Regularly Scheduled Board Meeting 2 27 2025

001the regular monthly meeting of February 27th 2025 has now been reconvened and called to order at 700 p.m. at the Thomas Edison school Eugene M vant public meeting room room 19 37-1 fairon Avenue faon New Jersey there are two member members of the public in attendance um we will now get a roll call please Mr balowski here Dr berini he is here m brown present Mr Aliyah present Miss felich present Mr Santana present Miss Yurman present Mrs Mayhan present we have a quorum the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the fair law

002board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by the having the date place and time thereof distributed to the persons on the approved list posted in the Board of Education administrative office and sent to the Bergen record on the St Ledger the announcement posting for both the regular monthly meeting and the education of the whole meeting along with the date place and time thereof was distributed did on January 24th I don't think that's correct January 4th 2025 January 242 okay January 24th 2025 my apologies please join me in the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all tonight we will start our meeting um at 7M

003for the education of the whole committee where um Dr genio Miss CLA Keller and Miss Camille def Franco will be presenting District goals and objectives updates and presentation which I like to call the state of our schools address the floor is yours thank you president Mayan and thank you Board of Education um this evening I am extremely uh proud to be able to be here with all of you to share uh alongside uh Mrs CLA Keller our assistant superintendent for education and Mrs DeFranco our assistant superintendent for student services on our district goals uh midyear update and to provide some backdrop uh for those who have not seen last last year's presentation uh as well as kind of giving you a forecast of what's to come at our state of the schools presentation in May

004of this year uh so first of all uh this is a photo from not too long ago we're going to be updating it again tonight uh I would just like to welcome officially Mrs casoy who's our uh new board member who will be sworn in tonight so welcome welcome to the Board of [Applause] Education we're happy to have you join the team uh this evening as well uh we always like to start with giving a backdrop for uh what is our Fair alone Community we are a large close-knit highly diverse and highly engaged community and we are a growing Community as you all know um as the board knows the population has increased by about a thousand students over the past 10 or 11 years uh while our student population is remaining steady right now

005across the district uh the resident population has grown by almost a thousand residents in the past 14 16 months or so uh so it is still continuing to be a growing population within our community uh and we're making sure that we're planning ahead for that anticipated growth we have over 5600 students uh one of the largest school districts in the county if not the largest at this point almost 12200 employees 10 schools and one Mission and that mission is to promote continuous Improvement in high levels of learning to Foster self-confidence and to support all of our students many of you will recall we surveyed our community last year uh as part of my superintendent entry plan and we had quite a great response we had over 2400 participants with almost 2200 thoughts and if you'll

006recall through thought exchange there were individual ratings so individuals can rate up to 30 comments on a Liker scale of 1 to five with how much agreement they were in uh we had over 53,000 ratings which is an extremely high response rate um so that all laid the foundation for collecting as much info as possible in addition to one-on-one meetings and focus group discussions that allowed us to really um hear from our stakeholders which was made up predominantly uh our largest group there made up of our students with in the community uh and then the two second largest groups were made up with our staff members and with our parent and family groups this is just a word cloud that shares some of the stakeholder sentiments uh the larger the word the more prevalent it

007became in the survey responses so you could see right there in the center mental health continues to be a main focus and a priority for our community you also see bathrooms and classes and Improvement and opportunities uh and we'll dive a little bit deeper but this is really the survey responses is what really allowed us to continue to um evolve and refine our three main goals that we're going to talk about today and allowed us to have specific action items that addressed this feedback before we get into the areas of growth our outstanding School attributes based on the feedback of feedback from our community was um in no particular order uh the vibrant Multicultural community that we have and how that is a major attribute um the second point was our distinguished approach to honoring

008all of the diverse traditions and cultural celebrations that the community is really committed to that and so is the Board of Education in the fairon public schools uh commitment to Excellence uh towards academic rigor and then last but not least all of the enriching extracurricular opportunities that we provide for our students grades K to 12 the areas for opportunity that we have um you can see here once again in no particular order but the summary uh feedback was for us to continue to focus on developing uh character character and integrity character development across all of our schools in our programs um to continue to strengthen opportunities for our High School Readiness preparing them for future academic success investing in staff well-being so we saw the mental health being a main focus and yes of course

009that F that focus is on our students but it also begins with our staff well-being as well to make sure that they're being supported in order to meet our students needs facility improvements you saw the bathrooms that popped up on the survey response is that many of them are long overdue we have other needs besides bathrooms as well much of what we're going to be talking about later on this spring uh both Mrs manuso and I is related to the long range facility study on the facility enhan uh the facility study that we have and all the enhancements that uh require attention and prioritization and that will be part of a future conversation this upcoming spring uh addressing the wellness curriculum and then and of course always continuing to refine and enrich our academic offerings

010for our students all of that the backdrop and the feedback that supports um the three overarching goals that have been the goals for the district for a number of years about three years now um but the action items underneath each goal are what change each and every year so our first goal that we're going to hear about tonight uh as far as the midyear update goes is centered around Career and Technical education our second goal is on student and staff well-being and our third goal is around multi-tiered systems of support our tiered systems of support uh to meet our students needs without any further Ado at this point I'm going to welcome our new assistant superintendent of Education Mrs Clare Keller to come on up and provide us with her update good evening everyone I'm

011really excited to be here to share about these three goals um it was a really nice way for me to dive into the district and learn what we've been doing so it was it was a wonderful experience um all right so Career and Technical education so the the Crux of that goal is what we're looking for is how are our students prepared for the real world what are we giving them in terms of career opportunities College experiences so that when they graduate foron high school right that's what we want to have so this is a comp a lot of faceted things I skipped I'm sorry oh I'm right I'm sorry I was getting ahead of myself um what comes along with this so we have a lot of different stakeholders that come together to discuss

012this we have teachers we have program coordinators central office we have administrators supervisors principles we meet and we discuss you know we have industri people that are involved in these conversations we look at things like data um County data Statewide data student survey data um so we look at a lot of different things to make sure we're doing the best things that we can for our students so one thing we're looking for is to improve upon the programs that we have and then from there we look to um what can we add what new programs so I want to give you some context so Perkins is a Federal grant that we have and Perkins uh through Perkins we have four programs of study so we have child care we have architecture and construction we have

013um Finance and Accounting and we have the new course Global Supply Chain management so I want to share that's a new course that's been running this year so it's two half year courses Mr Miller is a teacher at the high school he's been teaching that course it's been going really well um it's you know we think about like Supply Chain management that's like Amazon so what are we doing preparing students for like real world experiences things like um um analyzing complex World situations supply chain distribution centers being more efficient with all of our um you know cost analysis and things like that so they're diving into some really complex and exciting things along with those survey results what else can we expect upon what else can we look at so we're looking at the current

014programs we have and we're trying to see what do we have current electives that we can build upon what's popular so I've been checking in with the High School administration what do we have that is really exceeding capacity for student requests things like that so these are part of the conversations that we're having with administrative teams and teachers and looking for things to grow um this isn't just a Falon High School goal this isn't just something we can start in nth grade so we need to do this in middle school as well so one of the things we talked about is EXP expanding rotation options this has been since in my time here but even before that um Dr dionio and administrative team have been looking at not just Middle School electives but the middle

015school schedule in general so this has been an ongoing conversation that we're going to continue to have that'll be something we'll dive into more with the education committee but that's something that we're currently working on not just electives but even in the meantime what are we doing to expand offerings for our students so one of our supervisors um Mr derso he set up a field trip for our students to visit Fon High school so seventh grade students are going to be going to Fon high school and they're going to be exploring based on a survey all the different CTE tracks that we have coding um business child care you know actually the stem based one not child care so they're going to be exploring that which is great it gets them to Falon high school

016they're going to meet the administration they're going to tour the building that's we want showcase all the amazing things we have but also give them exposure to these career fields that that's the whole purpose of what we're doing here so that's something that you know we've been working on and we're really proud of along those lines with those survey results so um part of what we wanted to work on is we have our supply chain course so this is a new program of study with the supply chain course all of the students currently in course two are seniors so we're not going to run a course three next year because all of them are seniors but Mr Miller has worked really hard to recruit more grade levels so that next year he's got a nice

017size number of kids that are going to be going into the supply chain one and two courses so that course three will run the following year along with that the program coordinator Miss Mrs oesi and Mr Miller have been talking about you know industry Partners so making sure students have work-based experiences part of the Perkins programs is you want to have work-based experiences they can either have college credits as part of it or they can also have something called an industry valued credential and what that is is like a resume booster it's a credential that makes students very marketable for the job market and that's what we look for so for the supply chain course we have um that third um not third year that third quar gives students Ruckers business college credits that's wonderful

018that's great however we're looking to do more than just that so in looking at the program Mr Miller realized that there's credentials that go along with supply chain that would be very beneficial for our students they're intense they take a lot of hours and a lot of time he's working in crafting to Revis curriculum to get it into that for the following year so they will have and excuse me I don't know what these terms are they will have CLA and CLT that's certified Logistics associate and technician certifications along along with that OSHA certifications things like that so those are things we're doing on our current programs to enhance them um to give our students more robust experiences even with that part of all of these Perkins programs is we're meeting with industry partners and

019we're talking with these partners and saying what could we do to prepare our students better that's part of what Perkins does is engages schools not in isolation with community and college so in those conversations um a lot of people have said students are coming out but they don't know how to work with Excel so Excel isn't a quote certified industry value credential but is such an important credential for students to have so we're embedding that also into our course sequence so we're constantly reflecting and looking for ways to make what we have better that said we're also looking to expand so in those survey results they took a survey the students the high school students last year um there were a few areas that were really high that they were interested in business was one

020which is why the supply chain course moved forward um there were other top contenders for instance Arts was an area that was up there in addition to being a high area also was an area that there was a lot of student interest in there was a lot of need and desire to revise the drama curriculum on top of that it was a CTE track we didn't have representation for so we have Arts we have such a pride and robust arts program but there wasn't a CTE component for that so um Dr pinkowitz um the supervisor of uh language arts Dr lactina the education Committee in December met through lots of months of work with Dr pitz and um teachers at the high school and whatnot they were able to devise or revise a new Drama

021Series so it's called vocational theater and that will consist of three courses um drama one will turn into drama and theater studies so it's just revising that one and then Drama 2 might still exist to some degree but most kids are probably going to take the fundamentals of production and design which sounds really interesting and advanced um I can't read room here sorry Advanced performance and so that is going to be a rich course it's a much more well-rounded drama experience it's going to involve things like critical thinking communication historical context they're going to look into literature um part of Perkins like I mentioned is work-based learning so they're going to really work with theater professionals from the community so that's an amazing experience and professional performances so that's going to give them um what

022they need for that theater and that you know vocational experience good evening everyone I'm just going to pop in here for a second for the first uh first bullet point here um this year we investigated how we can provide some more elective offerings for students participating in our multiply disabled program at the high school and I'm really happy to say that we had uh two teachers um in the general education setting who partnered with our case managers and other special education teachers to uh meet uh review what we can offer and this is being offered um for two electives so we're really happy about that um and you know we hope to expand this um as the years go on so that they can have more elective offerings all right part of what I've been

023describing through the Perkins process and adding in programs of studies is a comprehensive local needs assessment so districts along with the state usually typically work with the county and your partners within the county they conduct this um local needs assessment so that's looking at things like data interests talking to Industry Partners you have to look at job market data and you have to analyze this information to make the decisions um along with all of these the programs I've mentioned you know the child care Global um supply chain all of those courses plus the vocational theater plus the umbrella of Perkins those six different groups meet at least twice a year with their stakeholders so there's lots of different meetings that are having to discuss things like what's going well how can we use our funding

024better um how can what can we improve what are our goals for next year so just as a little sense of you know what that they've been working on the Middle School CTE field trip is a prime example of something that comes out of those discussions we're talking and we're thinking like we want more kids in some of these programs what can we do ahead of time to let them know about the programs and things like that you know come from these valuable meetings plus all the other meetings that happen that you know we're talking about electives that we can add and more exposure for our students whether it be you know our administrative meetings that we meet with on a regular basis the counseling meetings things along those lines so um finally what is

025our plan moving forward with this um we're just going to continue to explore and refine where where we need to grow um given we've added since that survey one new sequence and one new pending sequence it's probably worth doing a new survey and you know we'll talk about that at our next stakeholder meeting for Perkins and reassess where our students are at probably in the fall like once they're in these new courses to see you know what are our future needs so but regardless continuing to you know reflect on our course course requests at the high school and what are students coming in looking for and seeing where we can build okay so I'm going to turn it over to thank you I need to grow Claire if I'm G to be able to follow

026you when we give this uh when we give these presentations um I'm delighted to share on behalf of our second goal uh District goal maintaining student and staff well-being um we have had this I kind of think it's a we called it in the past a continuation goal year after year this has been something that has always been a focus that has um been rated by our staff and students as something that they want to keep and maintain that we want to emphasize during the school year as something that we should um continue to look into not only for our staff and our students as part of uh when we develop our goals um we have various action items that I will go through um overall I just want to say thank you to our

027district Wellness committee um they have been serving in this capacity uh for the past three years um wouldn't been a wouldn't have been able to hold the past Wellness days without them and also our current Wellness days that we are offering this year um we have decided um in in order to build capacity at the building level and also build more PD opportunity throughout the school year we met as a committee and instead of having one big District Wellness Day this year each building is conducting their Wellness Days the middle school had their Wellness day on our January PD day and the elementary schools and the high school is going to have their willingness day on our March PD day so they've been uh leading the charge uh taking ownership and coming up with activities

028in each individual school which um I'll show you a sample of that later um and again thank you to all of them because without each district committee and our principales leading those committees uh we wouldn't be able to pull off all of these activities um this year we have a new high school guidance structure for grade nine we have two counselors that are designated um we had discussed this at the end of the year last year they are designated to provide real assistance to our students who are transitioning from 8th grade so really giving them a focus so that they could enter into Falon high school and they could really feel welcome and connected and get them used to the high school experience um it has been really successful we've been able to bridge between

029e8th grade and ninth grade our grade n counselors have been able to visit our middle schools in order to better prepare our students and this is something that we're going to see um Improvement and and impact upon moving forward um we have also provided nurtured heart workshops based on survey and um information that we receive from the community if you are all are not aware what nurtured heart is it is it it is a comprehensive approach to building student self-esteem and also focusing on student skill rather than student weakness in order to uh build self-regulation and uh coping skills and other um uh internal capacity for students this was provided by effective School solution so I thank them for their partnership um in terms of providing this to our staff members so that they could

030recognize signs of students who might appear disregulated or who might need confidence building and then how to approach those students and work with those students we're also providing professional development training for teachers of high achieving Learners um we know that um that group also has a different set of needs uh just like students who might be at risk um and this has been done through our AP roundtables and um meeting with our teachers and our guidance staff also meeting with our teachers um we did provide student counseling groups for high stake tests and activities this was well-received the past two years I'm really proud of this initiative really give thanks to Valerie Pascal one of our school social workers who took the initiative on this project so she meets regularly and also extended that to

031other members of our child study team who have also developed this with students so that they can feel calm when we're entering midterms when we're entering quarterly um uh you know interim reports um to ease them into that testing process during State Testing ease them and just say hey you know this is just like any other day you're going to perform just like you do um and guidance staff has also worked with Administration to create effective student teacher pairings for our all of our classrooms um which is always helpful right you want to have the right match from the start um for certain students and also our teachers who are could be highly skilled in one area and match really well with uh certain profile of student we have been providing professional development let's this

032one this one okay I was just going to do the uh hard the ADL one because we were talking about that much that okay all right um uh we partnered with the um Anti-Defamation League in order to provide training this is why we adjusted um our Wellness Day schedule um and also to give it some more individual impact in each building um to provide uh professional development this year we had those sessions Claire is going to tell you more about that but that's part of why we were facilitating um uh more um for that we're going to circle back to that um uh Mrs Keller can come up uh now or do you want me to go through those parts fine go ahead go ahead right I've been so impressed with joining the team and

033seeing how much differentiated professional development we provide our staff it's really rich and there's a lot of great experiences um Mr Franco spoke to on the last slide gifted and talented we had a teacher um miss lascala one of the gifted teachers attend one of the Statewide webinars and then she's turn King it to the gifted team next week and you know it's not just going to PD but taking it sharing it and then you know making sure we're putting into our classroom so along those same lines with um hibs and bias and all of our training so we're trained throughout the summer um Mr kamno did part of our training in the summer I wasn't here for that one but um and continued training on that as part of um the anti- school bullying

034specialist I receive extensive training um for that we have a new program hipster we received training on that to ensure that we know how to use the platform um you know all the compliance features that we're doing things right the state did release a new anti-bullying webinar series and we got a lot of great um uh amount of people throughout the district that wanted to attend so we look forward to those future times and in terms of the Anti-Defamation League trainings that were in January and in March there's numerous sessions that you know staff is breaking out to um to have Rich discussions to you know be aware of some really tough situations so that our staff is is more prepared to handle these situations so as I mentioned men before um there are two

035Wellness days this year that have been organized the Middle School conducted uh theirs uh previously and it is upcoming for Elementary and high school um schools uh pulled their staff provided a brochure had them sign up uh the student services office a facilitated assistance that they might need with they might have needed with supplies and um we just had some really really great things happen in our buildings um uh for those activities um we also launched a no place for hate uh initiative um this was provided in all schools um each School took a pledge with our students um what a wonderful student-led project and I really want to thank our building principles our individual students who participated all of our students who participated certain students in the building led the charge on this and

036I also want to thank Rebecca who has uh put together a um wonderful video more than I ever could have done in my lifetime so what I would like to do is press uh go over there to click so that everyone can oh yeah I'm like I don't think I have an arm that could go that far but I wouldn't mind the steps so here is the lovely video Memorial has made a commitment to being no place for hate our school is a safe welcoming and respectful place for everyone no matter who you are or where you're from let's hear from our student body on how we work together treat each other with kindness stand up against bullying and celebrate what makes us unique what does it mean to be a falcon Foster kindness and

037respect for everyone in our community actively stand up against bullying and hate in all its forms listen to others with empathy valuing our differences and learning from each other celebrate diversity and create a safe space for all voices to be heard openly promote inclusion and respect for all treating everyone with dignity nurture a positive School environment where everyone feels they belong support one another showing courage and compassion each day together we can make sure our school is no place for hate be a falcon be a falcon be a falcon that's really so impressive not only in the video but actually what the what the video speaks to and again that's just one example this is going on in all of our um buildings and so everyone will remember that last year we convened for the

038first time uh Community Leadership Council and the Genesis of that was to really talk about the unique strengths of our community but more importantly to bring stakeholders together around the table several times a year um to make sure that we're addressing where we're having strengths but more importantly where we have opportunities to improve um so I'm very happy we were able to expand that group Mrs Yurman uh is our Board of Education liaison to that group last week we actually hosted our first meeting of the year we do have another meeting that we'll be scheduling this year in May we increased uh the number of student representatives from three students to six students we have about 34 people on this committee now uh representatives from our mayor um another council member our acting chief of

039police juvenile detective Board of Education Representatives we have uh about five or six parents on the committee we have six students we have staff members um so we have a lot of voices around the table uh to be able to really have these rich conversations uh we met for about two and a half hours last Friday and the focus of that meeting um was to hear from our students about what's been transpiring within our school district over the past year around the initiatives of diversity and equity and unity within the Fair laon Community um and we looked at three main areas the main areas that we looked at were curriculum and instruction we looked at uh family and Community engagement uh and we also took a look at um culture and climate within our buildings

040and we asked each of the small groups they rotated through um we met over at Memorial Middle School in the media center and we we asked each group to have Rich discussions uh around three questions you know what is going well where are the areas that we need to improve and then what lingering questions do you have for us and that is going to continue to be the foundation by which we build upon so in May when we meet again we'll be able to take all of that information and be able to use that as a springboard for establishing our district goals and objectives around equity and diversity and supporting all of our students within a fair alone community all right and the final goal is tiered academic systems of support for our students and

041that's really just making sure we're targeting the right needs that our students uh the right things that our students need uh I don't think there's been a day since I've been here that I haven't heard about Dibbles and the many great things that come along with Dibbles it has been widely embraced right it has been so widely embra embraced and it serves such an amazing purpose so dibles is a online um It's A literacy assessment that gives us a sense of their foundational literacy skills but it does a lot more than that so students can get you know teachers can get um small groups Based on subgroup data and it lets them know skills that students need to work on and really the purpose of this is to Target students and what their needs are

042so we know if there's reading deficiencies potentially dyslexia things that are really important for the classroom and a lot of that is just things that make just regular classroom instruction more targeted and better so that's something that's been a valuable tool because the assessment can say to the teacher um the student needs to work on certain things and that's been you know really valuable it also will let us know when the student needs more than the classroom is offering if they're maybe not growing as much as they should be and when maybe intervention is their proper um Next Step for that students and that's where the tiered supports comes in so Dibbles um in addition next year we're going to be adding in grade three that's part of the state mandate for for literacy in

043screening our students K through three so we already have the process K to2 we've extensively trained a lot of teachers on this K12 our literacy coaches are fantastic experts in this I've seen them do TurnKey training training so I went to a session where they were working with our um ml teachers and they were working were looking at the data they were looking at their students and they were talking about what's the implication of this in the classroom um how do we help their classroom where they are most of the hours of the day how do we help these teachers support these students so that was a really amazing conversation um to take part of and so you know the point is really are we targeting our students along those lines um no rink is

044another program that we're piloting this year for grade three and four and that is supporting grammar lessons so if you think back to you know the grammar that we we probably did it was in a book um it was dry it wasn't very engaging you were you know filling in or circling things that's not what this is so this has a lot of different things some of it's whole group small group it could be targeted it could be individual the kids can do quick wrs it can actually work up to the point where they can get essay support for things um so it's really engaging tool they also can do Assessments in there to give the teacher a sense of areas of weakness and Sh so Dibbles for in so Dibbles for instance was implemented

045you know the student ments were given with the coaches so the coaches were part of that to make sure that you know we knew the process we worked through any of the issues that there were and now this last final time the teachers will be doing it with support of the coaches to you know we all now have an even playing field of how to how to implement this program um and then finally there was a lot of conversations over the course of this last year about gifted and talented and program changes and things like that so I want to update you on two of the changes that um were in effect for this year to to highlight so our literacy and our mathematics seminars were trimester based courses um so this year they're now

046ful year based courses so their teachers are seeing them regularly once a week working with these targeted students in addition we added in a tier three um gifts and and talented section so that is across various different data points you know um creativity Kat ngsa lots of different data points our highest level students and so it's a small group of targeted students not necessarily subject specific right and so I've gotten a lot of wonderful feedback from from the gifted and talented teachers in terms of the meaningful relationships that they've been able to build but the in-depth conversations and the level of uh rigor that is happening in the classroom so Mrs Lindsay at radburn was telling me she was observing Mrs crowl and um the convers you know she's been a principal for for a

047while has seen many gifted and talented classes and observations but she said the richness of the conversation the level that the students were diving into was significant and she really attributes that to the cons consistency and the shift in the structures that we we've implemented this year so I wanted to highlight that just very quickly to talk to you about how um there's you know multi-tier systems of support still apply to even our students at risk but also our students um with special needs Claire mentioned before the use of uh the Dibbles what we were able to do and I applaud my special education staff at the K to6 level because this is where we had our first pilot implementation of this um they implemented and were trained in the Dibbles um early on and

048I asked of them to uh give the Dibbles themselves and I did so because I wanted to uh try and create a Baseline and a landscape of reading abilities with students with uh IEPs and compare that to um their's typical peers so that we could start to assess options for inclusion and in the least restrictive environment for our students this has been an excellent data point we are using it right now it has allowed us to expand um uh programs that will include students in more of a general education or mixed general education setting with their peers so I just want to say thank you to the teachers for doing this and we are creating reading portfolios for our students with multiple data points that will include the Dibbles but also running wrench uh Records

049benchmark assessments and the like all right and going over the action items I was so excited to see linkit as one of the action items because it is such a powerful tool to make sure that we are meeting the needs of our students and targeting support for our students so link it has a lot of different features one of which it's an assessment platform so students can go in they can take their math benchmark unit assessment they can take their you know each trimester assessment based on you know the grade level standards and we we look to see are they meeting the proficiency for the grade level standards that's one piece of it and that's important has been a valuable tool the other piece of link it it's a data warehouse that can allow us

050to compare data and look at growth and see Trends and that is where a lot of the power comes from the platform and so um what we've been looking at so for instance just this past week so our students took their fall benchmarks our students took their winter benchmarks the administrative team met with linkit and we looked at the reports generated from that so we looked at how did our students grow we looked at students who had high amounts of growth we looked at students that were meeting average growth and students that were maybe not meeting a lot of growth we pulled in former assessments all their link it from last year njsla whatever it may be and then we were able to group students areas where they needed more support so it is a

051really powerful tool now what's going to happen with that that will happen now in a data team meeting with coaches and with teachers grade level plc whatever it may be analyzing that data as a classroom teacher where I can look at just a few sheets and instead of me having to go through and figure all that out it's a report for the teachers that they are able to Target students we also can pull in other pieces of data so for instance um I can pull in a math unit assessment along with their Navigator assessment I can pull in their subscore data so I can look at areas and see am I seeing similarities maybe I need to spend less time on something in the next few weeks or more more time I might need to

052pre- something so it's a valuable tool to allow teachers to be more informed in what they do but also allows us to make sure we're targeting the right students for services and programs because the data is in the system additionally it allows us to make curricular decisions you know we can make better informed programmatic choices because we're looking at the actual data and we're seeing the trends in the data so that's something that I think is really important to highlight and it's such an amazing tool I I very much so value data I think I talked about it numerous times over my interview process because allows us to make solid decisions and we're not just doing things based on beliefs it doesn't take away from knowing a child you always have to know children right

053but it does allow us to make systematic decisions and so in my time here I've seen such an amazing uh an impressive amount of time that is put toward toward data but also then the learning that needs to happen afterwards so you know what you spend your time on the things you spend time on tend to be the things you value and when I look at our you know schedule of meetings there's analysis of data days and things like that and like what is happening in that so we're looking at Dibbles data we're looking for students and we're looking at the growth we're targeting groups as an example at um Forest Mr placenti he worked alongside um Mr Levitan um the um the ELA coach there uh Reading Coach there and they worked they noticed

054that based on their scores writing was an issue so they decided to put in some writing prompts for students throughout the year teachers meet they work on grading that and then they have a meeting together where they talk about here's areas that are going really well here are Trends I notice here's areas we might need to have some small group tailored instruction for so a lot of these rich conversations aren't just about the additional tiers and extra supports students need but about what can we do in the regular the general classroom to make sure that we're targeting what students need so it has been really wonderful to to see the amount of work that has been going into this entire goal all right the last few pieces so amplifies platform for Dibbles it has instructional

055activities for teachers after students take these assessments so they can go in and they can get you know tailored and targeted supports for students so that I think is part of why it has been widely embraced and it gives teachers a a snapshot of really where students are at um our mtss our multi-tiered systems of support is all the things that we've been talking about over these past few sides it's a framework for districts to really make sure that we're giving students the right supports that they need um tier one that's our classroom that should be like the majority of what we're doing that's proactive if we're doing we giving teachers the support they need to differentiate do small group the um tools that they need to give targeted practice um that is a successful

056tier one okay and our work here our Focus I think that's why Dibbles has been so widely received because we're doing a solid tier one and we're always working to reflect and improve on the data so um that's just been a really positive um conversation through all the data pieces that you know in my time here and then last but not least our gifted and talented structures so I've had the pleasure of speaking with a lot of the g&t teachers over the past few weeks um I'm meeting with them on Monday and we're looking into already analyzing this year and and moving next steps for next year so that is go three so that concludes our formal presentation on our midyear update on the state of the schools so at this point I would like

057like to open it up to the Board of Education uh for any questions uh or comments I would like to say thank you for the presentation it was very thorough so I have a couple of questions actually with our CT program should I name the questions or should I wait for after each question how would you like to do this moving forward we are going to be having all questions asked at the answered at the end so that the three minutes are consecutives there's no question about how much time everyone's offered this was stated in the superintendent's update this afternoon okay great so my question my first question is without the col with with our CTA program what jobs can the students get after the CT program without going to college I understand we getting

058college credit that's wonderful but what jobs can they actually get once they graduate high school with their CT program what can they get do that was my first question my second question is the dibles is K through four I think so my concern is the K and the first grade taking a computer-based test my question is can parents opt out of it and how often is this test administrated to kindergarteners in first grade my third question is it says gifted and talented uh it was studed in the presentation was great grades uh the the students are met once a week what grade are they in that are me want is it um grades two grade three I'm not sure I wanted to understand that M could you just repeat the beginning of that question I

059missed that part the gifted and talented that one of the presenters stated that it the students are meeting once a week for the gifted and talented what grades do meet once a week for the gifted and talented program it says tier three my fourth question is the link it is it K through 4 what grades are administrated the linkage test and my last question is as just as a concern parent um every child in the video that was um shown to us beautiful video it's great did the school district have a consent from every child's parent to have their child videoed thank you so I can uh I'll start it off and then I'll turn it over to um Miss Keller and uh Miss def Franco uh but in regards to your last question movich

060yes all of the parents for any media consent uh those are all signed off on by parents so that's something that's typical and required in the district yes correct for every video for every anybody who participates correct y okay so at this point I'm going to turn it over to miss Keller and uh Mrs DeFranco to address some of the other questions okay so um linkit is K to 12 although we are in conversations about not necessarily having that be in the lower grades now that we have Dibbles so that is a conversation that we're having gifted and talented the tier three section that you referenced is three and four um and just in general we start in grade three and then move it on upward um Dibbles is three times for the benchmarking um

061there could be progress monitoring if we want to you know go between it is computer-based but is also administered with an adult so there's elements of it where there's there's back and forth and dialogue and engagement with that um and then in terms of what jobs it's going to be really specific in terms of you know people's choices but for instance child care they could work at a daycare they could work at a camp you know there's different options um with our students coming away with business and Excel they might want an office job you know something along those lines it it would really depend on choice so okay Mr Bowski I I want to thank the three of you for the presentation for the update very comprehensive and great to see that many of

062the the things that have been implemented over the couple months are coming to fruition and um the success of that my one question or comment I guess is really when are we going to start discussing trades uh when it comes to the CTE I know the community and the board has really emphasize um looking at that and I know it depends on demand and uh by the students and by job opportunities uh but none of our CTE programs yet have that hands-on experience that I think we all would like to see one day so thank you so that's a great question and that was part of our survey last year to our students um last spring we as a a big part of the Gathering input from them in addition to the thought exchange this

063was separate from thought Exchange if you'll recall we wanted to get insight as to what students interests were around different types of world languages um volunteer and community service was a big topic last year that we discussed um talking about CTE and specifically vocational studies within our high school and I know that that's been a topic of conversation for many years here uh within the community so we want to be able to build it so what we what we did was we asked our students and some of them generated interest and said I'd be interested in learning more about that so what we did this year was we followed up with students who last year had enrolled in some introductory courses at the high school um like home repair which incorporates construction Electric and Plumbing

064and we approached them or students who had taken that course over the past several years and we actually met with them and we also surveyed them to ask them if we built a second level course for for next year 25 26 would you be interested in enrolling sadly less than seven students said yes and therein lies the challenge we would love to be able to build it but we also need to have the students who are interested in pursuing it because as you have seen tonight you've heard in the past through education committees through our meetings that we've had there is a robust curriculum at the high school with so many amazing offerings and there's only so much time in the day and the students have to make decisions and they're we want them to

065make informed decisions and we want them to make decisions that are driven by their interest and their engagement um but when we're only having perhaps six or seven students who want to take one course um that's not enough interest to then be able to build a program and then we're having conversations we we wanted to combine uh and expand upon that home repair which had construction Plumbing and Electric to have more advanced level of that because we felt by when we spoke to our students by separating it out into three separate courses there was actually even less interest because there's not enough room in the schedule so it is something that we're going to continue to explore we have engaged with our students on it we just don't have the interest right now unfortunately other

066questions missman thank you and I'd like to thank everyone for the presentation and anybody behind the scenes that contributed to this great presentation um I have a couple of questions and it's directed really at the vocational theater program so I was wondering uh a couple things in Perkins grants can you bless you can you can you purchase a equipment as part of the as part of the the program that you want to bring bring forward um is there an existing program right now um how many and if there is how many students are involved in it and are these students participating within the masks program and the musical to make lighting plots and sound plots and all that kind of stuff um fortunately my myself I know I know a lot of um about the

067auditorium at the high school as well as my uh daughter participating in the mass program so um I know there's a deficit as far as upto-date quality of of the equipment that's there so it's been a while so I can't say that's the way it is now but I did read somewhere that a company was hired to do the lighting plots and the kids when my daughter was in school they were doing the lighting plots they were building the sets they were doing everything um and I just wondered why that changed to hiring somebody to do the lighting plots so um that is uh that is all my questions thank you before I turn it over to our assistant superintendent to answer some of these questions for you uh Mr German I can say that

068part of the facility study that we're we're conducting and that we'll be presenting to the facilities Committee in the coming months and to the full board um before the end of this school year is related to you know the auditoriums and our theater program is is part of that conversation um not just at the high school but also at the middle school it's a matter of prioritizing um those needs because they are very costly and expensive enhancements but they're also very needed in to be able to continue to support the program uh specifically around the areas of sound and to your point lighting as well so um those are areas that we're going to be spending uh quite a bit of time talking about on our priority list I'm going to turn it over to

069Mrs Keller at this point to answer your questions regarding vocational theater and Perkins all right so we do currently have drama one two3 this will build upon that it's going to be revising um probably mostly three but potentially even the second level course there's about 15 students currently in there I don't know about their other programs that they're involved in like the play and whatnot it have to get back to you but in part of this sequence they will definitely be part of Productions um and performances that's that's part of what their courses in studying um in terms of what can Perkins buy Perkins is not as much money that would like be able to afford lighting it's also very very finicky about what they will allow you to buy um so probably not something

070along those lines but they will be able to buy things like classroom resources and things that would would work so that there's there's possibility just not quite lighting so thank can I just mistress oh go ahead can I take one one question on to the 15 is there okay so just on the 15 students is that who total in all three classes or is it like how I just currently right now yes it's a combined like the the tier one the drama 1 kids I don't know the exact breakdown there's not a lot of drama 2 and three but they are part of that and are like leaders to that and have different roles within the classroom excellent okay thank you Mr Santana thank you Miss man um thank you uh Dr toio and Miss

071Keller and Miss def Franco for this uh update on the district goals um you know I too was concerned about the trades as in vocational Tech you know that the board had been discussing we have been discussing this for years I would say for probably maybe more than 10 years and you know um you know um it it's it amazes me to hear what you you had to say you know that there's no uh there's no interest among our students and um you know maybe it's because we keep telling our kids you know fouryear college twoyear College fouryear college so you know I I don't want to second guess our students that we have to respect their decision but um there is a County uh trade school you know if a child wants to become

072an electrician a plumber there is a trade school at the county at Bergen County which is paid for by tax dollars and if if and we pay for many students who are currently attending who live in fer loone to pay a lot of money for the tuition you know but um the board should not make a commitment ER put the taxpayers on the hook uh for for that program if there there's no interest on the students and we we can't be the school for every everyone you know we have limitations um I wonder um if we will have uh the staff members uh the certified staff members to teach Those computer courses because I believe computer science is is a very hard to get area for certified teachers uh I would like to know if

073you can briefly please explain the rotation option at the middle school um I like the idea of of uh giving exposure to students at the high school uh for at in the middle school for career Fields um I I you know I'm not a I'm not a big fan of supply chain I don't see how that means that meets the needs of what many of us had in mind when it comes to um um the The Vocational um School The Vocational area [Music] um I want to commend uh Dr penguin penguin's uh outstanding uh job in the district he's a great professional um how many counselors we have uh currently at the at the high school no problem we a second round respond um so we are currently open however we are in the middle

074of a committee of the whole um so so if I can just to we point of information um there is requirement that board of education meetings begin technically before 8:00 P.M uh the minutes uh I I would request to reflect as our agenda reflects that we opened uh at 7:00 uh and began our Board of Education meeting at 7:00 the public was welcomed at 7:00 we have been during the last hour uh in a committee meeting of the whole this education committee uh which is wonderful wonderful presentation great questions uh we are uh open and the meeting has been going since s so I'll I will leave it to our uh board president as far as the agenda and where we're going next but this meeting is open and it has been open just so

075the record reflects thank you thank you um I will just ask um can you sir can I hold off on answering that question let's make sure that we have enough time and that we're not holding off on the two students outside if not those questions can certainly be brought to um questions on agenda items because this was on our agenda tonight so if we do need to open and swear in our new that's fine trust he the questions and we have our students outside um Dr bertolini okay I try to be quick since I'm not feeling well tonight I I should be quick first of all wi can I agree with you on the County however over the last decade or two it's been very difficult for a kid to get in especially in their

076Junior and Senior year so it's it's it's really hard to get into a county program right now because none of the other schools offer it so I think offering it here would be helpful to our students if there was interest second of all you know I'm a big fan of of of a focus course of study and and someone one of the three speakers say and thank you again you did a great job uh you talked about band one two and three we compete for our kids with private schools the county schools and the proo schools band one two and three is nice but it really doesn't say anything you can't brag about your kid getting into band one two and three but you can brag if your kid gets into Bergen Catholic Iha bermies

077so I think we need to compete more with with our branding of our programs we have a great music program and we have band one two and three but if you were able to say to your relatives or to your neighbors or to the people at the pool during the summer my child got into the fairw Music Conservatory that's a lot more impressive and that's where we'll be able to compete better and I I've asked for still haven't got it yet the number of students that have left our schools to go to ba uh either in teabar or hackensac because as wilin correctly stated we pay for that so the more kids we keep in District the better our test scores will be the less it'll cost us to send them to the county schools

078and we'll be able to provide them with a focused course of study so I'm a big fan of it we'll bring it up finally one of these education Committees of the small committee but I'm really in favor of some kind of programs that sorry is a focused course of study with a branding that makes it um desirable thank you anyone else anyone else Mr Z you about 3 minutes out of respect for the audience I I'll I'll pass okay um then the floor is closed and I will invite our TJ and Memorial students inside this evening we have San Von I say that correctly okay and Daniela H uh kotchman um from TJ from Memorial and TJ who are going to present on their monthly presentation of their schools ladies come on in and sit

079down have a seat we do not have a representative from the high school this evening as there is NHS inductions um so they are there the floor is yours get ready Memorial the drama club is bringing get ready Memorial the drama club is bringing some serious fun with their upcoming production of Mean Girls Jr to get in the spirit next week is spirit week and the themes are so fetched Safari wear animal print she doesn't even go here Tuesday wear apparel from a different school we wear pink Wednesday that one's a classic you go Glenn Coco Thursday wear your best holiday attire sweatpants Friday because Comfort is key and sometimes that's all that fits me right now in keeping in keeping with tradition students from linkr forest and West Morland along with our senior centor

080and Veterans will get to enjoy a special maty performance next week and finally attention central office and Board of Ed members you can sit with us complimentary tickets are available just call M and she'll hook you up it's opening night at TJ drama club's Finding Nemo performance obviously you cannot go because you are here but don't worry there will also be shows on Friday February 28th at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday March 1st at 1 p.m. in addition we will be hosting performances for first and fourth graders from Mills Bradburn War point and warpo on Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. if you would like to stop by then any board members interested in attending is ask to contact the TJ office for complimentary tickets love was in the air at Memorial's recent Valentine's lunch our students

081shared brunch and banter with over 20 Fair Senior Center members creating a heartwarming mix of generations a huge shout out to the memorial PD of Family Affair and to the fair laon Senior Center and Fair Lawn for all ages for keeping the Community Connection strong Cupid would be so proud of this delightful matchmaking of food and friendship we are pleased to share that our annual TJ car's volleyball event raised $4,000 for our various pediatric cancer initiatives $1,000 will be donated to each of the following organizations St baldrick's ambassadors in honor of Kaye W the Peter T foundation in memory of Peter tsco the Charlie Landers foundation in memory of Lucy Macaluso and the Jackson strong Foundation led by TJ faculty member Tara Walsh throughout February Memorial has been actively learning about influential black Americans as

082part of our Black History Month celebration to kick off the month on February 4th we proudly launched our no place for hate initiative with a powerful video a pledge and a special visit from high school students who have been leading the way in this program since last year in a show of unity and commitment every Memorial student signed the pledge affirming their role in making our school no place for hate congratulations to Shar samry gerler Aaron Chan and junyong Jin for recently being selected for this prestigious honor njmea region band is an advanced Ensemble over 500 students audition acoss Ross Northern New Jersey including Bergen pic Sussex Morris Warren Essex and Hudson counties roughly 80 students are accepted each year and placed into two select ensembles the symphonic wins and the concert band Memorial's Lunar

083New Year celebration was a huge success this year we welcome the year of the snake with un with an unforgettable celebration filled with vibrant energy cultural appreciation un incredible and incredible performances students dazzled the audience of custom dancing and singing bringing the traditions of the Lunar New Year to life on stage of course no celebration is complete without amazing food families provided an outstanding spread of delicious cultural dishes that delighted everyone in attendance making the event even more special congratulations to all the students who performed and a huge thank you to miss bong the entire world language department and the world Culture Club for organizing such a meaningful and enriching event your dedication helps our students appreciate and embrace different cultures in the most memorable way as a part of our Holocaust instruction in grade

0848 students will be visiting the Holocaust Museum and Center for tolerance and education in Rockland New York students will attend one of four sessions March 17th March 21st March 25th and March 26th and we are thankful to our PTO who will be covering the cost of this trip for all students last night Memorial hosted its first ever live canvas invent and it was an unforgettable Fusion of art music and Community Spirit a team of students student artists took Center Stage starting and finishing a stunning large scale painting right before our eyes this wasn't just any artwork it was a special tribute celebrating 100 Years of fairon a huge thank you to Memorial's incredible art teacher Miss Ain CIA for bringing this event to life and of course a standing ovation for talented artists who created

085something truly remarkable the canvas will soon be displayed at the fairon public library for all to enjoy with such an incredible turnout and energy we hope to make live canvas a new Memorial tradition for now that's all from the middle schools we will see you next month for another exciting update thank you guys so much you are welcome to stay but it's 8:10 and there's got to be something you've got to be doing at home I'm sure thank you both so much for joining us Madame President I yield my time back considering we just uh had the hour presentation um okay so we are going to swear in our newly um my word retrieval tonight is terrible newly appointed trusty Julie Caso sorry I can't catch a break my word feels like really bad tonight

086what is it want to show you something want to show [Music] on the we're sending our energy I want to congratulate you selfless service that you have volunteered for and congratulate you with this this is our democracy in action please raise your right hand and please repeat I state your name I Julie Cy do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and that I will bear true faith and Allegiance and allegiance to the same to the same and to the governments established in the United States and to the governments established in the

087United States and in the state and in the state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people so help me God so help me God I state your name I Julie G do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education for the office of member of a board of education and that I am not disqualified and that I'm not disqualified as a voter as a voter pursuant to law pursuant to law nor disqualified nor disqualified due to conviction of a crime due to conviction of a crime or offense or offense listed in law listed in law and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully impartially impartially

088and justly and justly perform all the duties perform all the duties of that office of that office according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations [Applause] Julie if you would be so kind as to join us on the Das is there anybody who can get her computer from working or should I just sign her dis me as well she does awesome awesome can you give that to Ed okay with that I would like to get a roll call please oh wait till Miss Manus sit back down roll call of the new board sorry Mr baldowski here Dr berini yes Miss Brown present no Miss yes yes I'm here I don't know I don't know present synonymous okay sorry Mr Aaliyah

089president miss F valovich present Miss casoy present Mr Santana pres m yman present Mrs Mayan present sorry we we have a quarum okay this portion of our board meeting is specifically for comments on resolutions listed in tonight's agenda when speaking please state your name and Municipality of residents specify which resolution you are addressing limit your remarks to 3 minutes state law prohibits board members and administrators from discussing Personnel matters student discipline or other confidential issues please please note this is not a dialogue or Q&A session between the speakers and the board while we may not respond immediately or to every comment made tonight all input is carefully considered and helps inform our decisions responses may come through emails reports board statements website updates or after the comment period closes thank you so much for your

090participation in our school community's governance the floor is open is there anything on the Google form there are no comments on the Google form last call the floor is closed all right I will now open the floor to board member comments on agenda items only okay Miss fich Mr Santana let Mr Santana go first Mr Santana Okay so my two questions one of my questions was not answered from the presentation so I'm asking it again can parents opt out of dibles in grades one and uh grades K and one my number two question is although there's lot different Roots one of the things I learned during the New Jersey school boards they have certifications I was wondering if the next presentation they will be then M present they can actually list the certifications that the

091kids can actually achieve with their CT program so this will give us an idea what they can actually do for example one of them I thought was really cool was food safe obviously we don't have that but so they can work in the kitchen so they really don't need another six car so something like that would be nice to see if possible so that's my two questions my next question is why does the district uh invoke the doctrine of necessity if you could explain I realized the last time the two there were two things that were uh was voted um failed the motion and I assume that's the reason why we doing the docrine of necessity my question is if you abstain does that count as a no vote does it count as a yes

092Vote or or does it count as a vote or does it count as a no vote that's my SEC third question I guess um um the bcy L the administr um I asked for the administration for the June 10th to provide an um to provide an agenda what exactly is being presented at the meeting um I didn't get it so I was kind enough during my lunch period which was 42 minutes to leave my job because I don't have internet to write an email to this Administration asking if they could please clear it up so I don't have to say it during a board meeting unfortunately I will re respond in a couple of minutes it just showed not kindness and if you want unity and kindness the response seemed to be very unkind the

093next question is R uh 10e if the intervention I'll actually read the email uh hold on I'm going to ask that please use your um computer instead of your cell phone it's what they're there for I don't have the email I know but unfortunately we did make a decision last year that we weren't going to use everybody's been using their cell phone every single I'm going to not use our cell phones cuz that was the decision that we made based on an email that you asked about I'm just reading an email I am not so Dr denisio I'm emailing you from my personal account as I currently have no access to the board email there are few questions from the agenda that were never answered number one how did the board receive reports and one

094for the Ramapo program number that was my question number five number 6B the agenda for the June wcv I eii Workshop was never provided can you please provide it number three the district is paying extra for the intervention by the district uh teachers during the day I assume that's the math and English specialist in the district correct me if I'm wrong and please explain your time is up okay I'll come back next time thank you Mr Santana don't start a minute yet hav start speak thank you to our wonderful Administration um led by our great superintendent Dr dionio for providing the answers to the several questions that I sent in advance to the administration um on 7A a as an apple congratulations to our retirees thank you for the all the years of service and

095dedication to our children we wish you health health health and happiness in retirement um 7f um is this just anou and S agreement for uh is is the I apologize is the is the do the doctrine of necessity uh on the agenda just for the moou and the side agreement or um for for for an obvious reason should we do a doctrine of necessity for the entire year Dr dionisio being that the five of us who you know the follow us who who are you know the Educators uh we we're going to be here for a year so I think it would be practical efficient if we could just do a doctrine of necessity for the for the whole year correct me if I'm wrong if if that's not uh the case on 7f oh

096I apologize I already said that um 10B I will be voting yes uh with regret um I believe that position um I believe is it it's it's is science position and um we are at a loss when we lose a teacher so if that teacher is listening I I I wish you don't leave the district um we need you but you know we understand people make decisions uh 12 a 12a a is an apple thank you for all the donations to our district we appreciate it uh um one J uh in in uh thank you to our wonderful student representative for the report and um to address something something um an event that they mentioned in support for board goals I attended and all the board members it too I attended the Luna Year celebration

097at the BR school it was a great show our children uh per our children behave greatly they were so enthusiastic and thank you for the the wonderful uh PTA and and and the staff that put it together uh to a as an apple Mrs kooy welcome to the board I am proud to have second the motion for your appointment and I'm sitting uh to the right of the board member who make the motion Miss yman for you to join we represent the community at large we represent everybody in feron we are a diverse group of caring individuals working for the best interest of our children I look forward to working together to improve student achievement welcome time is up thank you uh Miss yman Miss Brown oh my God Miss Brown anyone else yeah okay

098so um very quick gu I guess it's clarification so on B I'm a little I'm a little confused the first readings there was like eight first readings and it doesn't list all the readings because I had a question on one of them and ask all your questions so your time's up that's my question that's it okay like just what happened to the rest like because I had a question on one and it's not even showing up on the list okay yep Miss brown brown with an e um Julie I also wanted to extend a warm welcome um I'm excited to have you on the board um and I look forward to working with you um I also wanted to uh sorry my I'm struggling with technology tonight um very excited um I'm really excited to

099see uh the Keen University post bachelor program that we're providing for our teaching staff um at from what I have read at no cost to the district so I'm really excited about that for our our staff um I'm also excited that the Ramapo College uh program is continuing here I think it's a great program and it um one of our one of the students is in the audience uh who's also a wonderful educator here um and I think it gives our teachers a great opportunity to to further their education um without having to travel very far um and then I also wanted to extend my congratulations to everyone retiring uh and thank you for your service and I also I'm not going to read all of them but all of the um extracurricular um activities

100and field trips that we're um approving tonight I'm very excited for and I'm excited to see the kids getting out and about and um getting that Real World Experience so thank you to the teachers and staff who are working tirelessly to make all of that happen thank you anyone else okay Miss bovich so I'll continue the response I got was Rita please reply and see see the board leadership before I reply to your question my question is what policy do we have in our district that requires that if the board leadership does not get CC the board members cannot get questions answered I wanted to know what policy did I violate so my next two things um the redacted bills I've been on the board for four years and this is becoming my fifth year

101we have never had reduct bills until couple of months ago I have no problem with redacted I think it's important to have privacy but some of the bills I don't understand what the why they're reducted and like where the money is actually going I understand that we're paying L Aid in L of Transportation basically that means for the people in the public kids that don't go to our schools they get uh busing they get uh payment so they can go get busing that's fine that's 5885 and 1,177 and any multiple of that I'm perfectly fine to not have the but some of the bills are 200 some of them are 3,000 some of them are 400 it doesn't seem I have been writing to the administration for the past couple of months asking them if

102they could just write a little note by each one that is redacted why for the busing for tuition of something just say what it is and I'll be more than happy to vote Yes because I believe every should have a proper education so tonight I'm not voting for the uh any bills but for tonight I'm going to be voting for I'm going to State the check numbers that are redacted and I have no idea why they're redacted so I'm going to vote no for those check numbers and the last thing is I want to say thank you to the ptas for the wonderful gifts that they provided thank you the floor is closed if everyone can just please make note that we will be doing 7 a b e and f and then I will

103be reading in 7g which is um this evening's Clos session um information yep I just wanted to make everyone I want everyone to take note now so they don't forget um Dr diio the floor is yours to answer questions thank you uh Miss Mayhan I'll start with the doctrine of necessity because that one came up a few times and this is a a new one and and a unique one for the board as we all know we have uh five Educators on this board the doctrine of necessity to answer your question Mr s this is not a blanket doctrine of necessity for the entire school year or entire calendar year um the school ethics commission is uh very strict and very specific so this doctrine of necessity uh is specific to only the items that

104are on the agenda for this evening so then that way the board has the authority uh even if you are an educator to be able to vote on these resolutions so that way the board can conduct its business um as a result of that should we and we will require a doctrine of necessity again in the future with a board that has a majority uh in this case um even if we didn't have a majority um there may be some circumstances depending on how many board members are present if that doctrine of necessity would be necessary uh so moving forward any time that we will need to invest that doctrine of necessity we would do that on a Case by case individual basis all right um I will say um Mrs urman you asked some

105questions regarding the hibs and under 7B we have seven cases there this evening those second readings and those are second readings that are from the first readings from January so I am looking right now at the Excel spreadsheet that the board received in January there those seven cases correspond with the second readings for tonight right no these are all second readings so these are the cases that were presented to the board back on as early as January 16th they were part of the executive agenda for January 23rd and no board action on first readings just review and deliberation and then tonight is board action on those seven cases for second readings this evening the board also received for tonight first readings that there's no board action until the March 18th meeting okay just clarify something

106I I was a little confused as well we only vote on on hibs that are second reading it's another as b c oops sorry a like it would be seven B but then each incident would instead of saying I'm going to say no to blah blah blah blah blah to say seven b a b CDE e f well however many there are so that we don't have to say the the case we we can bring that back to to the board in committee and then we can discuss that and then just be easier decision okay you can also uh please and members know uh because this is these are individual cases with individual facts and circumstances the the board spends a lot of time Administration spends a lot of time obviously considering them um feel

107free to note if it's not just a yes uh you could reference the number uh that's reflected all right thank you as it relates to some other questions um I will share that the board even going back to last year we had our board retreat last year um together at Falon high school and collectively the board agreed upon process and I I believe that this board agrees that policy and regulation how we govern how we administrate is really important consistency and this board agreed that in Communications with the superintendent because there are nine board members and there's only one superintendent best practice is for when a superintendent contacts the superintendent um agreed upon was for those individual board members to copy board leadership both the president and the vice president so miss felich to your

108point I'm just following the agreed upon practice I never stated policy there is no such policy um to that point I did not receive a response back um after you received my email to which you did receive it because you read it this evening so um to answer your questions though uh we heard recently from our financial auditor and our financial auditor just recently presented no recommended findings no recommendations uh from our business department and that's a testament to the leadership of Mrs manuso and Mrs Bey and everybody in the business office the function of running a district is the sole responsibility of the superintendent and the administrative team the function of a board is to govern and to draft policy we did not hear any recommendations the information that the board has in order

109to be able to make decisions this evening and every meeting with a bills list is specific and is redacted because the board is not supposed to be privy to any personal information whether it be of a staff member a student or any family member so I've said it consistently I'll say it again we're not going to be providing that information it's irrelevant it has no bearing to make a decision in a board vote board members are entitled to abstain if they wish um I would also say that as we move forward I know the recommendation from some very few has been can't we just make a notation on each of these Bill lists with specific notations that's not the way the board wants to have the administration spend their time every minute that is being

110spent on making a notation on dozens and dozens and dozens of bills list is a minute that takes us away from working with kids and working with teachers and that's not what we're here for so I stand behind that um Miss selovich to answer your question specifically um the which they were answered so in the update that was provided um as it relates to the women's leadership conference the March agenda items was shared with the board that was a question that was asked there is no June agenda that has been released to us as of yet as far as the question related to intervention teachers with the additional pay uh those are part-time Prof uh professionals within our district and as a result of that they get paid additional hours based on voucher in order

111to be able to provide the math and literacy intervention for our students that's necessary the Ramapo program I provided an update asked and answered and the last question that you had was around legal issues and providing an update I stand behind the question and the response that you received um the other day and there are no legal issues that are before the board for deliberation and action so there are no updates to provide at this time the dibles question my first question I I'll turn it over to the extent that Mrs DeFranco and Mrs Keller can provide a response to those questions otherwise if there is no response then we can follow up through the appropriate channels so I believe the question that was asked was if I get this correct um Can a student

112in K or one opt out of the Dibbles so at this current time the Dibbles is a benchmark assessment that we use to monitor literacy progress and literacy assessment for our students not only in this current school year but I also want to make sure that everyone knows her next school year Governor Murphy recent signed legislation enhancing a structured literacy approach for our students in which we will be required as a school district to provide three at least three benchmark assessments per year in County meetings that I have attended and in meetings that Dr pankin has attended the Dibbles was chosen because it has been recommended in our local Circle here in Bergen County but also all over the state as a reliable assessment for structured literacy the reason why is because the Dibbles assesses

113students in pheic Awareness phon segmentation letter sound ID fluency there's other markers I don't know them all off the top of my head at this point in time and that what that is what needs to be assessed through structured literacy presentation the district right now does not have a mechanism for students to opt out of benchmark assessments um I would discourage that benchmark assessments provide information so that we could Craft um intervention that may be needed for our students whether that is intervention for a student who is at risk or intervention for a student who might be accelerated um so I would hope that a parent would not want to to opt out and if that is the case I would love to have a conversation with the parent to explain um why it is

114a good resource um and why it is necessary and required not only by law but also just for good practice and good progress monitoring for our students one more question about extensions uh counting abstentions kind of a fascinating U issue although I often say you don't want to hear your attorney or your doctor say that an issue is fascinating we actually have a board policy on this board policy 0165 which notes that abstentions shall not be counted as votes but recorded so they're recorded for accurate minutes but they actually don't quote unquote count goes on to say a member who abstains from voting is deemed to acques in the outcome of the vote so to one degree if a motion passes with abstentions the abstention can be looked at uh as uh accepting that outcome

115if it fails similarly uh but as to our superintendent's um uh discussion of the doctrine if we have too many extensions and we don't have enough votes certain votes require a certain certain resolutions require a certain number of votes uh to pass which is why there are typical limits when we can abstain which typically is you have a conflict uh or alternatively uh when there's a new member who maybe hasn't been brought up to speed on something that new member uh certainly can uh exercise the the right to abstain but abstentions aren't used for um hot potato topics uh they're not used for things that we don't uh uh feel we want to address or or otherwise thank you can can can I say something so the floor is closed but I will ask you

116to hold on to it because your words are valuable can you say it at the end yes thank you I wanted to I wanted to make a comment on on our fellow board member uh requests you know hold on to it hold on to it please thank you okay can I get a motion for seven a b e and f so moved second I'll do it after because I want to get this one out of the way yeah um m brown and Mr Santana roll call and this is just for 7 a 7 a b e F we'll go back to five I really wanted to get this one out of the way so I don't forget the new one okay Mr balowski yes Dr berini Miss Brown okay yeah yes on 7 a 7

117c 7 D there is no 7 C and 7 D it is 7 a b e and f thank you for the clarification 7 a 7 d 7 e 7 a b e and f that was Ed Pro he pointed to it 7 a 7e and 7f yes I know you tried to help but it was as to be no to TJ ms7 and ws1 yes on everything else thank you for being so patient Mr Aaliyah yes Miss fich uh no on 7B and um abstain on 7f miss casoy all right I'll do my best here okay I have stain on uh on seven oh my gosh seven b b yes B and I need to have stain on seven e for conflict of interest the others yes s b and 7 e are extensions

118correct yes Mr Santana on 7B uh not on the same items uh Miss Brown mentioned TJ Ms um um with the 07 at the end and WS with the 01 uh everything else yes thank you Miss yman is the same so just as clarification on um 7B it doesn't have on paper copy it it's no it's in there by my paper copy doesn't say it is so we went over that prior to the meeting so I just want to say that based on I'm voting based on what I was told pre previously so I will vote um everything with a yes except for 7B um T TJMS 2024 20257 which will be a no n WS 2024 2025 01 as a no as well thank you Mrs May yes motion passes I am going to

119read in 7g resolved by the Board of Education after review and consideration of all relevant information including information provided during an appeal hearing with the board the board determines that student R 022 024 does not properly reside in fairon from October 2024 through and including the present date and authorizes the removal of R 02202 24 immediately can I get a roll uh can I get a motion so moved second roll call please Mr baldowski yes Dr bertolini Miss Brown yes Mr Aliyah yes Miss fa elich yes Miss casoy obain Mr Santana yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I have a motion for 5A this is um previous minutes Mr so moved second Sor roll call please Mr balowski yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Mr Aaliyah yes Miss fich yes

120Miss casoy abstain again okay good Mr Santana yes M Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes we are back on track can I get a motion for 8A so moved [Music] second roll call please Mr baldowski yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes yes Mr Aaliyah yes Miss fich we are doing a correct yes yes Miss casoy happily yes on this one Mr Santana yes Miss Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for nine a through F so moved swap at least dominating the roll call today so moved you can't Mr baldowski yes Dr bertolini yes Miss Brown yes Mr Aaliyah yes Miss fich no on 9 a17 and no on 9e 9 A7 and 9 e correct e is an Edward and a 17 a is an thank you

121Miss casoy I think I need to abstain on this one too please Mr Santana yes M Yurman no on 9e yes on the rest Mrs Mayan yes motion passes can I get a motion from someone besides Miss Brown on 10 a through H maybe you guys could just switch I'll make that motion thank you second roll call Mr Bowski yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Mr Aaliyah yes Miss felich so I'm going to know on certain check numbers and for 10c 322 132 3221 32284 32 2 093 322 32199 0 321 955 321 962 321 896 thank you Miss Cy yes Mr Santana yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayan yes motion passes can I get a motion for 11 a through D second whoa roll call please Mr baldowski yes Dr berini yes m

122brown yes Mr Aliyah yes movich yes Miss casoy I'm sorry I just I can't find where we are can I stand on this s you no take your time hold on we're going to we're going to pull it up for you so you can take a quick look because you were so prepared for this gotcha yes I'm a yes on no you were prepared I know you were we'll give you a simple agenda and also you're gonna next time we're gonna have you set up and you're gonna have your laptop perfect thank you you're doing great Mr Santana yes Miss Yurman yes Mrs Mayan yes motion passes Miss casoy would you like to move um 12 a through G I would be happy to okay um say so moved so moved second thank you Mo

123uh roll call please Brown is my second no it was Miss hman Mr baldowski proud yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Mr aliyyah yes Miss fich yes Miss casoy yes Mr Santana yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes lastly can I get a motion for 13 a through I so second yes so much wealth going on V call please Mr baldowski yes Dr bertolini yes m brown yes Mr Aaliyah yes M felich yes M casoy yes I'm already on this one Mr Mr Santana yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes I thought you were going to take it easy on me sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry this portion of our board meeting is specifically for comments on any matter when speaking please state your name and Municipality of residents limit

124your remarks to three minutes state law what I state law prohibits the board and administrators from discussing Personnel matters student discipline or other confidential issues please note this is not a dialogue or a Q&A session between speakers and the board while we may not respond immediately to every comment made tonight all input is carefully considered and helps inform our decisions responses may come through emails reports board statements website updates or after the comment py closes thank you for your participation our school communities governance the floor is open to public comment on any business Miss Hoffman never talks hello Casey Hoffman Hackensack New Jersey but also um current kindergarten teacher here in Fair laon just just to touch on dibl really quick I can give you a kindergarten teacher perspective um I have a feeling that

125you're concerned about the students interacting with the technology itself and I can tell you at least at the kindergarten level the students the technology is just there for the teacher to record the responses from the student the student is in no way actually interacting with the technology itself it's just a form of data collection um so the student responses get input that way and please correct me if if I'm wrong any so um as far as kindergarten and first grade that is Dibbles thank you anyone else um Google doc when I do this that means it's time for the progressives don't admit that I denied that three years ago sir uh this is from one of our uh amazing students who hopefully is still watching and listening at home Aiden Maloney uh we all know

126Aiden um dear board members my name is Aiden I am ninth grade class vice president at the high school I have spoken at board meetings before when I was at Memorial I have some questions tonight is there any discussion over special ed programs in public meetings my second question is why does every ninth grade honors English student have to take honors modern world history I would also like to congratulate Mr Cohen on the FL award exclamation point so I think he deserves a round of applause for that Mr Cohen Mr Cohen for those of you who don't know is our starfish uh well fl's starfish award recipient um so amazing teacher over at Memorial and I digress Dylan continues with I had him in my seventh and eighth grade years at morial and he was

127my favorite teacher thank you so much all my best Aiden last call um good evening and congratulations to Julie uh my son and heran Nathan they were together in elementary school um and thank you to all of you voter I apologize if the speaker can introduce herself yes would you mind sharing your name oh yeah uh my name is Asma and I'm a fairon resident um I have currently my last child in high school um I was very pleased and very happy and thank you to all the Educators in the district for um uh supporting special needs and the Pediatric cancer also um sadly and unfortunately we do have a lot lot of students that had been diagnosed over the years from failon and they had gone through the treatment some we have lost but

128fortunately there were others who survived also so thank you for that for all the support um tomorrow is a rare disease day and uh there is a very rare uh February both host International pediatri cancer day and a rare disease day also and I just wanted to bring a little um note to that that there is a very rare pediatic cancer uh which predisposes children um to cancer for the lifetime uh so just wanted to bring that to also uh awareness uh to that and I also wanted to thank everybody for um supporting and coming out from the district uh January was the Muslim heritage month and every uh I mean we saw a lot of community members over there thank you for that um our Ramadan uh month of fasting is starting on January

129sorry March 1st tomorrow is a Cresent lightning at the municipal burrow at Burrow Hall so just wanted to anyone would like to come in please do so uh we would be happy to have you all over there and for the Educators uh since this is a month of fasting and uh a lot of prayers um a lot of our students are up late into tonight um doing all of that and are very early up doing uh for the before the fasting eating and all of that so just so if they can consider doing the uh assignments through the for the assignments and the school works and things like that uh we would very much appreciate because we do want our kids to be focused on the month of Ramadan for the the internal uh spiritual

130and and character building so if they might be a little bit uh lacking towards the other things um we would appreciate that that if you that keep that in considerations thank you esma uh would you mind just signing in thank you the floor is closed I am going to open up the floor to uh comments on any business on board for board members I am going to start with Mr Santana because I um asked him to hold off until now and then Miss Brown thank you um we're now having uh committee committee reports before board comments you are absolutely right can we have that before board comments if if I may yes so if there is anybody who has a report from the most recent um small committees now would be your opportunity Dr bertolini

131I believe all the the meetings this month were dealing with the budget they were all small budget committe we really didn't have we had an agenda but it was pushed off because of the budget presentation by Dr denisio and everyone else so there really isn't much to report on the education committee except for we talked about the uh the goals Dr Deno has in the future if we can do it with the budget so that's the only committee report for Education okay this month do you have it okay anyone else movich okay so I attended the safe schools to school um with the council um the the people that were in the meetings were um the B manager Mr Rens and two members of the public um according to the meeting as all I know

132is that they meet four times a year the next time they meet is in May two things that we discussed actually a couple of things we discussed was in front of the schools uh to install the yellow blinking um signs for The Pedestrian walkway and I send it to Mr San uh so they could be part of the shared services where the school would buy the uh the blinking lights and the burrow would actually install them and the idea behind it is that if there's sun glare or other things that it would be more visible for our for the crossing guards and for the kids so it would be helpful the next thing they were talking about is the a traffic study not traffic study for cars but more or less traffic study for how

133our students leave the school and to see what other ways we can divert traffic in order to make it more safer for our schools according to the burrow manager um it was suggested to the administration when we had the addition for the high school and when we had the addition for the Middle School in TJ unfortunately none of them were ever done because we're adding them so I wish we could consider having at least one and see if it actually is helpful and the last qu thing um is um one of the board members asked if he did a study during they did a study during uh Co they also did a study after Co and it's still considered not enough for Speed bumps thank you Mr baldowski just a quick buildin and grounds update

134that the facility audit has been completed and that the buildings and grounds committee will be reviewing it with the administration next at our next next uh buildings and grounds meeting so excited for that M uh Miss Brown I'm sorry I very very rarely do we speak um I am the chairperson chairwoman of the student service uh committee and we discussed the budget process and the overview Miss manuso reviewed um budget development the process and um then miss DeFranco discussed uh the current numbers program offerings and budget proposals based on student needs uh and discussed her wants and needs to move our district forward um and uh we talked about high priority items that needed to go into the budget um and we're going to be speaking about um how a f sure uh cell phone

135policy will affect our students in um our student service programs uh at the March meeting thank you anyone else Mr Santana I'm the um chair for the sh share Services committee at the last uh board meeting I verbally asked board members to submit topics that they would like to discuss and follow our procedure I only receive emails from three board members I believe we top topics um I had a conversation with the superintendent and uh we would like to meet uh just the committee just us uh without the council yet uh so we so we discuss the items we have on the agenda so we are uh prompt efficient and effective in in discussing the topics the board members want to discuss so I'm just respectfully a waiting for the superintendent to let us know

136when he would like to meet because the district is is supposed to provide the research on the topics that we're going to discuss and you know I have to wait for when Dr denu is ready to meet and uh soon as he's ready to meet we'll meet and and we'll work we're going to work like you have no idea very hard because we need to share a lot of services because we need to save taxpayers money Mr Santana the floor is open for board comment on any item thank you wow today's my night you you were my favorite board member don't don't mess it up you still are don't mess it up I I have a few um comment because you know we we have to have discussions uh and I would like to ask

137Miss Miss um Miss fa sorry everything has to be addressed to either myself okay I would like to ask the chair I would like to ask the chair why would we want any student opting out of a benchmark and you know um I'm you know I have my Educators hat on I have my parent hat on I'm a board member but we don't want any student Ben uh uh opting out of Benchmark because as the administration stated and as those of us who are in education know that's uh that's an a that's a data uh piece that we need to the teachers need to have so they can uh tailor instruction appropriately to for the needs of our students so I think we need to bring this to a policy committee because it should be

138on a policy that students parent student opt out students of a benchmark because how are student how are teachers supposed to meet the needs of the students if if they can do that diagnostic if anything I would like the Benchmark to make sure I would like to make sure that a benchmarks are up to dat with the standards so if a student does very well on Benchmark then the student should do very well on the state standards because if the bench align with the standards you know there should be no no no issue but we as board members we we we're not we we don't get involved in in in micromanaging the district's benchmarks so I'm that's just an opinion um I don't have a problem with the district Personnel attending uh Women's Conference um

139you know it it but maybe you know maybe uh decrease you know the conferences that have to do with um that you know I don't know but I would like to see more conferences that have to do improving the student achievement but I don't have any problem I don't want to see an agenda of a of a conference that a a teacher that a staff member is is going because that conference had that that um event or that Workshop professional development conference had been reviewed by the administration by the superintendent so if he put on the agenda is because he had been vetted by multiple layers of approval um now in terms of past practices you know when I when I came back my second term on the board I did had I had a

140Frank conversation with with our with our president and I did said that we don't have anything in policy that obligates any board member to CC anyone uh when communicating with the superintendent but if that you brings us together I'm more than willing to do that you know but there are other things that should bring us together can I go a second time you can okay I'll wait a second time because I haven't finished my sentence um Miss Brown before we start I just want to remind everyone this is not a dialogue between um board members and so I'm going to ask that we not engage in a dialogue or back and forth um Miss Brown Miss fich did you have your hand up I'm sorry Dr berini actually thought Anon had his hand up so

141pressure okay um so I was able to um celebrate the Chinese New Year also with Mr Santana at uh the radburn elementary school thank you for that and Miss Mayan sorry Mrs Mayan well you keep forgetting my name so um name it's karma that I forgot you went um so the three of us uh attended and it was really lovely to see like the students and how excited the performers got and how the students got to interact with them so I just wanted to thank radburn uh for continuing to invite us to their events I wasn't able to attend the Black History Month celebration on February 25th so I just want to apologize for that um but please keep uh inviting us to things um the high school also invited us to their uh Chinese

142New Year celebration um and Miss Keller and I were able to attend and that was really cool to see um where it's it was able we were able to see where it starts and then where it kind of culminates at the end where students were speaking INF fluent chines and there were um dances and there were songs and there were games um my youngest son didn't want to leave for his basketball game it was just really really cool so I just wanted to thank the high school for inviting us to that um I wanted to wish yes fencing season is still happening so I wanted to wish the fencers um good luck at State individuals this weekend um and this is kind of like the last Harrah for them um and I just wanted to

143say that um I will be wearing my stripes for um rare disease day tomorrow I have my sweater all picked out um thank you for sharing that with us um I also wanted to share that um I am excited to share information that I'm going to receive at my Women's Conference in March with Mr Franco when she attends hers um because I think it's really important to celebrate women especially at uh top levels of administration and to support each other uh because there aren't very many of us and I aspire to be like you one day um and last but not not least I'm really really excited for read Across America next week we've been invited to a lot of different schools and my lunch periods are jam packed I am so stoked so I'm

144going to go to I'll be here at Edison one day I'll be at Warren Point I'll be at radburn I'll be at mils I'm forgetting things uh my Thursday's open still so if any of the other elementary schools have um any needs for someone to and read I'd be happy to do so um I'm just excited about the stuff that goes on in the district and I am also excited that we keep getting invited to things and I'll keep coming so thank you Miss fich okay so I have a couple of things um the first question is I could be wrong but if correct me if I'm wrong but the after school enrichment activities used to be eight classes now they change to seven classes I was wondering why if you could kindly explain um

145the next thing is I don't have a problem with benchmark test I have a problem with kids in kindergarten first grade be stuck on front of a computer for an hour an hour and a half to take a test according to the who which is the World Health Organization less than one hour a day is recommended for kids under six which is kindergarten and first grade some of them so I would hope that I took took test on paper in kindergarten first grade and I turned out okay I learned how to read I learned how to so I assume that paper still could be used I'm not saying anything I just hope that the administration would consider allowing parents to opt in for paper version of the test so it's not only has to be

146on the computer because some parents don't want their child to be on the computer period and they have since till they're going to kindergarten they might not have been exposed to computers and I think having a computer that could also be a disadvantage to them because they're oh this is new shiny and instead of paying attention to a test so I would hope that there could be a paper version of the test I'm not saying opt out but idea is also create a different version so the parents can kids can have a paper version if they want to and the last thing is this has been happening quite a lot so I'm going to ask very nicely if the leadership if they said that the executive session starts at 6:15 that they keep the time

147for 6:15 and not change it at 2:00 today for 6:00 because other people have made a lot of plans just to make it on time here and if you could start if at least give us 48 hours in advance if the executive change if the executive um the executive portion of the meeting would start earlier because not everybody goes to the dinner and therefore that creates a lot of um a lot of obstacles for people to get on here before the time that was stated I look at the time it says 6:15 it should start at 6:15 and not earlier unless 48 hours have been provided to us ahead of time saying that the um agend uh the me the meeting will start earlier just for the consideration thank you Miss Dr to rolini no

148one else wants to go yet right I just want to make sure before I put your hand down Lisa first of all I hope Aiden is still watching yes because I 100% agree with him why should a student at the high school in a big school like of Falon both almost said Leonia in Falon why are they requireed to take modern world history honors and and English honors it doesn't make it I I don't care about scheduling you have a lot of sections you could take care of that don't worry about it but so I agree with Aiden I don't agree with Joe because Joe's dis Joe's disagreeing with me but I agree with you Aiden but on on a different note I did get the numbers thank you Julie but 85 is 5% of

149the high school population right High scho population agreed but we are we are a supp have a sorry you're right not a dialogue so I'm gonna talk to some questions can you just let everyone know what you're talking about oh yes I'm sorry the academy question that we talked about earlier uh the the amount of students go to burtch Teterboro hackin sack bermies there's 85 students currently according to the the enrollment numbers so my question is That's which is 5% of the high school population you can't compare it to the overall population because those kids only go to high school not not Elementary or middle so it's 5% of the high school population which is a large number first of all it's also not uh we're losing strong students and their test scores to our

150own scores but also financially I I can't have a dialogue so I'm going to ask the questions quickly what do we pay tuition for each of the Academy kids on the bills I'm sorry it's on the bills okay I don't look at the bill list like rate does and then second of all what do we pay for transportation I'm guessing it's about a million dollars at least a million dollars of our budget goes to sending our kids out their test scores go out their their uh abilities go out and again I would argue strongly if we provide programs here in District they will stay if we brand it properly so my question to Dr Denio is what's our tuition that we pay out to bermies and what is the cost for our transportation thank you

151Miss yman wait I want to make sure the clock is okay so first I'd just like to apologize that I had to check my phone um I went to an event on Monday and I couldn't remember the name of the event so I had to check my calendar CU my brain cells aren't working as well either this evening but I did want to mention that I did go to the taste of Falon at the Falon community center on Monday um I've been going since the Inception except for one year um and totally enjoy it the food is great uh it's all the community uh vendors from around the town um there's also a uh Lisa mlem um she is in charge of the Fair Lawn for all ages and she had a ton of student

152volunteers at that event and it was just incredible and how attentive they were and what they did and um I would go again next year um the uh the other thing that I wanted to talk about was um that it was an honor to be um it it is an honor to be part of the Leadership Council um it's it's diverse there's community members from all walks of life um including religious leaders um the thoughts and the comments and the categories that we were able to to walk through to get a feel of how the community feels was just fantastic and I look forward to the May meeting in and to be able to participate again um also want to thank Our Community member uh for rare disease day um my children have a rare

153disease and they have benefited by the NIH the FDA the CDC for bringing out Miracle medications for rare diseases and that's totally across the board and I just want to say that I will be proudly talking about rare disease rare disease day tomorrow thank you so much thank you Julie hi everybody you I I do love to talk so I just had to participate I just wanted to say very quickly thank you to everybody for the warm welcome for the information I hope to abstain Less in future meetings so I appreciate your uh your your latitude with me H it was really wonderful to hear from everybody from the students from a teacher my son being in high school now we're far removed from kindergarten so it was wonderful to hear how all of that

154is all the things that we hear about come full circle from The Faculty from the staff from the community members so thank you everybody for catching me up for all that everyone did in in the past month to get me ready for today and I really look forward to you participating War go forward thank you mrov thank you just because Dr berini called me out there I actually agree with Aiden because I was one of those students that did not excel in English but loved history and so it was a disadvantage having those tied but the curriculum is unique in a way that at least it was at the time and I imagine it may be still that the courses are connected that while you're learning one thing in history you're learning literature with the

155same time period or working on projects um and it's the same cohort so there are some benefits to it obviously when we review curriculum you have to weigh those things um but just to to make Dr bolini a little happier you're welcome um I wanted to emphasize his comment earlier about marketing different uh programs like conservatories I think those are could be great benefits for the the district as we move forward in looking at different programs so simply wanted to highlight that I know there can't be a dialogue but thank you Joe no dialogue anyone else um Joe um I don't typically make comments however I did want to congratulate uh Brody Bogues for 100 uh match wins um we are a hardcore wrestling family it's my dbr is full of NCAA wrestling right now

156so all be do on the weekends and then congratulations to uh assistant coach Jamie pisak Kane on being our District's assistant coach of the year [Applause] um and his daughter who's a killer stats girl who's graduating so that was it Mr Santana yes um just so as a historical note um in the past we have um uh um we have received no recommend no um uh recommendations from the audit when we did not have all these red options I just wanted to share that that we did had no recommendations in the audit in the past like several years ago and we didn't have the redaction I I don't need to see uh I I it's not an for me um I don't have a problem with the branding that um Dr berini suggested as long

157as is at no cost to the district or that we offset the cost by cutting somewhere else um we as board members have to look at the bills that's one of our responsibility we have to look at the bills we have to look at where is the money being spent how is it spent because you know we have a a fiary responsibility to the taxpayers um I believe the attendance at the retreat should be mandatory because this is where we're going to be all on the same page I don't have a problem with the meetings being early uh because I rather to come early and not be here at midnight so if we don't have the meetings early you're talking about getting out of here if it's it's almost 10 so if we didn't meet

158me early we will be home at midnight so I don't know about you but I I go to bed at 9:00 p.m. on weekdays except you know on board days um I would like to see the district I know the district is doing I have had this conversation with the superintendent but I want to see the district uh working harder to find ways to save more money do more with less um the we have been receiving a lot of invitations uh those of us that have all of us we have full-time jobs you know uh I can't uh take off I work far far almost an hour away and it's very hard for me to go to events in the morning also we have been receiving requests to purchase tickets I don't know if community

159members don't realize but all of us are volunteers we do not get paid for this position and we are not well I don't know maybe Dr berolina is we're not very rich people we're not wealthy famous people who look like we're not so if the community wants to invite us to certain events you know uh complimentary tickets perhaps but you know this is a a a a service that we do for the community free of charge we don't do not get paid we will only be paid in heaven for doing this and the love the the the the student achievement and the smile on the children that's our pay but please be easy on the tickets you know we we can't go to all the events thank you two things miss two things I'm not

160advocating to start meetings late I'm saying if they said by hey guys I I said it in the beginning I'm going to ask that we not have a dialogue if you guys would like to have a conversation in private after that is absolutely appropriate but we're not going to do it here in front of the board I've already said it twice now it is on the internet now forever let's please move on all I ask is 48 hours if the minute meeting time is changed and second uh second thing I want to talk about is the kindergarten uh registration it's not advertised in Edison by the with the billboard that we have I think it should be advertised registration for kindergarten should start blah blah it should be advertised somewhere it's really not only on

161one website and I think we should have it more advertised thank you floor is closed bear with me we have a lot of dates our next meeting is information my question was an answer about this enrichment seven classes to eight classes yeah okay please note that I will defer to Dr diio but we do not have to answer every question here it is stated I actually stated twice both in the beginning and at the end typically Dr dzo will let me know if he'd like to answer questions but I will defer to him and see if he'd like to answer it uh I can answer a question uh two questions um based on regarding the uh bermies or Bergen Tech schools we'll bring that to the education committee we're talking about conservatories andies and those

162sorts of things so we'll bring the tuition and the transportation number of students which is uh as Miss Mayhan said on the agenda we'll bring all of that we could have a collaborative conversation around what that looks like um last year regarding the after school enrichment um we had already shared the update but I'll provide it again as it relates to we provided a survey to parents and the parents for after school enrichment wanted an additional choice so we went from three options to four and the budget stays flat and the same um actually during the finance committee recently we actually talked about this and how we're allocating our funding and Equity issues around uh how we're using money after school versus during the instructional day that's for a future conversation but the budget stay

163fixed so when you increase the number of choices and the budget stays fixed what does that do that reduces the number of students that can go into a class so there are less classes um so it went from eight classes to seven so that's the rationale for that um that's all I have thank you March 13th 2025 is our work session for our budget presentation um it begins at 7:30 here at Edison school in the Eugene and Banta public meeting room 19 on March 18th please note that is a Tuesday is our preliminary budget adoption at 7:30 p.m. here at Edison school in the Eugene andant room 19 March 24th 2025 is our public public hearing final budget adoption at 7:30 p.m. here at Edison school in the Eugene andant of room 19 point of

164order it is April on the it is April my brain's really just not working but what happened to the March one good job March 13th March 18th March 24th April 24th motion when's what April 24th is our public hearing and final budget adoption adoption and it's a regular uh board meeting when is the March board meeting there are two meetings in March okay March 13th is a work session presentation of the preliminary budget no board action that night just board discussion March 18th is the board action night to adopt the preliminary budget those are the two meetings in March the 13th and the 18th is part of the preliminary adoption and then please be on the lookout um we will have confirmation for our board retreat um by next week but you guys will do

165have something in your email asking you to save the date um can I get a motion to ad moved second all in favor I H please stay for a board photo