and demanded in his coaching staff it is often said that if one is able to make a difference in the lives of others then that is a life worth living bill tracy has truly made a difference in many young people bill will continue to live a life worth living as he moves on to his next challenge as a teacher and head football coach at saint joseph's high school in metuchen coach as a colleague and a friend it has been a blessing to have worked with

056you we will miss you and your wife sue and we want to wish you all of the best for continued success [Applause] thank you okay so congratulations to all of our retirees uh we're gonna shift gears here a little bit uh and switch to folks that are largely uh in the middle of their careers our teachers of the year for this year so we'll start back up at the top and go with cedar hill mr simpola uh emily jones there's emily living the dream [Applause] i was going to tell that emily was dressed as a giant panda today trying to get the last couple books turned in every day it's a new adventure what i'm going to see her dressed as or looking like to get those books back in oh there you go tomorrow's

057a donut in case you're curious and what's the nifty do not forget your books oh all right and that is why she is our teacher of the year i don't even really have to say anything but i will mrs emily jones is an exceptional educator she goes beyond her prescribed job description to assist students colleagues and administrators in a myriad of ways mrs jones's lessons are highly effectively planned and executed she focuses on high interest topics and to bring the learning concepts to life her students are engaged and participate throughout her lessons as she brings the magic of books and other media materials to life for her students we constantly observe mrs jones is tapping into students prior knowledge modeling the learning objectives and then releasing the learning responsibility to her students to explore on

058their own throughout the media center mrs jones has the respect of both students and staff at cedar hill as well as the parents in the school community she plays an integral role in many building initiatives in response to kova 19 mrs jones had worked tirelessly to deliver her program over seesaw google and and zoom mrs jones adapted her craft to meet the needs of both in-person and virtual students during the pandemic emily jones has a solid sense of her students needs as evidenced by her interactions and personalized assistance on a regular basis to over 500 students at cedar hill she is passionate about the media program and is an obvious content expert she is continually evaluating the media center's collection and seeking ways to update and maintain that collection and constantly asking for money to

059do that this past year mrs jones expanded her breath of pedagogical influence as she assumed a more complex role co-teaching a new media technology enrichment program also known as quest emily has demonstrated that she brings so many strengths to this new partnership that it will enrich the education of cedar hill students for years to come cedar hill is fortunate to have a kind hard-working and devoted teacher as its teacher of the year for 2022. congratulations [Applause] okay okay so uh our retirees are traditionally uh gifted a present from the board of education which you probably saw miss mckeon doing with each of our retirees for our teachers of the year they get a designated parking space right up near the entrance of the school which goes a long way on a daily basis believe me

060so i'm sure they'll be excited to have that and i would just ask for our teachers of the year if you could stick around as we transition after going through our teacher of the year recognition i want to capture a quick photo of you with your uh new parking place signs but i'll hang on to them so you don't have to carry them around they have that kind of metal sharp edge so uh if you could stay for a second with that we're going to move right on to liberty corner and dr oliver is here to recognize our teacher of the year from liberty corner all right nicole it's time come on down [Applause] lcs's teacher of the year is mrs nicole williams mrs williams is more than a teacher of children at lcs she

061is also a teacher of teachers and has become a valued member of the lcs community nicole is finishing her fifth year at lcs and has been breaking down the i'm not a math person persona which i think i said in your interview over the years nicole has shown to always be willing and excited to assist teachers further develop their knowledge of mathematics instruction teachers have gone to her countless times and she offers a plethora of resources she has such a great background in math and truly understands the fundamental needs of students but she is also a lifelong learner and continues her own college pursuit she is currently in a master's program to stay on top of the best practices our staff is lucky to have such a knowledgeable math specialist while her official role or

062title is that she is an instructional support teacher she really is a math specialist in so many ways when thinking about what i wanted to write about nicole her personality is what really first comes to mind to me she is full of energy she has a true passion for mathematics instruction and she is one of the most selfless individuals i know during her time working lcs nicole has become a true asset to our students our parents and her colleagues she is credited for increasing focus and dialogue on mathematics at the individual and grade level basis one teacher wrote about nicole she is always willing to provide resources to help any student in my classroom what stands out most about nicole is her sincere desire to help us as educators increase our understanding and ability to

063be the most effective mathematics teachers we can be pam lawrence and i nominated nicole this year for the presidential awards for excellence in mathematics and science teaching and i'm pleased to share with all of you that she has been selected as new jersey new jersey's finalist and her application has moved on to the national level we're eager to hear about the results of this award because we truly believe that she deserves this level of recognition mrs williams shared what her proudest accomplishments were for this school year i'm most proud of the algebraic reasoning i did this year for our community of students i feel i have a clear vision of the type of thinking students need in order to do and be successful at the higher levels of mathematics i'm also really proud of the

064community of mathematicians i helped to create with the accelerated math students i'm also very proud of being nominated and selected as a state finalist for new jersey in the presidential award for excellence in mathematics and science teaching as well as being named the teacher of the year for liberty corner school these accolades are very exciting to me and i'm very grateful for the recognition nicole is not somebody who really looks or achieves to stand in the limelight but she most definitely deserves this attention and i could not be more proud to work and learn from a person like you congratulations [Applause] okay thank you dr oliver and congratulations to nicole we'll move on to mount prospect school and welcome joanne hozeny back up to the podium miss jakubowski please grace us with your presence that's

065it her outfit does not fail to disappoint love it i have the distinct pleasure of congratulating miss sherry jakubowski on being the recipient of the 2022 mound prospect teacher of the year award she is currently a second grade teacher cherie attended kane university and earned a degree in elementary education and history mr simpola loved that remember that yeah she then acquired two master's degrees in american studies and curriculum and instruction she was a first grade teacher in another district prior to joining mps boy were we so lucky to have her interview with our school in 2002 her legacy at mount prospect began in miss jakubowski's first interview she was given a writing prompt asking what are the most important characteristics of being an outstanding teacher in her response she spoke about the following a person

066who truly wants to be in the classroom a person with passion has heart and dedication patience a gentle voice the ability to make adjustments and meet the needs of individual students my favorite response and mind you this she had to hand write this it wasn't even typing at that point no no spell check my favorite response was she wrote working in a school is like playing on a team we learn from each other's ideas and mistakes all of these comments are exactly what miss jakubowski brings to the table from the very moment a person gets to know miss jakubowski one can see her amazing sense of style and her fantastic sense of humor she walks down the hallway with personality and flair miss jakubowski brings her entire being into her classroom from calling every senator

067congressman and future president to arrange a visit with her class to hanging up the largest abe lincoln cutout to compare your height to miss jakubowski brings her a-game every day in fact just today she had a secret service agent who protected both the bush and clinton families come to her class to be a guest reader overall miss jakubowski treats her students so fairly she helps them with whatever they need she raises the bar for her students by calling them scholars her expectations are high and every student is successful in reaching them being a student in miss jakubowski's class is so special she compliments the children for their successes or gently helps them to correct any mistakes when you walk in her classroom you could see how happy all of her students are miss jakubowski is

068the perfect primary school teacher whether it's in first grade second grade she always comes to the table with a smile and a spring to her high heeled step miss jakubowski is caring and loving who always her love always shines with all the amazing things she does for and with the students during her time at mount prospect miss jakubowski also has gone above and beyond to collaborate with her colleagues she has made herself an integral part of our school community by involving herself in so many facets one can see pieces of miss jakubowski's instructional style in many different classrooms her leadership in the grade level and within the school are superb she has been a grade level leader worked as an aftercare leader and served on so many committees i personally love visiting her classroom and

069chatting with her to hear her ideas and opinions her students said the following things that they love about her she loves the usa and government she tells lots of funny stories learning is so fun in her class i like her makeup when she reads she uses funny voices she is kind and respectful but above all i think about seven students said this i love miss jakubowski and it's so true well that just says it all and i wholeheartedly agree it is clear that everyone loves miss jakubowski and it's only fitting that she'd be the recipient of this year's non-prospect teacher of the year title congratulations sherry all right i told you this was going to be fun next up miss foley for oh street school nancy elect leader come on down you're not winning a

070car but i do have a parking spot so that's good okay so we're going to take a little time machine back to when mrs lecleeder moved into basking ridge community she stayed at home with her children and they attended cedar hill whams and ridge but then 17 years ago in 2005 nancy became a part of the oak street school staff nancy is a literacy instructional support teacher and she's a leader and a mentor and a co-teacher and a colleague and a friend and a therapist and a lot of roles she serves on many committees she's a critical part of the staff and quite possibly the best baker we have her pecan bars are to die for nancy is an amazing educator who goes above and beyond for all her students not just the instructional support

071students she always takes the time to make personal connections with the students showing genuine interest in how they're doing and what's going on in their lives and sharing many details about her dogs dog sorry nancy plans engaging lessons that incorporate student interests which help make stronger connections and have children invested in the lessons when a student is struggling with a concept nancy presents pursues alternate methods for teaching a specific skill it can easily be said that persistence and patience lots of it are key attributes to nancy's instruction she often instructs off of my office and her joy and energy are really admirable nancy's dedication is also evident in her professionalism she keeps up to date with current research and tweaks and modifies her teaching to reflect this nancy went back and attended college when her

072children did to get her latest certificate as a reading specialist and this illustrates her dedication to lifelong learning nancy is a team player she shares what she learns with her colleagues and always offers multiple strategies and solutions to help students and maintain their love of literacy nancy's good at communication and she's always available to answer a question or lend an ear nancy truly encompasses all the qualities of a master teacher and she truly deserves to be teacher of the year of oak street it is because of this dedication work ethic and connection to both students and staff that i'm very proud to honor nancy lechleter as oak street's school's 2002 teacher of the year okay next up william in middle school can i have ivana panacea please join me up front as fantasy [Music] doesn't

073surprise me you'd like the chocolate better than the sign we're in good hands this year's wamps teacher of the year is ivana panacea ivana has been a member of the wams family for the past 11 years she joined her very gifted seventh grade science team and she quickly branched out beyond the walls of her classroom to make wams a truly better place for us all her encouraging words her kindness her sweet little pick-me-ups that she delivers to her colleagues including me her strong command of technology her passion for the content area and meeting the new needs of her students are just some of the reasons why ivana was selected as the wham teacher of the year ivana devotes an extraordinary amount of time to touching the lives of students and staff at annan she proudly

074supports school-wide and district-wide efforts to bring awareness to important causes she supports the needs of her current and former students whether it's an encouraging email a letter of encouragement or even books or gifts when they're home sick she helps our staff by setting up the staff room in advance to ensure that their colleagues have everything they need before the school year begins she organized the sock drive from the kid president socktober and she participates when she's well the wham slam teacher versus student basketball game to support brian's dream foundation multiple years in a row in addition ivano also started the eco school club several years ago that emphasized the importance of recycling and sustainable living earning wham's our award the green flag she attends orchestra and band concerts to show her support even though she's

075not chaperoning them she attends other events that students participate in when she's not busy running around chasing her son ivana's contributions to our school community are vast some of the other activities or committees which there are numerous ones that she participates in are she's the co-writer and author of our weekly newsletter member of our sip committee our climate and culture group working with the university of saint elizabeth she's a member of our schools to watch group a lead staff college course including aspen formative assessment strategies reviewing games kahoot quizlet and the list goes on and on she assists teachers with technology on a regular basis and as a team leader for the first year this year is a strong force between the administration and the staff in making sure that all of our students needs

076and staff are being met in the past she has also been a member of the earth day committee the field day committee and the holocaust remembrance committee touching the lives of so many through her concerned efforts in all of these different groups and organizations ivana you are a gifted educator inside and outside of the classroom you are a role model for our new hires and you welcome the opportunity always to tune your own personal craft through your love of learning you're amazing at incorporating technology into your lessons seamlessly and engaging your students in a variety of instructional tools for your colleagues you are a go-to person when staff need you for your assistance for your conversations and just for your love and support the colleague who nominated her for this wonderful award has stated since

077the first year i worked with ivana which has been 10 years now i knew she was the best teacher i've ever had the pleasure to work with she is knowledgeable in the field of science that she teaches and she not only cares about teaching her students life science but she truly cares deeply about each one of their well-being ivana we are fortunate to have you a member of the wams family and it is my absolute honor and pleasure to be able to present to you wams teacher of the year congratulations [Applause] okay last but not least dr lazavick is back 16 years at ridge high school and just getting started miss emily lipnick would you join me up here please yet another another true lover of the spotlight ladies and gentlemen in the words of

078her nominator starting off with um our teacher of the year mrs lipnick values collaboration with her colleagues but more importantly strives to put her students at the center of her classroom regardless of what else is going on her classroom is an epicenter of fun who wouldn't want to be in her classroom she integrates technology pop culture and snazzy presentations into each of her lessons i had to use this language again she advocates for her fellow staff members on faq and the district pc committees she's taught countless staff colleges staff college courses and has served as an unofficial mentor for the members of her department and beyond within the school emily is someone who just enjoys helping that goes beyond our school and learned this about her but she volunteers a local women's led organization dedicated

079simply to promoting kindness across the community um this speaks volumes of to who she is as a person and as a professional just this year i had received an email from a parent of one of our students who was bowled over because she received a phone call from miss lipnick simply to convey how wonderful her child was and what wonderful things she was doing in class sad that they were surprised but miss lipnick you've made an impression um i want to quote this language as well one of our other colleagues said she packs more incredible goodness into each day than is humanly possible in any 24-hour span miss lipnick i want to share with you some of the things that your students said about you demonstrating the flowerly flowery writing techniques you've taught them yes

080i can't yeah yeah i can't read the first one um or no i'm kidding miss lipnick put up with a lot from us but she always balanced working hard and having a good time we always knew she was in our corner and that we could have fun with her and still learn miss lipnik has been a truly wonderful teacher she has she has taught us so many things so often despite our best efforts miss lipnick i can't believe how you've engaged us in so many interesting discussions on books like the scarlet letter and the great gatsby who knew another student said miss lipnick may be hard on us but she's only that way to help us learn and improve another student said ms lipnick helped me move my focus from grades to actually learning learning

081how to write properly and effectively with passion purpose and power i have definitely become a better writer in her class and i know i will use these skills for the rest of my life one final student said i can't i can't put into words what she's meant to me thank you so much mrs lipnick you certainly deserve to be the teacher of the year um i have to sorry go ahead please go ahead so often great teaching is not reacting the way everyone else would react in a situation so that you can teach your let your your students a lesson they would not learn anyplace else and to find people who can do that under the constant pressures that we face is truly something special and just this past week um i was involved in

082a conversation with miss whitney yesterday in a conversation with miss lipnick where i will tell you that not only her caring but um her power her energy but her control and her true care for the students came through um to the point where where so many people would have cut bait would have given up and thrown the towel she absolutely refused to give up on a specific student and i do believe that because of that this student is going to be so much better for himself and for all of us in my short time here i have come to respect and appreciate the person that is standing before you her creativity and honesty um no no bounds and she has never hesitated to tell me things straight and so as i said earlier in the

083year ms lipnick i'm thrilled to be able to tell it to you straight you are a teacher of the year congratulations [Applause] okay so uh thank you to all of our administrators for working so hard to honor our teachers of the year and our retirees congratulations again to you all our retirees our teachers of the year and their family and friends what we would like to do is have a little bit of a transition i anticipate that some of you might have other plans for the rest of the evening which is wonderful i hope you enjoy them but i would ask as we transition our meeting back to business and we have a quick little break if i could just ask the teachers of the year uh to come up for a quick photo op

084with their signs uh we'll do that and we'll get on with the rest of our business thank you again for coming tonight really appreciate it [Applause] yes foreign okay we're gonna resume our regular meeting at this point okay we are up to the superintendent's report there are two items but someone like to make a motion for those items mr salmon and mrs gray seconded could we have a role call please mr mclaughlin mr salmon yes ms schaefer yes oops mrs cray yes miss singh yes mrs white yes ms flight yes mr connor yes ms hiro yes this is mccue yes madam president thank you so we had just approved the memorandum of agreement with the btea and i would just like to make a couple comments i'd like to thank the members of the btea

085and the board of education and administrators that worked on the negotiation teams um thank you to mr salmon for leading negotiations this year and to ms hiro and mrs white for your hours of work and your support during negotiations thank you to mr syett mr marcary and ms fox and mr mclaughlin as well as the other administrators who stepped in as needed for feedback on various issues and most of all thank you to the btea for again making us a district that's the exception to the norm and i think mr salmon wanted to chime in yes thank you um i obviously echo ms mckean's thanks to the boe negotiations team and our administrators for their time and efforts over the last several months i would also like to thank the bta btea negotiations team for

086as always being candid and professional throughout the process we are extremely fortunate to have such an exceptional staff in basking ridge and i hope they feel recognized as such okay and i think mr marcarion had a couple comments for superintendent's report yes thank you so obviously uh this is june 13th the last full week of school on thursday and friday we have graduations at william annan and ridge high school respectively so i just wanted to congratulate all of our graduates and their families as students are going to be transitioning from one school or grade level to the next and in some cases on to bigger and better things outside of ridge high school in our school district whether it be at college or another endeavor so i just want to congratulate families it's a very

087exciting time a really exciting week for a lot of people as pages get turned and new chapters begin so congratulations to all of our students and their families and i just wanted to give a shout out as well to um our staff um it's it's been a bit of a challenging year fortunately um you know moving back to a more normal environment overall uh but we've certainly had our bumps in the roads and and and just sort of the added work that we've all endured uh in the community uh as and as and in the nation obviously as we have uh kind of come out of the pandemic situation and uh i just want to recognize the work of um all of the staff and and really the families and the community it's it's been

088a little bit of an added stressor and and i think things have been getting much better and and um i i really wanted to recognize um all of the efforts for normalcy that took place uh this spring the the ridge gives back uh day of service here was an example of that really getting everybody out in in involved in the community uh doing acts of service was really pretty special to accomplish for an entire school but more than that uh we we've had kind of our normal end of the year activities and that's been great to see as well despite the challenges of trying to get transportation set up for some of these things we've been able to make it happen and we have to thank our business office and our transportation folks both janet

089laboska as well as the folks that help us at del val because we had a lot of challenges with all the different year-end trips and ridge gives back events in making the transportation happen so a big shout out of thank you for those folks and i i heard uh gordon actually recognize uh the award that uh the middle school got in their uh redesignation as a school to watch uh just last week so that was pretty special as well so a lot of accolades for families and students and staff and i just wanted to take an opportunity uh to to give everybody a shout out and a congratulations given that it's the last week of school for students so thanks to all of our staff and administration and to the board for their hard work

090this year so thanks everybody thank you mr marcarian um at this point we're up to public comment on agenda items if you have a comment on something that's on the agenda tonight please state in your name and address when you come up to the microphone and you can sign in on the clipboard after you speak is there anybody waiting on zoom miss fox no okay so at this point if there's no public comments on agenda items i'll close that public comment we're up to approval of minutes there's one item would someone like to make a motion ms singh and mr khanna um could we have a roll call please mr mclaughlin mr salmon yes miss schaefer yes mrs gray yes ms singh yes mrs white yes ms light yes mr khanna yes is hera yes

091this is mccube yes madam president thank you um we're up to the finance committee there are five items with someone like make a motion for those items ms schaefer and mrs white is there a finance committee report today no there sorry no there is no report i'll just quickly go through the items item one is our routine disbursements item two is professional development as detailed there item three is on the addendum um and that is um all right mr mclaughlin i lost my notes already thank you i'd be happy to speak for that item three is the award of um 32 bus routes to kensington bus kensington had declined to renew under the existing contract however we put that back out to bid those bids were opened on the 7th of june and they were

092the lowest responsible bidder so we are awarding them the bids so that we have those routes covered for uh the school year beginning in september um would you like me to speak to four and five okay item number four is a capital reserve withdrawal uh the board of education and we talked about this uh several times in the last several months including the actual board award to provco roofing company inc for the oak street roof repair that work begins uh actually the beginning of next week and so we need to withdraw funds from our capital reserve as we originally intended in order to set up a purchase order because we assume that we'll begin getting requests for payment as early as the end of june the beginning of july additionally we had the architectural costs

093associated with that project some of which are now incurred meaning the design work and the bid work however there is a phase wherein they monitor the implementation of the project so we'll be getting billings now for that throughout the throughout the summer so at this point we're doing a capital reserve withdrawal that's number four and item number five pertains to uh transfers of appropriation related to where individuals with disabilities act the preschool component is the piece that you see at the bottom originally this was budgeted for tuition however since the district had no preschool students placed out of district 4 tuition this year the special services department has requested these funds be reallocated to supplies and purchase of services accounts as we see here and for the idea basic account it was originally budgeted as

094traditionally it is for tuition however the special services department did not spend that for that and is requesting that that also be expen be reappropriated or reallocated if you as you see here for supplies purchase of services and some stipend costs thank you mr mclaughlin does anyone have any questions about the finance items okay could we have a roll call please mr salmon yes miss schaefer yes mrs craig yes miss singh yes this is white yes ms light yes mr connor yes miss hiro yes mrs mccoon yes madam president thank you um we're up to the personnel committee there are 18 items with someone like to make a motion for them ms light and mrs gray is there a personnel committee report uh we met friday but i'll have to report out next monday or

095in a week okay thank you okay could we have a role call please mr mclaughlin mr salmon yes ms schaefer yes mrs cray yes ms singh yes mrs white yes ms light yes mr connor yes ms hira yes mrs yes madam president thank you um the policy committee i think you're going to report out next time as we just met that's correct okay thank you curriculum committee um we first had an update about the purchasing of a new textbook for spanish one prior to 2012 all courses utilize textbooks then from 2014 to 22 thematic units and authentic materials were used currently only latin spanish french and italian four honors and ap rely on textbooks curricular materials are needed to support novice teachers as a result of online materials disappearing from year to year the plan

096for the future is to incorporate text and ancillary materials into middle school and level one through three in all languages the textbook includes cultural and global themes and this coming year will begin with the purchase of a new textbook for spanish one the teacher will be restructuring the curriculum during the summer to include new material the textbook selected was amazing in contrast to the others reviewed for purchase and it's filled with authentic assessments integrated performance assessments called ipas and real world applications it includes excellent videos and recordings to also assist the teacher next we had a couple of items for discussion that were updates the first was about summer assignments all summer assignments were posted on june 3rd they were included in the friday folder and students were made aware of this the assignments are

097essentially the same as last year students who add or change a course are reminded to review page 15 in the course of studies to be aware of assignments for the new class and the dates in which they are due mr colmer gave us a summer geometry update he had indicated that 13 students met the criteria to be eligible to take the course of the 13 students one family had not responded and five declined to participate as was reported if there were less than nine students the summer course would not run however mr colmer is dedicated to seeing the students be provided this opportunity with the seven students who were interested in participating mr colmer presented the option to parents to equally share the minimally funded nine thousand dollar cost of running the program three families

098indicated they were no longer interested while four families stated they would still like their child to participate making the total per student cost of the program 22.50 it should be noted that any student who's met the criteria still has the opportunity to take both honors geometry and honors algebra 2 during the 9th grade school year thereby placing them on two-year head mathematics pathway next mr fackelman provided us a k-12 music update it included the challenges during code and the impact on enrollment in ensembles at the start of the year there was some catching up that had to occur with limited live instruction and playing time last year some students stopped playing an instrument however many students returned this year more students selected string instruments last year to win instruments as parents did not want their

099children playing them due to covid which caused an imbalance in instruments the elementary level was not able to have children have in-person testing out of testing out of instruments last year called the petting zoo that's when they can come and actually touch and see and feel the different instruments therefore the twenty twenty twenty one gear saw a slight dip in enrollment but as evidenced by recent concerts the musicians are doing great staff reported students are at levels consistent with previous years and they are progressing along and enrollment is on the rise for the 22-23 year in fact projections for the string ensembles are at or near their 2019-20 enrollments coral ensemble participation increased throughout the year and it's expected to continue rising next year at the secondary level there's a bit of an imbalance of

100instruments and a goal is to balance out the ensembles but ultimately we want students playing instruments that they like some students have swapped instruments at whams no drastic changes enrollment were seen high school students rebounded at a faster rate than middle school students but that is related to students having multiple rehearsals a week at ridge versus wams overall students achieved great success in their performances at williamson ridge and performed at and above their grade level mr fackelman also addressed questions about how and if the rotate and drop schedule had impacted the high school music program he informed us that every student who requested a music class was placed into their class much has been learned from this year and minor adjustments will be made for next year for example lunch ensembles will be optional except

101for prior to concerts as students have reported enjoying the social aspect of unit lunch and being able to use the time to meet with other teachers or try out different opportunity time activities overall it was a successful year and next year schedule is underway mrs fox reviewed the plans for revising the health curriculum this summer there will be teams of teachers working in grade bands k through 2 3 5 6 8 and 9 through 12. teachers for each team are being determined each team will have eight days during the summer to revise the curriculum to reflect the new standards the process will involve reviewing both the old and new standards the standards are the standards so the question remains what and how are children being taught we will survey the community and seek input from

102parents students staff and community members over the summer the teachers and administrators will update the curriculum to align to the new standards on august 24th at 7 pm we'll hold the bt connect meeting where we'll review the course curriculum and materials with the focus on anything new prior to that meeting we will publish the proposed curriculum on our district website in rubicon and in a user-friendly format that will highlight the changes as the teachers work throughout the summer we'll be provided with updates and have the opportunity to review and share with the community the new curriculum in the fall before any lessons are implemented what will remain the same is the option to opt children out of lessons and this process will be included in the information provided this fall we then had an update

103on evidence-based instruction and intervention phonological awareness and phonics core program in grade k-1 was presented by lisa vitale with an update that included the past the present and the future practices in terms of phonological awareness and phonics and core instruction and intervention in discussions began taking place as to how to best respond to students in need of intervention the different types of diagnostic assessments being utilized how to allot instructional time in gen ed classrooms and the need for direct and explicit instruction for growth to take place in students phonological awareness and skills 2017 followed with teacher training in dibbles and in the 95 percent phonological awareness continuum in order to implement wind time a systematic approach to phonics instruction was reviewed in order to better align skills and assessments and teachers receive training in order

104for them to use consistent predictable procedures processes and terms this is now happening across all grade k through one district-wide teachers are loving using these practicing practices and seeing growth as a result in reading spelling and writing these approaches to teaching phonological awareness and phonics are efficient and effective and align with 20 years of the science of reading research all k1 students have been assessed on targeted skills in the fall and winter spring assessments are currently being completed this week therefore spring testing results are not available yet an increasing number of students were at or above benchmark as of winter testing and it's anticipated that the data will show fewer and fewer students students below benchmark this spring these are benchmarks that are determined across the country and are tied to core curriculum standards it's

105very exciting to see the students make significant progress with their phonological awareness and phonics skills and our next meeting will be july 22nd thank you does anyone have any questions about the curriculum report okay um there's a wellness committee wellness meets this thursday so we'll report on monday okay um does anyone have any liaison committee reports mrs white um i attended the end of the school year wrap up general meeting for the parents for exceptional children that was in held at pleasant valley park last week and they shared an overview of everything that they'd have accomplished this year and i just wanted to um highlight a couple of things because some people may not be aware of all of this but they were able to restart all of their programs that had been put on

106hold during cove which they felt was really really exciting they have recruited two new member mentor trainers and they're providing enhanced training they have 40 new members added they have currently 275 trained mentors that can assist with students um they implemented again their fitness and yoga programs their soccer programs their bollywood dance which was one of their newer programs they had all the regular events like their picnic and they also had a bowling evening this past winter they are currently looking for people who are interested in either being on their cpac or as pec reps from the school so they did they did say that their applications are out there and to please spread the word on that but it was really wonderful to see how excited they were about everything that they were able

107to do this year and they are really looking to have more and more parents that are able to contribute time and volunteer to their organization thank you does anyone else have any liaison reports mr salmon i attended the june 1st board meeting of the somerset county ed services commission which is a county organization that is comprised of board members from each district in the county the ed services commission predominantly runs transportation services as a shared service but they also have a special education school they had started this past year a combined trades program uh for students to get experience in multiple trade opportunities like carpentry electric plumbing and they built a freestanding bathroom in one of their work rooms which we got to tour the the superintendent also provided an update on enrollment uh prior

108to the pandemic they were 160 students and now they're at 130 students which is capacity based on their staffing this is a special education program so all the students are classified some are full-time and some are part-time and the goal is for most students is to transition them from the ed services commission school to the the vocational technical school thank you any other liaison reports no okay at this point we'll move on to public comment on non-agenda items if you have a public comment please come down and state your name and address and then you can sign in on the clipboard afterwards thank you good evening janice corrado 8 loan oak road and basking ridge i would like to speak on school security many parents in our community are concerned about school safety and rightfully

109so when we see news reports of an increasing number of school shootings our natural inclination is to do everything we can to make sure that those things don't happen in our to our children in our schools some have suggested that posting armed security guards at the entrances to all of our schools would be a deterrent i think this provides a false sense of security for the following reasons number one we have seen in both the uvalde and parkland school shooting incidents that armed officers do not engage with an assailant who is heavily armed further a security officer armed with a handgun is no match for an intruder with a high capacity weapon number two if a guard were stationed at the school entrance what is to stop an assailant from shooting at students walking to

110lunch or outside at recess what about the students who gather at lions mall or at starbucks how are we keeping them safe in our community why do we assume that schools are the only places where students are at risk instead i'd like us to consider what we can do together to prevent young adults from feeling so angry and so isolated from their community to want to purchase a rifle and kill others not to mention how we can prevent our young adults from feeling so hopeless that they believe the only way to find peace is to turn to drugs or to otherwise harm themselves yes there are many many young people who feel lost in our community what can we each of us do to help these members of our community one thing we can do

111is reach out earlier this month while i was out shopping and meeting friends for breakfast i met quite a few rich students around our town who were smiling laughing feeling good about helping our community and being part of something bigger than themselves yes ridge students gave back on june 2nd but i think they may have gotten something as well a sense of belonging a sense of being part of our community and that is so important especially following the pandemic let's stop making our schools into fortresses let's work on more personal levels providing connection and purpose for our teens and young adults so that they value themselves and their place in our community let's make schools places of learning and connection again thank you good evening chila chipok 264 liberty corner road i have sent an

112open letter to the board about the video titled lgbt 101 on may 25th after discussing it with my kind friend who is a sitting member of the board and she completely agreed with my viewpoints to my letter i have received a response from miss fox on june 7th firstly thank you miss fox for the courtesy of a response you stated in your email that the materials and standards i referenced are board approved and meet the 2014 health and physical education standards also provided a link to atlas rubicon where the video would be accessible to parents now i have even more concerns as a result which i hope you can clarify prior approval of the board in 2014 does not change my original point that the video is unscientific and factually incur inaccurate specifically related to

113characterizing a boy and a girl who identify as such as extreme like other parents pointed out previously even having the direct link i found that the access to the lesson plan was not easy and certainly not straightforward can lessen plans like this be placed on a current broader platform like genesis therefore when parents are receiving advance notice of different topics the material could be reviewed more readily one observation regarding the video it was produced by m schindler and uploaded on august 1st of 2016 to the video sharing platform or portal where the lessons link points to so i am curious how could this be the part of the approved material back in thank you for your answer in advance [Applause] my name is kirsten murray and i'm a freshman at ridge high school my name

114is maddie blanford and i'm a sophomore at ridge high school today we will be reading excerpts from a letter that i previously submitted to the board and mr cello on behalf of the ridge varsity softball program we also have some pictures we would like to share with the board regarding our softball fields we are exceptionally disappointed with the lack of attention that has been brought to both varsity and pleasant valley fields parents have relentlessly fought year after year for a drainage system varsity field dugouts proper fencing etc and it has been little received little to no attention we acknowledge the effort of our mark installing a temporary drainage system but their efforts have failed to make the field playable varsity fields is an extreme danger and an embarrassment to the ridge softball program with a

115rock solid infield and a mud-filled swamp for an outfield beyond this we were not able to play a single game on our own field actual field this year instead we have been forced to hold our home games at pleasant valley park on fields that are less than ideal and also pose hazards with overly sandy infields holes in the backstop in proper bases and no fences our coaches purchase batting cages so that we could have our own as the boys do and they have been sitting in the box because we have no field to call home our senior recognition banners hung on a fence at a public park rather than the varsity complex where they should be additionally pleasant valley park has been improperly kept lacking raking and proper lining on saturday morning april 30th we

116we arrived at pvp almost two hours early for our county tournament game our coach our coach brian mccarthy was frantically breaking the field multiple times our field was severely unprepared for our games was not lined or raked this is a varsity team and this is shameful as previously mentioned our current situation generates a remarkably unsafe environment for competing athletes and spectators on april 29th ridge varsity softball held the game at pleasant valley park against phillipsburg a player from the opposing team was seriously injured in the outfield it was an embarrassment and a disgrace to not only our team but the entire athletic department when rich players and coaches had to inform the opposing team that no athletic trainer was available on the premises it is imperative that we have an athletic traitor at all high

117school athletic events that can assist student athletes and act as a first responder in a time of emergency we commend the efforts of mr shellow and the athletic trainers amy and scott for being present at all our games after this after this was brought to their attention as well as the preparations at pleasant valley field this year also marks the 50th anniversary of title ix federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educational program the new renovation [Applause] the new renovations including solid replacement to the varsity baseball field and playable field conditions such as a properly lined and fenced facility with fully constructed dugouts for athletes is light years away from what the girls varsity softball program receives as seen in the pictures that we provided there are tremendous

118differences in the amenities provided to the girls and boys teams displayed in the first set of pictures on the left the boys varsity pristine field while on the right is the ridge varsity girls field rock solid overgrown and unplayable in the second set of images the varsity baseball dugouts completed with cubbies hooks and shade for the athletes while the girls varsity softball bench sits in overgrown weeds with no storage or shade to protect us from the bearing sun or pouring rain the boys field is ready to go after a rainstorm while the girls varsity field is complete with a river running through the infield into the left field swamp and will will make and will remain so for weeks seen next is a comparison of both scoreboards varsity baseball's functioning while ours is still awaiting

119parts the ridge varsity baseball program has played over 17 home games on their fully prepared fields decorated with senior banners for their graduating athletes the ridge varsity softball program has played zero games on their own field and instead their senior banners hung at a public park that was often not prepared for games other teams even offered for us to play at their home field still allowing us to be the home team that is embarrassing we learned recently that some money has been budgeted on our behalf under the category of maintenance i'm sure as you can see from the pictures and a trip over to varsity fields the work that needs to be done is way beyond the scope of maintenance but falls more under reconstruction the softball program realizes not all the previously stated points

120are immediately fixable but we implore any of you to fight for our cause to tell us and show us that we're worth it contrary to what the parent manual for athletic states the board of education administration faculty members of the athletic staff student athletes and parents should work collaboratively to promote the athletic program we feel as though we've received little to no help with our concerns we are begging for a playable field to call our own the 2023 season society wants to teach young women such as ourselves to be strong and believe that they are equal but we are resolved to the fact that equal is not possible here and we are just fighting for playable thank you sorry i'm a little emotional i just want to say sorry you you are worth it okay

121hi mr markarian and the board of ed members i am a mom of twin freshman soon to be sophomore varsity softball players my girls have worked hard over the last few years to improve their skills so oh i'm sorry lynn murray 72 deerage road sorry about that as sixth graders they watched the ridge softball team have one of their most successful seasons competing in the county finals and then eventually advancing to the group four semifinals little did they know that just a mere three years later they would both make the team as a freshman i have to admit the season started off rough with a one and 12 record but during the second half of the season they started to find their groove made to the state tournament played some competitive games against some of

122the most amazing teams in our conference and finished with an overall record of 5 and 19. this special group of girls has a ton of potential and we are all looking forward to what they will be able to accomplish in the next few years even having lost almost 80 percent of their games this year nothing was more frustrating to my girls than the on ongoing unplayable varsity field situation i am thankful that the pleasant valley field was at least a semi-decent option but honestly our girls deserve more than playing on a field meant then for rec games that can't even be lined correctly i'm not going to spend my time rehashing what maddie and kirsten have already spoken about and honestly what many of the board members already know i do want to address however

123that last week i inquired with a member of the finance committee about the money that had been possibly included in the budget for the repair of the field since we were told that the finance committee was going to discuss the situation at one of their meetings in february i am thankful to have received an email back from mr marcarion but i'm concerned that the answer was funding to continue work on the softball field will come from either the maintenance budget or if necessary the maintenance reserve after over a decade of issues with this field can the boe please admit this this field situation should not be classified as a maintenance issue if this was truly just a maintenance issue then the work could have been already been done the girls would have been able to

124play on the field this year instead the field was pretty much abandoned and when apparently parent recently reached out to mr shillow regarding the timeline for work to be done on the field to make sure it would even be playable next spring his response was he had no word from the boe and he would have to get back to them sadly as of this morning there has been no update to provide update provided as i'm sure you can gather the softball parents are willing to get our hands dirty if that means our daughters will get to play safely on their home varsity field that's probably not allowed but i still want to put that out there we are even willing to raise money for dugouts but being built in a wetland area this field needs

125major dam drainage work and a major repair first that i'm not sure any maintenance budget will cover and honestly if no solution can be worked out or if the boe is unwilling to set aside the money needed then we really need to start thinking outside the box for next year and subsequent years our girls truly deserve better thank you [Applause] hi guys larry rashio 234 liberty corner road what a perfect segue because i coached these girls when they were like literally this big i'm so proud of you guys for standing up unrehearsed um so my headline is more about the imbalance of our school district a top-heavy administration and inadequate support for the teachers i've touched upon this before i like to use a test when it comes to any public institution to ask if

126it were a private institution would it survive are resources being allocated properly in such a way that make it competitive resilient to recession how is it maintaining or sharpening its competitive advantage is it focused on enhancing value are its employees operating at maximum efficiency and more importantly are they treated well my detailed analysis we've been a great school district there's no doubt my kids have excelled here but there's a clear slide in the state rankings lately and parents are starting to pull their kids out are we making the right choices to position ourselves and improve upon our top 10 status the answer is no to prove this just have to ask ask yourself a few questions with a budget of 110 million dollars why are teachers paid a thousand dollars over the state median while

127our administration is paid significantly more on a state relative basis why are we spending money on federal grants on inexperienced equity consultants with muddled objectives objectives and wall murals when we should be focused on building our infrastructure as these girls have talked about a board member once inquired what are the nice to haves what would you cut because i don't see anything that i would cut let me answer let me answer some of those nice to haves it's nice to have two assistant superintendents earning an average of 180 grand a year despite declining enrollment and increasing costs per student annually it's nice to have assistant principals for each grammar school and one for every grade 6 through 12 totaling 11 each making about 140 grand a year plus benefits by comparison millburn the top-ranked school

128in the state one assistant superintendent four vice principals it's nice to have curriculum supervisors each earning about 140 grand a year reporting into a superintendent of curriculum who then report into a senior superintendent that chain of command alone is about 685 it's nice to have administrative assistants to support this administration it's nice to be able to spend 1.2 million more than milburn does on administrative salaries despite them having two more schools than us thank you [Applause] hi everyone my name is claudia hodges 177 lord sterling wrote and i am one of the few parents who actually saw the lgbtq educational video that was mentioned earlier and i found it super instructive and super helpful i shared on my own social media and got great feedback i think it's really important to remember what all of

129you know what teachers know what any youth leader knows and that is that the stigma against lgbtq youth within our schools and communities is the leading trigger for their victimization we know that lgbtq youth are four times as likely as their peers to attempt suicide we also know that in general they experience more bullying in person and online however that is not the research that i want to share with you with and i know this research you also know and that is that those statistics those rates of suicide and bullying drop drastically when this youth group is protected in safe and furman environments in schools so it is important that we provide inclusive curriculum so that all students become more accepting of lgbtq persons and in such provide a safer more affirmative school environment for

130these lgbtq youth lgbtq students who find trusted adults in schools have higher levels of self-esteem they're safer and they thrive and i really think that the role of our parents and educators and leaders like yourself is to provide environments in which all of our students not just some all of them have the opportunity to grow learn but most importantly to thrive and that's what makes this school district so good so please keep doing the great things that you're doing and ignore those voices of fear and misunderstanding i guess is what would be nice to say and just keep doing right for all of our students thank you hi stacy monarch 27 franklin drive congrats to all the teachers of the year and the retirees talked about tonight two weeks ago i wrote to you on

131the topic of health curriculum and ms fox thank you so much for your responses to my inquiries as well as the comments that you've made about the future assessment tonight since future health curriculum has been a topic many in the community are concerned about i think it's important to share what's already included in the curriculum at school as was addressed just a moment ago my children are in high school though so it's not age appropriateness that's my concern by this age they know a lot it's the content these theoretical topics about gender and what people's sexual preferences are any sexual preference doesn't belong in school one of my biggest concerns is that this board and administration has already approved this concerning content and some already approved content are from lesson plans by unqualified people on

132youtube google searches as was the case recently in ninth grade health these topics are focused on indoctrination and over sexualizing our youth and they are not being taught from lesson plans uh they are being taught from lesson plans from a google search on youtube so while i am concerned about the future mandates i also think another look at the current curriculum is needed if the content of the topics were aligned with the current standards that are listed on your website which says including the social contributions of those in the lgbt community that would be perfectly fine or if it was about kindness and respect of course that would be very appropriate if what was being taught in health class was actually about health i would not have a problem with that but that's not what

133this was about so it's concerning when i reflect back on your answers to those who've come to the last several meetings when you said there won't be a lot that changes with the new curriculum and that will develop the content with community values in mind so i would like to better understand how a survey is going to assess these community values and how are you going to use that information to make a determination on what to include who is writing this survey you spoke about discussing standards and curriculum over the summer but what about the lesson plan specifically the assignments and the materials that are used well they all come from google searches we're seeing now that the standards is potentially a large difference from what the curriculum and the lesson plan specifically include who

134in the community is the survey going to go to only people who have children in the school or all community members we've seen lots of folks who have grandchildren here but they don't specifically have a child in school and i'm sure that all members would want their input weight in how are you going to advertise the input will be used to make these big decisions to a broad group of people and frankly why haven't you been willing to draw a moral line in the sand there is far too much about sex in schools and it just doesn't belong this is personal information the offer of opting out of this objectionable content is not viable because this controversial content is spread throughout far more than just health class for two years i've watched you all experiment

135with our children and it just has to stop please keep this content out of the schools [Applause] sheri nelson 195 smoke rise road um first i really just want to thank our varsity softball players that came tonight to speak to you i've heard parents speak about this issue at other board meetings and it just makes me sad that it hasn't been fixed um i think they couldn't see behind them but several of us were standing to clap for you so good job girls we talk about diversity equity inclusion and we're not giving equity to the girls softball team they don't have the same access to the same facilities and athletic trainers that our boys do are you kidding me i i'm stunned to even hear that this is happening in our town so whatever needs

136to be done do it i don't know what what could possibly be the holdup at this point make it a priority just stop whatever you're doing that's got you distracted fix it um i think it's interesting different topic um school security i've been coming to board of ed meetings for 15 years and everything things got heated nationally that we saw things happen in board of ed meetings we started seeing police officers and board of ed meetings i did not see them here until this year tonight i've seen no less than three back there with our former officer hank warner who's now our security director if there's no value to armed police officers why are they here protecting you it makes no sense we have them at the middle school we have them at the high

137school in 2018 after the parkland shooting i was involved with a parent group that was advocating for not just school security officers we absolutely tackled our concerns about the mental health what can we do to help the kids the isolated kids there were many ideas that we asked for mrs gray sent me a great suggestion of something we could do in lunch and i tried to get it going at the middle school and i couldn't get the principal on board just to help some of those isolated kids during lunch a lot of our ideas got shot down you guys did add some more counselors to address that i do feel like we're approaching it from a lot of ways but we do not have dedicated officers at each elementary school and there are instances um

138i love miss croto she's an old friend of mine i don't agree that there's no value we've had a couple of times officers didn't act but you know what doesn't make the news when that resource officers does stop a shooting it happens all the time people's lives are saved i got the privilege of sitting with our police chief four years ago trying to advocate for this group of parents who were desperate for something and he said that you do everything you can to prevent a school shooting but god forbid it happens then it becomes how do you minimize the loss of life and how fast our officers can be there can make a big difference and i think that sometimes police officers don't act the way we want them to but more often than not

139they do and um at the last meeting mr markarian you said something about rumors and loose lips and the harm that it's done right after this shooting in texas there was a principal chat i believe at oak street that a board of a board of ed member attended and when parents asked why the elementary schools didn't have officers a board of ed member informed the public that the reason is township committee and the mayor said no to it back a few years ago when we lobbied for it they as completely false you guys said no to it i was at every single meeting there's quotes in the newspaper where you guys didn't want to fund the officers that we asked for my time's up i know it always is i can never get to everything

140um okay the dei survey did not include kids with disabilities no surprise there i told you guys it wouldn't i wasn't going to give one positive the focus group i participated in did at least address some of those concerns and on a happy high note i chaired the balloons in june committee with a couple of other moms and we delivered almost 5 100 balloons around town today and we only had a couple of them fly away on us so thanks to all the volunteers that helped us get that done [Applause] uh hi debbie marcus 16 lafayette lane first i want to give a congrats to the teachers who were here before it was really nice to hear all the um just the heartwarming stories of their great impact on our students in our district and

141also i appreciate hearing the updates on various aspects um on the committees you're working on um the one thing that just happened to your members that they're adding textbooks back to the language classes which is great i was always um i just bought some for my kids online because i thought you it's really helpful to have reference books for languages i also want to just add on to my originally intended comments that if there's one actual item tonight i do think i i the softball field should be it that's those students and parent made one of the best presentations i've ever heard here and all the valid points i have a friend with a daughter who's grad you in med school now and i think the field they were they were talking about it then

142too so um i do hope you can focus some efforts there all right um i wanted to give an update to the d-e-y-e-i survey as a constituent participant so i've spoken about it before kudos to the focus group facilitator who was open to a wide range of discussion our group happened to focus on iep and disability issues a lack of openness to conservative viewpoints in class discussions and what can be can be done about the minority of teachers who are pedagogically ineffective so the qualitative aspect of this the consultants groups were good i was glad to see that however none of this uh the information that was shared in my group was uh stuff that hadn't been shared for free through other channels over the years so i'm still trying to see whether this approach

143is an efficient use of taxpayer money but i'm trying to give it the benefit of the doubt in the meantime the administrative aspects of a hired company were less than professional concerningly the email sent to students for them to fill out their form said to delete the email after really delete the email after you fill out delete this email after you fill out the form included on it that is literally what we teach our kids not to trust online it sounds shady and sketchy i'm guessing the consulting group did not want outsiders accessing the public google doc a much simpler way would have been to make it password protected while unlikely it is certainly possible that the link was forwarded and outsiders could have filled out the survey multiple times and skewed the quantitative results

144since the email with the student link came from a bernard's boe email address i'd like to know if anyone reviewed it first do we have a policy of what's the content of emails sent to students the sloppiness with this online communication makes me worry about the consultant's access to any data from our kids please continue to oversee the company that we've hired closely on a separate note i am also concerned about the planned new jersey health curriculum i have consulted professionals who agree that the current version has many elements that are not age appropriate there is no um the value of a lower elementary school child learning more about sex than they are ready to ask about is questionable speakers here keep mentioning about lgbtq plus rights but there's a misunderstanding apparently or they're not

145listening the discussions i hear are just about sexualization period i don't really care the details of with whom at the elementary age one person at a previous meeting complained about their child hearing crude terminology used for body parts however knowing formal anatomical names is not going to change playground behavior proper manners and kindness generic values taught by parents will similarly gender exploration is not age appropriate at a level when kids barely know what the biological difference is between a boy and girl in the first place i was a tomboy and would have been very confused at first to shoot forced to choose to be something based on the way i acted at a young age no okay i have two paragraphs on a question okay if individual families need to deal with related issues and

146body dysphoria they should of course but that doesn't mean the subject needs to be taught to everyone at a young age before they may be ready again please note that for most of these topics i'm focusing on the issue of whether the it's the age appropriateness of the topic when we're speaking about the elementary level and to the argument that people can opt out as someone mentioned there's already examples of cases where videos are shown and parents were not given the option to give approval plus our curriculum does a really good job of spiraling and permeating topics amongst many areas including books that the kids read so just it's not you're not opting out of like one thing it's it's there which is good for learning but not when you want to avoid a topic

147finally the argument the argument that kids see these things on the internet anyways is already is also easily debunked finding something out on your own on the internet is different than having a trusted authority spoon feeds some sexual content to you the website provided by new jersey as a resource for all students to use has a cartoon depiction of some of the how-to and benefits of masturbating it would be laughable that the school is recommending this as but it's it's true okay in the end teachers have enough to cover and don't need more added to the plate and or can tell a student to ask their parents instead of imposing their own view viewpoint so i'll just i'll skip to the questions mainly one you mentioned that there will be some review over the summer

148the curriculum my question is a how were the teachers picked who will be on the committee to rewrite this curriculum what were their qualifications and how and how did you combine diverse perspectives and two is this district considering doing what some other in a growing number of districts in new jersey are doing which is to either reject the mandate or minimize it by having it on like just the last day of school or something like that thank you [Applause] hi megan dooley she her 17 brook ave there's obviously a lot of buzz about the new health and pe learning standards so i want to just take a moment to discuss some of what these new standards are and a few things that they are not the standards are an opportunity for children to learn the

149proper medical terms for their anatomy this way they're able to appropriately speak up for medical or health needs experts say knowing proper terminology can make children less vulnerable to sexual abuse and in the horrific case of abuse it gives them the words to tell a trusted adult what happened plus it can instill in children a sense of confidence and body positivity the standards are too a recognition that there are people of all different genders and sexualities and that families come in various forms and structures they're a way to have each student not only see their own identity reflected but also to open students eyes to identities beyond their own medical professionals assert that children typically have a firm sense of their own gender by around age four so these standards do not ask students to

150reconsider their own identities but rather give them an understanding of self and others the standards absolutely do not suggest that elementary aids students be learning explicitly about sex rather they suggest that by the end of grade eight students should be able to divine sex and it should go without saying that this does not mean that there will be explicit tutorials the truth is students have long been expected to find sex at this stage of development the difference is that under an outdated curriculum this was a narrow definition that only considered heterosexual norms health curricula have been cis and heteronormative for decades leaving so many young people with questions and without equal access to an education that's meant to help them make informed healthy choices and to my knowledge this has never actually turned student cisgender

151or straight ultimately the updated learning standards are an expansion to ensure that all identities are taught respected and included a friend of mine often says that the opposite of inclusion is exclusion for far too long too many of our students have been left out of the health curriculum so as this district develops the health curricula in line with the state's new learning standards i trust that it will be in a way that supports represents a firm's respect includes students of all identities and family backgrounds and i understand that that curriculum will be written by health teachers certified health teachers because this is the bare minimum for creating a safe learning environment for all and a safe learning space is what's necessary to create the great schools like the ones that we have here thank you

152stellaperno 105 talks for terrorists i didn't have papers i'd write on my hand um i had worked with sherry on the bernards it was called brass but it was to advocate for safe schools and one of the things we also talked about was having metal detectors at each of the schools but having metal detectors all on their own wouldn't be sufficient it would need to have a resource officer to administer it um so you know yes these things cost money but our children are priceless and before we talk about anything academic the safety of our students is first and foremost if our students aren't alive we can't teach them anything it is it is that simple knowing what's going on in our country today i think it behooves us to put aside this matter security

153first find ways to make sure all our especially our elementary schools are hardened i have seen timeless instances where rocks have been put at the door so teachers don't have to go around the front to take their students back in after recess you think i'm going to sit here and report every single one we need to take this seriously it is that important i don't want to have to have an incident or two where we are now discussing what we should have done what we should do is be proactive not reactive different topic i learned this week or last week i should say on the day of prom that a number of students were called down to the athletic office to be voluntarily drug tested i quickly looked to see if i had opted my

154athlete out of it and i had however if you have an athlete in our school district you are not opted out if your team goes to state tournaments that was news to me because i had never seen that written anywhere except on the policy for njsia so i spoke with mr shellow he explained to me how that worked but i have to say the initial form that we fill out at the beginning of the school year does not talk about the fact that if you opt out that does not include athletes so i just want to make sure that that is clearly stated on our website for parents in the future thank you [Applause] is there anyone else here for public comment is there anybody waiting on zoom republic no okay so at this point

155i'll close public comment okay uh thanks everyone for your comments tonight um i just wanted to kind of pick out some of the big themes here obviously uh appreciate the input from the students uh with respect to the uh condition on the varsity softball field and as you shared this is not a new conversation we have been talking about this uh periodically over the course of this school year and i think in the communication that we had we've represented that we would try to make this field playable this year if we could unfortunately the amount of water that that field receives has made that impossible despite some of the efforts that you noted that you observed cleaning out drainage ditches trying to cut some drainage stitches pumping water off the field uh it is a

156obvious uh problem that is an overwhelming amount of moisture and it just never got dry enough to get playable this year so um obviously that's very unfortunate uh and work does need to take place so we have hired an engineer who has been taking measurements at the field drawings are being done specifications are being built elevations have been shot relative to the slope of the outfield and the kind of work that needs to happen in order to try to resolve the drainage problem that we have there so we are working with our director of facilities meeting with him weekly on his progress with regard to getting that project underway and our goal is to get something going this summer where equipment is brought out onto that field and elevations are redone outfield work is redone

157to try to take care of the ponding and the water that is accumulating largely on the left side of the field so that project is underway and it will take time but we will be happy to report out on progress we have a finance committee meeting next week so we'll be talking to the board about it then um in the meantime uh we recognize that we had the students playing on fields at the parks uh and you know where i became aware of it i certainly worked with mr shellow we recognized that there was a problem on the weekend in particular in getting the fields lined uh and i thought it had been addressed i appreciate your patience and we are certainly working on the field with the goal of having it playable for next

158season so thank you for your comments for your pictures and for your patience on that project sure um just to chime in about the softball field i know i've spoken with a number of board members up here and we've discussed our fields at the finance committee several times in very recent times um we just want to reassure you that we are hearing what you're saying this is not an issue of um of equity in the sense that your girls and the boys get a better field it's unfortunate that we have a couple of fields and a couple of teams that our fields are in really poor shape um boys soccer and somewhat girls soccer some of the different other teams have some pretty substandard feels that we're trying to address we have a big problem

159with the drainage it's wetlands and so it affects the number of fields and has been for a number of years a bunch of years ago when i was on the board we spent i think 150 thousand dollars trying to fix the girls softball field and obviously we're back where we were before with the water so as mr markharon said it's clearly going to need a bigger um drainage job to get it fixed but we do hear what you're saying and we don't want you to think that it's we because we don't value your team or you as athletes can i can i ask a question about that now i mean have we have we searched the opportunity to maybe share is it possible to share the baseball field with the softball team it's a different

160the baseball field is a different size so it doesn't work any different yeah so it's not like in some sports where they can share the field and trade back and forth who gets the good field yeah it's a different size field rob thank you can before we leave the softball can i just i just want to read something from the finance report from the last time uh specific to the work that nick mentioned has been going on um we did have a surveyor come out and the surveyor indicated that he believes the board of education will have to submit a soil erosion and sediment control plan with the county as well as a land disturbance plan with the township it's not an easy fix it's not a do it now like we're just not doing

161it and we're doing something else there are layers here that are complex and well beyond the control of the school district and this is a wetlands transition area it's it is a land use issue so i don't know if everyone who's here tonight was here when that was read out so i just wanted to jump in thank you mrs gray okay back to mr marcary okay um so there were several comments about the uh health curriculum obviously as as miss fox shared a little bit in the beginning of our meeting and she may want to jump in with some other thoughts uh it's a complex issue that is going to take a lot of time we are inviting everyone to work on providing their input through that survey that she described earlier and it's going

162to be a continuing project for the long term through the summer i i know there were a lot of questions tonight i don't know that we really have the the ability to answer all of them tonight um but if you wanted to jump in on a few of them i could try to answer a couple um i think five people spoke about it and there were two comments in favor of the current health curriculum and three posed i think it represents sort of the diversity of opinion we're sort of faced with in in taking a look at this curriculum and the new standards and developing revised curriculum where it needs to be revised so i just kind of wanted to you know illustrate the fact that there are people on both sides of sort of

163what they believe is right for kids and that's our job is to sort of synthesize all that so someone asked um well one person said that our curriculum is over sexualized and i would strongly disagree with that i would um suggest that if you think that that is going on you talk to your child's teacher and you understand what was taught and there's sort of a chain of command where if you're still unhappy with what the teacher explains you can sort of speak to other people myself supervisors principals but i disagree that it is over sexualized and i think if you talk to teachers and you understand what they're teaching and what their goals are you would probably agree the survey is a chance for the town the community the teachers the parents the students

164to weigh in on what you agree with and potentially disagree with it does involve reading the standards and taking a look at the curriculum and understanding what's taught for example health9 has been discussed a couple of times tonight and i did communicate with both of those those people who spoke tonight and i'm happy to speak with them further about like the list of questions that you have about those but it does support i think the question was about the 2014 document and so i just wanted to maybe clarify that a little bit curriculum is updated by the state of new jersey i'm sorry standards are updated by the state of new jersey about every five years so in 2014 the standards in health and phys ed and many other subjects were updated by the state

165of new jersey and districts then updated their curriculum and their and their instructional resources and so on to align to the 2014 standards so until we implement the 2020 standards this fall the 2014 standards are considered up to date the most current standards but when you look at our curriculum online the last time health 9 10 11 and 12 were updated was 2019 so that's why you might see some different resources newer resources than were in 2014 when the standards were adopted so it's a little complicated to understand and that's why it takes a lot to read the standards and understand that sort of the flow but like when you look at those uh lessons that you object to they were written by teachers they were approved by supervisors they were brought before the uh

166not every single resource is brought before the board of education but the process internally among teachers and supervisors is to review resources and include them in classes that we feel are age-appropriate for that lesson and for that standard in this particular case the standard is talking about teaching about attitudes and beliefs about gender identity sexual orientation and gender equity across cultures so that video in question defines gender identities and then the class discussion would take it further to what that standard is actually speaking about so it's a complex as mr marcarian said sort of endeavor to understand what's being taught and it really does involve reading the standards but also having conversations with not just your kids but also the teachers when you have questions about it so back to the revision i do encourage

167you to to weigh in on the survey that's the way we can hear from as many community members as possible and you will have the ability to share your values and have us include that in our discussions as we look at these new standards but it is our goal to be inclusive of all students right and inclusive of all groups of students and teach to those students that we have in our classrooms before us so it's a diverse diversity of opinion you heard tonight and we have a diversity of a student body who are teaching and trying to have students see themselves and come to understand themselves and their and their peers as they as they go through our program somebody asked about who's going to be writing the curriculum it's our it's our teachers

168our certified health teachers our certified teachers they are hired by the district to do the curriculum writing along with the administrators thank you miss fox there was some comments also about the drug testing program in the school district i know there were some email exchanges that took place over the last week or so about clarifying that i certainly appreciated those comments i know some documents have already been updated to make it clear that in fact the district's program is a voluntary random drug testing program and parents have to opt students in for that program they they can't be involved in that program without parent permission students are not automatically uh enrolled it's it's only by parent choice and it is true that the njsia separate and apart from that does have its own drug testing

169program that occurs as a requirement for student play in nj siaa and that testing happens only with some teams at the state competition level and that's why some students occasionally might get selected if they're competing in that level of state play and that's what happened uh in the instance that was raised tonight so i appreciate pointing out the difference it is uh it is a clear difference that we want to make a little bit more explicit in our documentation and we've already started to do that so i appreciate that comment um with respect to school safety uh obviously with what happened uh recently in texas it kind of raised that question back up in in all of our minds and you know i think the important thing as one of our parents spoke tonight is

170is to kind of remember that really the the safety of the students is is the top priority and it's an ongoing goal it's it's not something that um we're just doing randomly or or when something terrible happens we respond we do have a team of staff that are focused on this in particular each of the schools safety teams have the benefit of a director of school safety and security and mr werner who works with all the schools to practice their drills this is ongoing and some something that we're not just doing as a reactive thing but something that we value as a paramount issue and and we talked a lot about this over the years right not only the the physical safety of the students but also um the mental health of the students and

171trying to make the students feel like they're in a safe secure environment um from influences that are not a direct physical attack on their body or their person but perhaps you know issues that are not as tangible not as direct on body but perhaps on the mind and that's been something that the district and the state really has worked on for years even with respect to bullying uh initiatives anti-bullying initiatives i should say as well as our efforts to focus on mental health and social emotional learning with the students and interestingly you you heard tonight people making connections about the health curriculum and some of what ms fox just alluded to so there are complex issues and we're looking to bring them together in a way that really protects the students both their minds and

172their bodies and when it comes to their physical safety you know we have done a lot over the years we continue to have goals that we're working on completing long-term goals associated with recommendations that we've had from a consultant that did a safety audit for us we're still implementing those measures and it's a steady effort over time which is i think what we do with a lot of our initiatives um is to try to make steady progress over time and and that's what we've been doing our facilities continue somebody used the word hardened our facilities continue to be more hardened uh a little bit more every year as we're adding uh new pieces uh and we continue to do that um the the subject of staffing uh has come up before this this question mark

173about uh how many police officers or security officers you know how many of them are armed um you know and and it's it's something that even the consultant talked about when she was here you know what is sustainable um you know what is appropriate you know is anything a magic resolution to all possible threats and i think that that's something that we have to think about too in the grand scheme of everything that we're doing um you know where how much does it really accomplish in some ways you know we want to make our schools as safe as they can be but we're we're not running uh prisons we don't have walls around the perimeter we don't have you know fences and barbed wire we're running public institutions where we want people to feel welcome

174uh and we want our students to feel welcome not not feel like they're in a prison so you know it's it's a balance that we're trying to achieve uh and we're certainly open to you know considering lots of different things uh but i i think that um you know that's something that we have to keep in mind in the grand scheme of of what we're trying to do when it comes to the to the physical aspect of our of our campuses if i could add to that i think the one thing you know i had the benefit of asking this question because i knew it was going to be a concern of everybody in the community after the most recent event and i think that the one thing that the community needs to understand is

175that giving details of everything that is being done basically makes our security plan like swiss cheese because you're letting the community and you know potential bad actors um know how to get around and how to circumvent the existing security so i think you know it's prudent for um the administration to keep some of these things you know close to the vest so that it's not being advertised out to any bad actors on how to get around it so if the community could just understand that there is a lot of really really amazing things being done around the security and it is a continued effort so just keep that in mind okay at this point we're up to board forum does anyone have anything for board forum um i don't know it's just a comment that

176might spark a bit of a conversation it seems that the same issue always exists no matter what what the topic is whether it's school safety whether it's health it seems that whether it's the audit we have two completely opposite points of view in our community and it drives every conversation and i think at the root of it is the inability to listen to the other's point of view and everybody just digging into their point of view is the right point of view and your point of view is the wrong point of view and i don't know how we what we do to try to to to bring um voices together and and hear what each other's saying i mean tonight was a perfect example we had very very different points of view you have some

177you know i wrote down a word one person staying the health curriculum what's being taught is objectionable you have someone else coming forward and saying no absolutely this is what should be taught but i'm not quite sure people are listening to one another as opposed to talking at each other and um i'm hoping that you know these bt connect meetings that we have will be a way to foster conversation we've had two wonderful bt connect meetings this past month where it was a missed opportunity for many people because teachers were there lots and lots of administrators were there in fact there were far more teachers and administrators than parents at either one and yet they were both on topics that some people have come here and said that they're concerned about and so i guess

178in my my head i think okay we've got both sides that are concerned but this opportunity where you could have really had input and conversation you didn't show up and i hope that when we have the bt connect on the health topic that parents do come and that they do listen to one another and they do you know consider you know what maybe my point of view is not a hundred percent right maybe there is some merit to that maybe you know what maybe there is merit to that but i'm not comfortable for that for my family so i'll opt out or maybe they're not going far enough with what i want them to teach in school i'll do more at home but whatever the topic is we've got to find a way to start

179listening to each other or we're never going to make any progress with anything thanks i following up on that point i think somebody asked about um you know it's really hard to find what's going on um if you don't want to ask the teacher for some reason or you don't even have you don't have kids that are being taught the subject matter but you want to know what's going on in other grades or or schools or something like that um the bt connect meeting is a really good way to do that because like jen said teachers are there for that particular topic so like on the technology side we had a kind of a rehash of the presentation that all the teachers gave which was great at the public boe meeting but then you could

180ask deeper questions for to those exact teachers at that bt connect meeting which was really great so if if you don't have children that are being um uh subject to like the thing that you're asking about and you want to know what's going on it's a great place to find that out because the teachers are there the administrators are there it's it's small group discussion um so it's really like no holds barred every you know opinion is valid and everybody can kind of converse in a way that's less like this and more like normal conversation um i wanted to respond to the parent who said that there was a parent at the oak street principal chat um that was me i was at the oak street principal chat i have a child at oak street

181i go to the principal chats it was on may 25th um i i don't know if the parent that made the comment was actually there or listening i think there was four or five of us on the on the zoom uh with mrs foley um one of the this was you know right after texas and everybody was obviously concerned uh so one of the parents on the zoom asked you know whether there were officers in the buildings in the district and you know i'm a parent participating in those principal chats because i have a student there and i generally want to hear what's going on and how the kids are doing but you know for this particular question everybody was kind of like looking at me in the zoom and like wow i wish we

182had somebody that knew something about this uh so uh here's the the so the parent asked do we have any offices in the building and then somebody else followed up and said are they armed so here's exactly what i said i said yes we have sros which are police officers armed police officers in whams and ridge we also have an sleo which is a special class of police officer retired police officer who's armed at ridge high school as well we do not have any armed officers in the elementary schools i also said that these individuals the sros and sleos are our police officers so they are hired by the police department that was the full extent of of what i said it's all publicly available information and factually accurate so for the parent that may

183have misheard or didn't understand or wasn't there and heard it second hand or third hand or on social media or something like that i'm happy to revisit that and go over what exactly what was said and what was asked um but i just want to clear that up thank you karen um first i just want to say congratulations i know they all went home but just congratulations to all of our um teacher of the year uh recipients and to our retirees um it's i love seeing all of them and hearing their administrators uh tout their accolades because um that's really what we're all here about is you know these amazing educators that we have and what they do for our children every day for some of them 30 years so they're they're impressive and amazing

184and congratulations to all of them and then um i want to speak to one of the comments and mrs nelson and i go way back so i know she won't take offense but did you ask why hank and the sros are here tonight did you ask them if they're here protecting us because they're here because board members asked mr markarian to invite them so that the anticipated public comment around school security could be heard directly from you all to the ears of our law enforcement experts and our school security expert so it's not for our protection that they are here with us tonight it's because we wanted to make sure that they could hear whatever came up through public comment firsthand so that it wasn't filtered through the ears of anyone else so that just

185want to put that to bed because if if they had been asked i'm sure that's probably what they would have said or something like it and that's about it anybody else i have one more thing sorry softball kids good for you sticking up for yourself great job this is great taking pictures showing us evidence making a persuasive case good for you we hear you we are doing the work to get the field in shape but like this is how to make a change if there's not happening because the person that your coach says i don't know what to do about it or your parents say i don't know what to do about it come here tell us have your parents come and tell us but you coming here and telling us is i've said this

186a million times and all of us have said this we love to hear from kids good or bad this is good and bad we did a bad job here not getting the field ready you did a great job coming to tell us we did a bad job so good for you sticking up for yourself and making a persuasive case and getting something done for yourself [Applause] yeah that was really compelling so thank you um i just want to kind of comment on a few happy things um i want to acknowledge the cast of matilda they just got a whole bunch of awards at including the best musical at the paper mill playhouse rising stars that was awesome um i love this week because i really well environmentally i have a small issue about the balloons

187but i love them around the build the mailboxes and i think it's a great way for us to celebrate so thank you to the team that put that together and you know this week we get to celebrate graduation which is really exciting and you know our students are off to do really great things and and i just want to acknowledge and celebrate that i also wanted to just speak up in terms of thanking our administrators and our supervisors and our curriculum supervisors and our department heads and all of those people because without all of you we would be at a loss and i really am not interested in what any other district is doing my children don't go to school in melbourne my children go to school in basking ridge and i want my children

188to have the best of the best and that's what they get here and you can't be writing new curriculum without experts and the experts are the supervisor of english and the supervisor of math and the supervisor of science and technology and the supervisor of curriculum and you can't move eighteen hundred students through ridge high school with one principal and you can't deal with school security at william annan and ridge and four elementary schools with a single principal at each building with all the different things that are coming up we keep hearing about all the additional needs that the kids have especially coming out of covid we need the administrators to do what they do that allows our teachers to be as fabulous as they are so thank you to all of you and please don't

189think that all of us are sitting here and thinking that you are irrelevant and that you are not needed because that is a hundred percent incorrect [Applause] anyone else okay on that note does someone want to make a motion for adjournment mr salmon and this light seconded all in favor