001um i'd like to call the meeting to order if we could all stand for the pledge of allegiance 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 listen you can call the role please okay missy vegan here miss fahey is absent miss marcus is absent mr parathy here miss rubinich miss calderon here miss scotland here mr stampone here miss rodriguez here okay uh notice of the may 24th 2021 meeting of the board of education was emailed to the clerks of the boroughs of essex fells north caldwell and roseland and to the township of fairfield and the editor of the progress on january 7th 2021 and the star ledger on the same day welcome
002everyone um as you can see we are on zoom i know i said last meeting that we were going to be going um to in-person meetings so i just want to apologize um that we are on zoom but we decide that we're going to be looking into uh live streaming our meetings uh our policy right now states that we're just going to be auto recording it and posting it the next day but we are going to be looking into live streaming so uh moving forward we will be in uh we will be remote as we are looking into um investing in some equipment cameras microphones and we will also have to change our location where we have our meetings um so i just wanted to apologize again for uh we you know we've made a
003decision we're going to stay zoom until we work out those details that melissa is working on for us getting some prices and stuff so that is again why we're in remote again tonight we have lisa swaneck who is our director of fine and performing arts she's going to give us the update on her department and we also have our curriculum report this evening from um ryan gupta and uh that's all i have tonight damian do you have anything uh yeah um good evening everyone i have a short report tonight uh just a couple things um the weekly covid report we continue to move in the right direction which is a great thing for our region and the state of new jersey our our numbers are going down um which is great you know things are
004starting to loosen up restrictions are gradually being lifted um great great news for our state and for um for our region um we had some committee meetings in within the past couple weeks our building operations committee met our medical committee uh met there were there's been um a number of announcements that governor murphy has made within the past uh week and a half uh regarding masking social distancing indoor and outdoor gatherings literally by the day things are changing so um one thing i do want the board to keep in mind is that a lot some of these um announcements that come out um they don't directly apply to schools um we we have to wait for the official guidance from the new jersey department of health to come to school so you may hear an
005announcement but you have to look because there could be something that comes along with it where it doesn't apply to a public school so we you know typically what happens is the governor makes an announcement and about a day or two later we get follow-up guidance from the department of health um one thing that did come out today is um some very basic information about uh returning to school uh in the fall we are waiting still for more specific guidance from the department of education but right now we do have some basic guidance that um came out today um for the fall but but as i mentioned in the previous two board meetings our goal is um we're opening five days a week in the fall um full days of school with lunch and whatever
006the guidelines are um will follow but that is definitely what we're committed to at this point okay and a little later on in the uh reports the principals will talk a little bit about some of the um items that were looked at in our previous building operations and medical committee meetings okay so with that said i'll turn it over to mrs swanik hi melissa if you can just stay on that first slide and then i'll just say next and you can advance great good evening my name is lisa swaneck i'm supervisor of arts for the west essex regional school district and i'd like to thank the board of education and superintendent for your time this evening the last time we were together we were on stage it was two januaries ago when we had just
007completed our ribbon cutting ceremony for the high school auditorium renovation and we were primed for an active spring season and after we ended the school year virtually we spent the summer and much of this school year but really getting back to in-person learning and activities and i i must say the look on the faces of our students when they return to campus in july for marching band you know hearing buzzing saws in our wood shop and the smells of our lemon chicken and garlic in our culinary department the arts at west essex are alive and well in 2021 um but before i begin i also would like to give a special thank you to all of our teachers our administrators the staffs the school nurses ms kinsey and miss logan especially um peter davis tuan
008fetty shara and our buildings and ground staff because without them the incredible support they have given us this year you know our department really runs because of of their support and so i really wanted to take this moment to uh to just thank them uh next tonight i'm going to focus on three district goals and how our department supports those initiatives throughout the year and our first goal really is to support student growth and achievement and we address this in three ways you know first we're looking to improve the climate and culture of our district and tonight you're going to hear some stories about how west essex has impacted the lives of so many students who've passed through our 100 wing and every student that walks through our halls is encouraged to explore their passions
009and develop a growth mindset arts integration cross-curricular learning and development of social emotional learning and problem solving skills really create an authentic learning experience for our students and it provides them with an opportunity to find their own voice and with finding their own voice that allows them to communicate with the outside world our curricular and extracurricular programs also continue to support the work of our multicultural club our green team and our sustainable jersey for schools initiative and teachers and students participate in cross-curricular activities throughout the year to identify and focus on making the school community a better place to learn and grow next next we're going to focus on classroom instruction and while we look to focus our curriculum to meet our state standards assessment is also an integral part of that learning process and
010over the past several years our department's been working toward portfolio development project-based learning and project-based assessments which really allow our students to demonstrate all their scholastic and arctic artistic talents um hands-on and this initiative continues uh this was going on before the pandemic um it it had an influx of some technology during the time we've been shut down but really a lot of the um opportunities and and technology available our students were here before uh our past two school years and we're going to continue to let them grow and develop and melissa if you can click on the sample for culinary arts for me can you see that which one culinary arts one oh no should be able to mouse over this one i can't see your mouse oh yeah yeah come on all right
011there you go so i i want to just highlight um three samples so our cooking for quas club uh that was started um approximately five years ago if you want to scroll through this melissa just slowly they've put together an adobe spark website to really have the school community come together to cook for a cause and they've done things throughout the year such as turkey drives bringing food to shelters and they they do a lot of work also with uh tony's kitchen and the um the ronald mcdonald house um so we uh you know we really were excited when they shared you know and this was all developed by the students uh what they shared their uh their talents and their expertise and now all of our students uh in the arts are um are
012afforded a creative class subscription which gives them access to all of our adobe uh you know suite whether it's photoshop illustrator indesign um so this was a sample of that if you can back out from there and check out the next one um portfolio development like i said has been a uh you know an initiative that we've been working on the past several years and so um this really you know some of it was a brainchild of tim shea um and working with uh the department to start to create websites that when the students are graduating they're going to be able to have a body of um work that they're going to be able to electronically take care uh take with them you know regardless of what their major is going to be so we're
013looking at you know whether it's you're in a stem class if you're an art class music class you know starting down at the middle school level to you know start to curate this body of work that by the time they graduate school they'll um they'll have something to take with them um and if you go to the final one the only the other one i wanted to bring to your attention was padlet this was a new program that our uh district um started our teachers in our arts department love and and jumped right on uh it's used heavily for peer critique um also used for you know uh in lieu of a gallery walk we they used to you know hang artwork on the walls and in the rooms and go around and give feedback
014and now this is really a wonderful way that regardless of their location that they're able to um uh they're able to show their work you know um in class and then also out in the community you can go to the next slide [Music] and then lastly the remote and hybrid learning environments really have had the greatest impact on the arts department you know teachers were forced to totally reimagine their educational approach to education and i really feel like they've risen to the challenge you know the results um regardless of of you know and i and i have a young one at home too and and definitely does better in in-person learning but i really feel like you know the big takeaway is that it's really given students more ownership and a heightened sense of ownership
015in their learning and their personal development and our teachers have really encouraged them throughout this time to really you know take that time to do a lot of independent exploration to uh to hone their skills and you know while we recognize that you know the challenges the years presented the goal throughout has constantly been to promote high levels of student achievement and citizenship and service to our community next and then tonight i'd like to focus on the accomplishments of our west esque students this year and in lieu of a lot of in-person competitions many of our students participated virtually through competitions performances and exhibits and the following slide that you see before you um is a representative list of the students who participated in the inaugural arts ed solo and ensemble festival um we uh
016you know have many students that were involved and you can see the gold silver uh ratings that that our students have participated in um so we're very proud of all their accomplishments and then also in addition um logan bogamill and gianna lodotta will also be representing west essex in november at the macy's great american uh marching band on thanksgiving so we are always so excited uh thanksgiving morning to turn on the parade and then you know everybody text everybody you know are they there yeah are they there yet so we are we're very excited to um to see them and we wish them the best we've been fortunate enough this year um throughout the year to be able to hold a lot of our performances in person whether it's dance music theater and that hasn't
017happened everywhere in every district so it's really you know um our music department's finalizing spring performances um and our dance team and our spring music will be streamed uh in the next few coming weeks but really being able and i'll talk a little about about this when we get to the next goal but really being able to do all the things to ensure that that we can come in and do what we always have done um you know at the highest levels and safely and then i i'm sure mr diliberto sends this out in his um newsletter but i'm also proud to announce that for the eighth year in a row uh that the west essex regional school district was recognized as the best communities for music education uh this is a recognition of the
018commitment and support that the district in the community has to promoting and supporting music education so we are extremely proud we had some banners drawn up that we're going to be hanging in both buildings and you know next time you're in the building uh it'd be great for you to check those out next another spotlight moving on to students in our power mechanics course were selected to participate in the new new jersey school boards association steam tank competition and two student groups were selected based on their solution to design challenges so you have the all driver which presented a proposal for a combination one-handed multi-function screwdriver and a multi-click pen and that was made from sustainably located recycled materials and also the all solar group which proposed creating solar panels and pathways and driveways and
019both groups have uh you know competed at the regional level now and we are waiting for word about moving on to the next round so we wish them uh you know all the best luck and success next and then west essex senior sophia lee was recognized uh for the modern plague of gluttony um as a it's an art exhibit and that you kind of see that in the middle on the left uh actually on the right um through the uh art administrators of new jersey they have an emerging artist exhibit that they do each year and in addition uh carolyn mckellen and lillian o'boyle participated in the njpac late winter art exhibit and then i was informed today that josephine duva is going to be recognized uh in the congressional art competition for the 11th
020district uh in the coming weeks so you know as soon as i kind of put out an all call to say you know let me know all the exciting things going on you know then i get another email you know i got and i get another email i just i got an email yesterday um from a teacher that because of a guest speaker that we had a couple years ago um they brought somebody in to do uh actually miss pateka brought in a guest speaker from someone who had been in the choir program previously who is involved with disney and so because of that guest speaker coming in another student went on to uh to immediately apply and actually is accepted so we you know we'll get into a little bit more um in a
021few slides but the amount of alumni that really have uh you know really gained tremendous amounts of experience and and um in our classrooms you know is to be commended next so the next goal is promoting the health and safety of students and staff and we're going to do this in two ways so physically you know the music department um theater pro department and uh dance department had unique challenges that some of the other classrooms didn't have there was very specific guidelines that were given about um social distancing and mask wearing in particular uh the use of merv 13 filters and bell covers special instrument uh masks musician masks singers masks and then other distancing guidelines that exceeded six feet depending on which instrument was being played you know so um really you know all
022the teachers and students are to be commended for their willingness because really to go above and beyond to make sure that you know they do what they needed to do to get back to performing um uh was was a paramount of importance and the pictures you see there are some of the music classrooms that are you know we had to relocate our spaces our classroom sizes uh most of our performing ensembles relocated to the auditoriums or utilize the tents outside you know obviously weather permitting next and then social emotional learning goes hand in hand with arts education i mean they're so inextricably linked that the state has determined that um in aligning to the 2020 uh new jersey student learning standards that social emotional learning is is directly embedded and there's a website uh sclarts.org
023which actually takes and draws out the crosswalk and how the um social emotional needs of students really are satisfied by the student learning standards and it really you know they they thoughtfully and deliberately emphasize and encourage students to grow and develop their competencies in um in self-awareness self-management you know social awareness relationship skills decision uh you know decision making and so those things are are really you know um heavily embedded in all of the arts programs next and then our last goal strengthening communication with our stakeholders so you know whether it's through uh parent-teacher communication um district communication professional development our vertical articulation uh any of our district and local media and the community outreach this year i do want to highlight that our middle school stem teacher ms daniel perciello created a monthly newsletter
024called stem spot um that that's sent out on a monthly basis and that really highlights um all the students accomplishments in our middle school stem 7 and 8 programs so that this is one area that we've you know increased communication and we're looking to further create more websites and newsletters and uh get more information out um you know as as it becomes available um next and so we've heard about all the accomplishments of our students yes this this year so i want to talk about a little bit about the students that have you know graduated the halls and gone out in the world to make a difference and i i interviewed a lot of alumni for this project and i i you know there was some you know um common threads to all of it
025you know they they all had a teacher that was a a basically a foundation of of what gave them the inspiration to go into what they were going to be doing for a uh a career i spoke with designers illustrators i talked to gallery artists producers actors um there we have executive chefs uh fashion designers photographers and you know i have a i spoke to one gentleman who has a patent that can trace his days west essex back to uh rich pettini's power mechanics classes and and sitting in physics classes so they're they're the common denominator is usually a teacher that's made a difference in the student's life and you know i when we look back um you know and i kind of i go back a little bit with you know the next couple
026of slides when we look back 10 years from now looking at all the teachers that are in our classrooms now and you know what kind of impact are they going to make on on the next lives of the next generation and so john frangione who is in the class of 2015 he actually did an independent study uh while he was a senior looking at theater production and um actually doing some plans for redesigning the auditorium and he had graduated from fairleigh dickinson with a degree in theater design and a concentration in audio and he's now gone on multiple national and international tours he's been uh you know part of chorus line he went and uh spent some time in china he's currently serving as an audio executive with prg and you know he really looked
027at um his time in massacres is really the the driving force uh behind um where he got today and he was you know most proud that they actually f fairley dickinson actually created the john frangione theater award for students graduating in theater and that was a lot of you know to do with the fact that he actually helped them develop that program next uh michael colavita who was a former drum major for the west essex night marching knights um he you know i spoke with him the other day you know he's yet to find a musical experience that surpassed him being on the turf during chapter championships at west essex and you know class of 14 he got his undergrad um in neuroscience and music and then went on to get two master's degrees and
028is currently the director of choral activities uh in nashville and um you know i'm gonna start with him but really what i started when i started looking at all the alumni is usually there's a sibling and usually there's a sibling that's that's doing just as much if not more you know as uh as the next one so you'll you're gonna see a couple siblings on on my slides uh next greg cantaldi was also another class of 2014 uh he played football in baseball but always wanted to do something in the arts and he really you know he thanks ms rizzo um sorrentino at the time for really pushing him to uh as a sophomore try out for high school musical and you know he he founded for those of you who remember he founded the
029west essex film festival with david chase um and received his bachelor's degree from the tisch school of the arts worked on the dr oz show and then is currently a producer for the drew barrymore show and you know his push or his takeaway was really that whatever he wanted to do the school helped support him and that you know if he had a takeaway for students now to take every opportunity and if one doesn't exist to create one and i and i think we've seen that with uh with this alumni next joey lavarko if anyone is familiar with him he was class of 2013 he's been uh seen on 30 rock uh jersey boys on broadway 13 the musical and also part of the radio city christmas spectacular um you know the big thing with
030all of the alumni is that once you start talking to them everyone has such an interesting story and you really you find that you know and i'll say this again at the end the big takeaway is these are great resources for our school community to use for guest speakers for panelists to really talk to you know career exploration um for all of our students next uh so here's another sibling lauren lauren colavita uh class of 2011 uh has spent the last 10 years in scotland and you know had such a uh you know diverse um background had spent time in venice italy uh you know as part of the peggy guggenheim um uh installation spent time at christie's uh trumbull you know multiple degrees and really kind of when she looked back it was eileen
031dormer's art history class that really you know was her inspiration to uh you know find her passion and then i think we got i think we have one more yeah and then our last group that you know i wanted to highlight today uh cash cash there are three uh students that graduated in 2004. um they are hailed from roseland and you know i i spo spoke to jp on on the phone and he really attributed his love and inspiration to music to uh barbecue down in no wecker and uh you know they i i think that every single one of the alumni i spoke to you know i i i could go on i mean it was just it was such a a refreshing um uh time to speak with all these uh these folks
032and and really you know the driving thing is they want to find a way to give back to west essex so with that i want to thank you all next um i want to thank you all and um you know on behalf of the department and and our staff and students and i really feel like it's uh you know your support as a board of education and superintendent in the community that really make this happen and uh you know we're excited to uh have a great next year thank you lisa that's great presentation um it's it i find it so interesting with all the presentations where all the students have you know where they've been where you know where they're going and just all the you know interesting things that they've done in their lives
033and they're not even that old yet you know they've just really kind of started out in their careers but um they're really doing such a fabulous job um so it's always fun to see where they're you know get the updates and where they are so thank you so much for your presentation uh i love the arts um thanks for the presentation okay so we'll move on to um i think it's ryan's presentation yep thanks mary uh great job ms sonic um always envious of seeing all the kids that were blessed with artistic ability because i absolutely was not um i saw a demo lesson in the woods class the other day with mr gilberto and mrs swan again i felt like taking notes because i was learning about different saws so anything that goes on
034in her department i'm always envious of it that great job a great job with that i'm going to transition a little bit to something else we're actually very very proud of the summer reading list which will be released about mid-june um on that list we have about 30 choices for every single grade level so i just wanted to go over some of the some of the things that go into this list just a superb job by our two library media specialists uh catherine spinella and rosemary rich i wanted to give them a shout out because they do an amazing job of providing our students with choices but here are some of the things that go into the choices obviously we want to account for a wide range of reading levels and abilities students read all
035different kinds of levels we want to make sure the books that are on that list pertain to all those levels a variety of formats and genres these are just some of them whether it's a graphic novel fiction nonfiction pop culture inspirational stories memoirs we try to cover it all and something we've worked very hard on the last few years is respecting the diversity of many differing points of view that has been a topic of conversation in the past um we know there are a lot of different different points of views whether it's the author or whether it's the character in the story whether they're latin black young old we try to provide students with a different uh different views and so and something else of course when we do these selections they have to be
036aligned to our district goals as well as our new jersey student learning standards any state mandates we have so just to review a little bit one of our district goals is to improve student climate and culture so the librarians did a great job in adding books that represent some of the members that were not represented in the past again it could be members of the lgbtq community or minorities you know whatever it is we try to push for more representation and some of the things the state um has emphasized in the new standards diversity equity inclusion tolerance sexual orientation race gender ethnicity disabilities religion you name it we want to make sure we represent all those um people and people and um and last but not least i don't know how many parents you know
037are on and watching but um we emphasize student choice so if your child is really passionate about a topic or a book that's not on the summer reading list they absolutely can still read that book they just have to let their teacher know what book they're interested in we want these kids to be reading so some parents like their kids to read books um with points of view that support their own personal views some parents like to promote books that are pose their views and have and have those tough conversations about the different viewpoints so whatever the case we want these kids to read so we're going to promote that as much as we can next slide and listen and we we get um obviously when we're trying to pick out books for these things
038we do we do have a policy and regulation that stipulates what criteria we use so these are some of the things that guide our decisions of what books make it into the list obviously they have to have some educational significance we want high appeal high student interest we look at the reputation significance of the author and publisher factually accurate genuinely it doesn't have any genuine literary artistic value the validity appropriateness of the material and a big one and we've gotten um recommendations from parents from teachers uh even some from students um one of the keys is we look at professionally recognized reviewing sources do they have a review in a reviewing source and some of the ones we use um i indicated here school library journal curtis reviews are very popular common sense media book
039list and some others so librarians look at these uh reviewing sources and read the reviews on there so we don't just go to the best-selling list new york times we don't we don't do it by popularity we do go to on these recognized reviewing sources um and just again kudos to our librarians um and i i think every student is going to definitely find something on the reading list that they can enjoy and take their time and read through and i do believe um i think that's it next slide is i think i think that kicks it over to dr dunleavy if i'm not sure yes thanks ryan yes we'll move on thank you ryan good evening everyone i hope everyone is doing well i have been asked to share thoughts from the middle school
040on potentially shifting to a single cohort model mrs tambury and i have met you know pretty extensively to discuss our room capacity vaccinations and other considerations i've also met with members of our counseling team so as to provide an assessment not only through an academic lens but also through the you know through the social emotional lens as well in terms of room capacity currently the middle school is operating under a two cohort model which most of you know we have 424 students opting for in-person instruction which equates to 77 percent of our population on average a middle school classroom can accommodate approximately 18 to 20 students with three feet social distancing our estimates show that approximately 24 rooms will be unable to accommodate their classes at three feet distance in other words they're just more
041kids than there will be seats available and just so we are on the same page 24 rooms with each room being assigned eight periods gives us a total of 192 classes over the four day rotation the most problematic rooms are science classes that have built in lab table tables that are literally built to the floor are cycle classes that have limitations with capacity and materials uh and also in need of a larger workspace their rooms their desks are larger so the kids can have a larger workspace and our abandoned course rooms where six feet social distance is still required of the 24 rooms that i just mentioned we could permanently relocate two of our world language and or social studies rooms that typically have higher seat counts that would be over about 20 in a
042class we could potentially re relocate those and use two of our health rooms that are not occupied during the fourth marking period chorus uh typically likes to practice outside because again they are required to have the six feet distance we would have to relocate them on rainy days or you know potentially if it's too hot into the auditorium and they would share the auditorium with band obviously both ensembles would not be able to practice at the same time so one ensemble could practice while the other one could sit um and just kind of watch or have a quiet study um in the in the auditorium the remaining 21 rooms or 168 classes would require students to attend class from an overflow location the cafeteria would serve as the overflow room with approximately 25 students per
043period please keep in mind it's obviously not the same 25 students so every period of each day would require a different set of 20 to 25 students potentially causing some confusion among the student body especially as it pertains to our seventh graders additionally although students enrolled in stem and art can utilize an overflow room most supplies cannot be transported uh and certainly not equipment especially in in the stem room um and for safety reasons equipment can't be transported so their work in the cafeteria would be limited in terms of vaccinations as many of you know the pfizer vaccine is now available for the 12 to 15 year old age age according to our nurses office at the middle school we believe according to our records about four percent of our middle school students have received
044their first vaccine considering that the vaccine requires two shots and a three week waiting period in between each shot few if any middle school children will be considered fully vaccinated before the end of the year it is possible but it's not likely that there will be many additional considerations that i'd like to to highlight number one the definition of a close contact has not changed so a positive case could result in multiple students being quarantined in other words even though we are eligible to to reduce to three feet distance by doing so um and not staying at six feet we would have to quarantine uh if someone tested positive so if someone in a room tested positive each person on either side of them front back right and left would likely have to quarantine and
045that would be the case for their you know for anyone that they sat next to during their school day i also want to note that the middle school in particular has been extremely careful and diligent with our planning so as to not compromise the high school's graduation their award ceremonies or other events we intentionally held both of our grade level activities the we unite 7th grade activity and the 8th grade powerhouse studios event in late april in early may so that potential quarantining would not impact the high school graduation we're certainly aware that many of our students have siblings in the high school and we certainly would not want to jeopardize their older siblings many found other considerations many families have upcoming events such as memorial day gatherings birthdays and religious celebrations coming up in
046the near future the middle school has had far fewer positive cases than the high school but as many of you ready mr michochi's recent correspondence the middle school did just have a positive case last week that was due to a social gathering outside of school after meeting with our buildings operations and medical committees both of whom contained parent representatives it was also brought to our attention that some parents whose children are currently attending in-person instruction would likely opt their child out and have their child finish the year remotely if we did go to three feet distance the rationale for some of these families is that they feel that many parents um just don't want to jeopardize sporting events extracurricular activities or family events uh with less than four weeks left until the start of summer
047our counseling department in particular as am i uh and mrs tambury we're all concerned with the maturity level of our seventh graders in particular as they navigate a satellite room i know that the high school had a satellite room uh this overflow room um you know the middle school child is a different child and has different needs and we certainly want to be cognizant of of doing what's best for the middle school child and a change during the week of june 1st uh would provide what i call a plus seven days so if you count the number including this week if you count the number of instructional days and subtract virtual wednesdays that leaves you with school days and on a two cohort model our students are already coming in on seven of those days
048so it would give them a plus seven so making a change the week of june 1st gives our students seven additional school days in terms of a record recommendation considering the maturity level of our students most especially our seventh graders the administration and counseling team feels that an overflow room at the middle school is less than ideal the five to ten minutes that it will take to sort this out each period reduces our instructional time and collectively collectively we feel that the confusion caused by an overflow room combined with the potential of losing students to remote learning outweighs the benefits of seven plus instructional days after consulting with my team and two district-wide committees i feel that it is prudent to stay the course with our current two cohort model and allow the class of
04921 in their the class of 2021 and their family members to have the graduation ceremony they so deserve the middle school is very excited to begin planning for next year continue our planning for next year five school days uh in person uh no virtual wednesday with lunch um and we're excited to continue that planning to and to really get our kids back in the back in the building this fall so that's all i have thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening i'm going to turn it over to the high school at this time uh thank you dr don levy i'm going to step in for mr de la birdo this evening he he had a commitment that he was unable to so he's unable to be here tonight um i want to thank
050dr dunleavy and mrs tambury for really taking a um close look at the single cohort analysis and really doing their due diligence on examining it from every angle and um to the board members i i you know hope that you can see based on the the slide and the information that she presented that they did look into this very closely and um it did include our committees as well what as dr dunleavy mentioned are are um inclusive of of all of our stakeholders um so you know i really appreciate that that um analysis dr dunleavy uh regarding the high school um melissa you can go to the next slide okay i know that more of the attention on this analysis was for the middle school but um in consulting with mr d liberto who also
051did a similar analysis as well as attended both committee meetings um in conclusion here dropping to three feet really doesn't provide a benefit uh to the high school except possibly reducing or eliminating the satellite probably eliminating satellite rooms um another key um item out of the analysis here is what dr dunleavy mentioned earlier and that is that a close contact is still defined as six feet and dropping that distance risks quarantining 20 students or more if there's a positive case in a classroom and i will say that um the case that we had last week if we had been in three feet social distancing probably that number of individuals would have been quarantined over the next 10 days so that is one of the the benefits of uh staying at the six feet and staying
052the course for the rest of the year um in a minute i'll ask miss kita to go to the next slide but we do have a slide um that i'll share with you to show you in-person attendance compared um to the number of students per day who attend a satellite room and you'll see that the initial uh satellite room attendance uh there's a decline that has taken place since the beginning of the marking period um much of that is attributed to um we did we did add some extra desks in some classrooms where we were able to maintain six feet so some deaths were added some furniture was moved out we did everything we can to try to make those rooms get more kids in there but still maintaining six feet and um i don't
053want to steal mr d liberto's thunder but there there are likely some more announcements that will be coming this week with some more positive news with some of our upcoming events so if you go to the next slide here the slide is really um you can really get an idea of our our average attendance um the cohort uh had over 600 students in it that signed up to come in and you can see as the week's uh moved on that attendance has gone down but then you can also see in red there to satellite room attendance where we started at 322 kids in satellite rooms and as of last week we we only have 69 students going into satellite rooms every day so um that's kind of a trend right there that's pretty good visual
054there for you to see so hopefully that gives you a little idea of what's going on in high school so i guess in conclusion uh mrs wadwitz and to the members of the board is that we're very pleased with where we're at right now we're very pleased with the consistency that we've had we've been open since october we've um moved through our um model in a safe way and and we all feel um as a group that we're in a great place right now and that we want to you know try to keep this momentum going as we get ready for a lot of our really important end of the year events which we're very excited about so that's all i have uh on that thank you damian and thank you gina for your updates
055um i know a lot of um time and effort was spent on uh especially the middle school trying to figure out if it was feasible to get the you know to get more kids in and it's just a different space that's cool so um i understand that you know it's it's difficult especially with the science tables you know they'd have to be removed which is for seven days you know when you put it into perspective maybe isn't the right choice and we move on with next year and getting all that settled so um thanks so much for that are there any comments from board members on any of the presentations so far tonight no no one okay um are there any uh board committee reports go ahead ryan you okay thanks mary so um yeah
056i have a finance committee report so we had um our meeting on may 13th it was an in-person meeting with one person attending via zoom and the attendees were um cindy egan tulan fetty melissa keita damian mitchotti frank peratti mary watajowicz and myself raised home so the first thing we spoke about was the facility upgrade so we had a presentation by pure lighting they came in to talk about this uv disinfectant system and they gave us a little history of the technology uv light has been around they were saying since 1904 treats disease it uh it works at the molecular level so it helps destroy some of the dna and rna molecules and makes the molecules sterile so that's great for equations like brand now it also works for mold and bacteria they gave us
057an overview of their systems that they offer uh one of their products was um an air purification uh system as well as a uv light system that cleans the surfaces um so that helps protect against the pathogens and it also helps improve the longevity of our air conditioning units where that's where a lot of mold and bacteria live so it helps sterilize them as well improves the air quality and reduces the risk of associated chemical cleanings and stuff like that so some positives to it um for the unit ventilators that we have the uv light will be completely inside the unit so um you don't have to worry about any light leaking out um the hybrid system which they offered it's it cleans the air as well as does that light that protects the surfaces
058and cleans them and those would be used in areas that we don't have unit ventilators such as hallways and bathrooms um stuff like that so um uh let me see they also have larger ones that will sanitize um like the gyms the auditoriums and they wheel in and they can disinfect those systems so uh the good thing is the uv light doesn't penetrate um glass or plastic so if you're walking by the room you don't have to worry about having the light come out at you um so like i said we're thinking about doing the hybrid solution for the hallways in the bathrooms where there are no unit ventilators um the these systems are easily to obtain and easily to maintain by hvac personnel the light is easily uh purchased so it's not special lights
059that you have to go purchase at an exorbitant amount um and you know so we could put we have this title one uh grant money that will be getting back this year that we could use for this project if we decide to go with it and this also helped the unit ventilators by getting away from the number 13 filters so that'll extend the life of the unit ventilators as well and we can go back to the normal uh merge um that i think we had mervy eats at the time um but we still need further discussions on this so it was a good presentation we're still going to kick this around a bit before moving forward um speaking about unit ventilators the middle school is in need of 27 of them and we've received a
060proposal from clima for the middle school to install them we also talked about an electrical upgrade where we went out at the last board meeting we uh we requested proposals uh be sent in six companies uh proposed electrical upgrade they uh we had split into base bids and options so there are eight options that we asked them to all bid on and uh we we looked at them and the best one that came out of that trade study was post and kelly so we're going to be moving forward with them uh to do the electrical upgrade um hvac for the middle school and gymnasium were asking to carry robina for an estimate to put rooftop eight tracks in the middle school in the cafeterias and the gyms and they provided us with an initial proposal
061on what that would take and we're going to set up a meeting with them to discuss it further uh before moving forward with requesting bids uh we are going to be replacing a hot water tank at the high school um the week of june 23rd through july 1st then the back of the gym so that area will have to be shut down it's a thousand gallon water tank that needs replacement uh the unit is is a little faulty plus we don't need something that large so we'll be replacing that from middle school projects we're going to be upgrading uh some of the middle school classrooms the supervisor's old office teachers faculty room in the cafeteria and um the state is mandating that schools nowadays have panic button systems put in place uh our school's ahead
062of the the game on this we already have that in place so we'll be receiving a refund for the money that we spent to put that system in place so that's a nice give back to us and um that was it the media concluded great thanks ray um oh god jan you have a question no just for next record yeah okay does anybody have questions for a no okay all right i have two reports um first is the curriculum committee report ryan has covered uh most of it in his presentation tonight um the purpose of the meeting was really to review and discuss uh the summer reading lists and i think the only thing i would reinforce from what ryan said is that you know the the librarians should really get the library team should
063really get some kudos for their efforts um these are excellent reading options that are being offered to our students and they really worked hard to make sure that the selections were aligned with both the board and the administration's goal to support positive and inclusive climate and culture at west essex so um really pleased the curriculum committee was very pleased with what we saw and again thanks to ryan and thanks to the library team for that um i also served as the new uh the new the west essex boards representative to the new jersey school boards association meeting last weekend um on may the 15th um that every school in new jersey has a delegate that serves in that body and there were really two resolutions that were approved that i want to share with the
064board tonight the first was a resolution that concerned efforts to create an inclusive environment for all students and that resolution language was finalized as the njsba believes that local school boards and districts should make all necessary and appropriate efforts to raise awareness employ best practices and create an inclusive safe and positive school climate for all students including but not limited to those that are actual or perceived as being lesbian gay bisexual transgender questioning or other sexual orientation gender identity or expression so that was passed by the delegates and the second um was focused on new policy language around parent advocates and that language was finalized as the njsba believes that trained non-lawyer parent advocates provide a valuable service to parents and students mandatory training of non-lawyer parent advocates is essential to protect the interests of
065parents students and districts training for parent advocates should result in an understanding of the appropriate role of a parent advocate as well as the requirements of federal and state special education laws and regulations iep development and conflict resolution training should be ongoing and the state should provide funding for such training again both of these resolutions are for the new jersey school boards association but this board obviously looks to them as for guidance in some of our policy matters as well so i'm happy to take any questions on either of those questions thanks jan does anyone else have any board committee reports okay are there any other comments oh go ahead tony i'm sorry okay i i uh the essex county school boards meeting is that you want to report on that sure it's probably not
066as exciting as what ray or or jan just briefed but we had a essex county school board association meeting last wednesday it was uh it was a nice meeting in the sense it was about student achievement as well as school board recognition there were 38 participants and eight of those were west essex ward or administration members so i'll just call them out in addition with anne fay who's not here tonight but it was ann damian michochi deb cycle calderon jan skelton mary wadjuwicz melissa keita ray stampone myself uh we were you may wonder why we had so many there because we knew that from the previous board meeting on may 10 10 may it was announced that the our board was sort of recognized as master master received our master board certificate uh certification and
067that was last week's meeting was the formal presentation of that award which was provided to mary as our president so that was a real nice thing um it was also student recognition student achievement was there and ms swaneck would have appreciated this there were four what they did is they they had a meeting and they broke up the meeting and in between sections of the discussions they had four presentations video presentations performances by uh districts in essex county it was really nice there was no order actually the order they went off in was eastside in newark columbia high school which is south for orange maplewood belleville and lastly livingston it was real nice they were it was a musical performance and it was just uh it was just comment the last one was livingston and
068it was really neat it was cited that this happened to be pre-covered and you could see the big difference it was a it was a massive large group of of students performing close together no no social distancing and it just reminded us of woody how it used to be and how we look forward to that those those times again it was a just great performance for for all four of the student districts that performed as i said there was also the master board certification the recognition by our board and uh charlene peterson who many of you may know of heard she's the field service representative and she cited the board and the efforts that this board's worked on for the last several years her personal experiences our commitment to training commitment to working together um
069the fact that we have the board retreats things some of these are best practices not all boards do in the county or the state but she she called that out which was real nice um yeah not too much more excitement there was elections for the board for the new year um which was concluded and lastly they ended on the with the discussion they touched on future meetings where they are planning and they're hopeful that future meetings starting in the fall will be some live meetings because ever since uh kobe we've had only virtual meetings so that would be nice to return to live uh when they when they determine that we can do that too so that's it in a nutshell and i appreciate the time to brief the board thanks tony you're welcome um
070does anyone else have any um committee reports um okay um i was gonna ask about comments but before we get to comments um i do want to just remind the board too i know um the board self-evaluation i mentioned that at our last meeting if everyone could um take a look at that and do your board self-evaluation and then i know the csa evaluation is uh that tool is up as well so um i know may and june are busy months to get those both done but uh if you could you know take a look and start to work on those that'd be great um are there any other comments from the board have one comment i know that you said that um we were going to be remote for the time being but we
071discussed going back in public once all the mandates are lifted um so right now um we're going to wait for i melissa is trying to get some information for us um you know so when we go back to so the mandates are kind of being lifted but what we're going to do is um once we get some information about live streaming our meetings zoom is not a long term solution so we're looking into getting cameras some microphones we will have to replace our meetings we won't be going back to the library um to live stream uh we'll probably be doing that in the auditorium so i know she's looking into some equipment that then you know it would be like a long-term investment so it's a bigger it's turning into a bigger project in the
072sense of we were saying you know um plays could be live streamed if we went into the auditorium and got you know got these cameras and the microphones um they could have concerts that could be live streamed so um you know after kind of taking a step back and talking about the live streaming um you know damon melissa and i were talking this week about you know the bigger picture might be to uh invest in something like that this way we can you know do our you know have performances in the um auditorium and then also hold our meetings there so i mean we're kind of on hold and so she's going to uh get us some um quotes and then this way i can bring you know she'll bring it back to the board
073and then we can have a discussion on um you know the live streaming of our board meetings in that you know in that sense so thanks i'm just gonna say for right now we'll stay zoom until she gets us a little more information and then we would need a timeline to um when that equipment could be installed so mrs wadwitz just to give you an update too i mean miss swanik has been an essential part of this too no no so we had a meeting today just as an update we did have a walk-through of the auditorium today with um a company uh regarding the long-term solution because this was part of this was actually a phase two plan for the high school auditorium when we had done the initial renovation a long-term plan would
074have been to have put cameras in to make um have the capability in there to live stream plays just like miss wagewood said so um we are having those discussions now it should hopefully within a week or so we should get some quotes back and then um finance committee will commence and go from there perfect yeah this way we can you know incorporate the um our board meetings with you know other projects as opposed to just putting a camera in the um you know in the room that we used to use is our board meeting office uh instead of just doing something there that would just be for the board meetings um like i said i i didn't mean to uh slight lisa swanick but i know her melissa had been working and and like
075melissa said well this was a phase two project so if we're going to be going back to in person and we're going to you know uh live stream our meetings you know maybe the bigger picture is we move our meetings to the auditorium and we get that all established and then it's you know it can be used for more than just the board meetings so um yes once we have all that information i'll bring it you know like we said we'll bring it back to the board and um the finance um committee and we can you know go from there so we'll stay remote instead of just putting a band-aid on it we're gonna look towards the future like i said to something more um permanent to you know for a meeting so okay great
076thank you all right any other questions or comments from the board okay so then at this point we will move on to public comments in accordance with bylaw a copy of which is available on the district's website the board is now opening the meeting for a period of public comment please remember to announce your name place of residence and group affiliation if appropriate your statements will be limited to three minutes in duration the board will of course consider your comments as they relate to the obligation to effectively guard the westchester school district please remember that the agenda items are the items that we are voting upon tonight any comments or questions on any of the presentations this evening should wait until our second portion of public comments and any comments regarding students or employees are
077discouraged and will not be responded to by the board and specific questions regarding your child your individual child should be directed to the teacher supervisor or building principal so do we have any comments on agenda items no no we did not okay um then seeing no comments we will move on to our agenda items um finance cindy do you want to take finance sure the following finance motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1 through 35 will be voted upon in one motion an iso move second okay are there any questions or comments okay melissa you can call the roll yes mr pirati yes mr rubinich yes miss calderon yes miss skellen yes mr stampone yes miss yes um tony do you want to take
078um buildings and grounds for madam president for the following buildings excuse me following building and grounds motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent in schools anything placed on this agenda items one and two will be voted upon in one motion and iso move second second are there any questions or comments okay melissa you can call the roll miss segan yes mr peretti melissa on item one i will abstain and for item two yes mr rubinich yes to both miss calderon yes miss skellin yes mr stampone yes miss wadrowitz yes um deb do you want to take personnel sure the following personnel motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1 through 47 will be voted upon in one motion an iso move are there
079any questions or comments okay melissa you can call the roll mrs hegan yes mr peretti yes mr rubinich miss calderon yes miss skellin yes mr stampone miss wadwitz yes jan do you want to take with him sure the following curriculum special education motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items one through nine will be voted upon in one motion an iso move second are there any uh questions or comments okay listen you can call the roll missy again yes mr pirati yes mr rubinich yes miss calderon yes miss skellin yes mr stampone miss wadwitz yes um frank do you want to take miscellaneous yes uh the following miscellaneous motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items one
080and two will be voted on in one motion i shall move second okay any uh questions or comments melissa you can call the roll miss egan yes mr pratty yes mr rubinich yes miss calderon yes miss skelton yes mr stampone yes miss watch yes okay uh moving on at this time i will open up the floor for public comments on non-agenda items uh please remember um all the things i said for the agenda items are still in place so if we have any questions melissa okay um our first stand up is lisa kellick hi how are you lisa khalid from north caldwell how are you doing good how are you okay so i'm not sure if this is the right form for this question but i'm interested to know if the high school has considered
081um how grades are being reported as part of the college admissions process given the panzera and the impact that may have on grades for our current juniors given that they've had a full year plus of uh you know remote hybrid learning um i guess my concern would be that you know given the pandemic some kids were in school some weren't some part of the year some chose to stay home all year it just seems they weren't all on level playing field and i know different schools have different approaches for how they report the distribution of grades and it just seems with the schooling from home there's been some great inflation in the past year which has been great for those students who have seen their grades go up in this environment but those whose grades
082have stayed the same or have struggled and seen a drop you know would seemingly be further negatively impacted on the decile thank range yeah again i was gonna say thank you lisa ryan is that something that you can answer or do i should i direct lisa to uh guidance um guidance could probably go into more detail but we did consider um we did consider grades when the pandemic first started we did consider other options um we did decide to stick with letter grades we felt that was the fairest um how colleges are going to view gpas and s.a.t scores since last march i don't know your guess is as good as mine um lisa's false our director of guides might be able to provide you some more detail about how that's going but uc college
083is changing the way they're looking at incoming freshmen um so i don't think there's a there's a right answer for this some school districts tried to go with the pass fail model then they reverted back to letter grades um so i don't have a great answer for you all i can tell you is that we did consider other options and we did feel that letter grades were the fairest it may not be perfect but we did feel as a district that we wanted to stick with letter grades and i and i can appreciate that so i understand i guess the only thing i would want to say and i could take this up with guidance is that i've looked at the different schools in our areas um the high schools and i know at least
084one high school i think montclair high school allows students to on their school profile they indicate that students have the option to not include their decile range on the transcript and i guess that's where i'm wondering if they're given the fact that i feel students in the middle deciles are it just seems that i've looked at the last four years and it seems like this past year the decile middle ranges are much higher than they have been in the past and i would expect that next year it's going to be worse so i would like to know if that might be an option for students whose rates have stayed and now their decile's dropped and over past years maybe they could just not report it on the transcripts uh lisa i would suggest if you
085could get in touch with um our director of guidance uh miss fault mrs holtz i mean she would be the one to know if they could you know what they would do about the deciles i mean you know she would be the right person to talk to thank you very much you're welcome okay next is kerry's serene yes carrie cerato thank you from north colwell as well thank you um good evening and thank you for all the information tonight and i apologize if my question was already covered and i missed it um i am aware of the fact that next year the middle school will be returning five days a week full day um lunch i'm aware of that um just a quick question with regards to the format of the teaching um it's been
086noted from some students that they have difficulty hearing the teachers through the plexiglas so um and i know that that's probably going to remain intact so i'm just wondering if microphones are going to be purchased for the teachers or if the chromebooks will still be utilized um with the with the uh your paws your with the with your earphones uh to be able to hear the teachers i'm wondering if that was considered for next year um either damien or gina do you have any damage you have any ideas probably some of the challenges this year were that we had kids at home his kids in the classroom i think next year um from what we're hearing you know there will be not there will not be a remote option so i think it'll be a
087little bit different with the way um the the sound is in the classroom um but we at the at the moment we do not have plans to purchase uh microphones for classrooms um but i do think that the fact that we won't have kids at home and kids in school on chromebooks glue kind of in front of that screen it should make a difference for next year okay excellent so thank you so so it's definitely within the plan that chromebooks will be used as as an assistance and not a full tool within the classroom setting that's what i'm hearing yeah it'll be it'll be like the previous year where they use the chromebooks as needed but we won't be they won't be required to be used the entire time because we won't have that component
088of having remote learners okay thank you okay next up is mary toledo hi everyone i'm mary hi so i just have a quick question regarding travel quarantine um i appreciate all the information about you know we're so close to the end and so close to being able to enjoy all of our end of year activities and having a junior and a senior i'm very excited that they're both going to be able to participate and everything but with um some travel season coming up uh with the long memorial day weekend um i understand i'm not sure where the high school stands on travel quarantine but i learned um upsettingly today that that the elementary schools and the reason i bring that up is because of siblings that there may be in elementary schools have done away
089with following the cdc's guidelines for seven day quarantine for unvaccinated individuals after they return home from domestic travel um so i'm just wondering where the high school stands on that um since the majority of the kids have not yet been able to get their vaccines um how will that work for high school i can take that one mary okay sure so we um how are you mrs collido i'm doing well how are you thank you i'm good so we uh we actually had a medical committee meeting on may 18th and the travel quarantine um issue was on the agenda and um i'll be sending out an email uh this week and basically what what we've been told by the department of health is that unvaccinated individuals will have to quarantine for ten days um without
090a t um without a test if you want to get a pcr test between days five and seven you can get a pcr uh test and test out of the travel quarantine and return to school on day e right that's terrific i'm glad to hear that um just because the elementary schools seem to be in all sorts of disarray and what they were going to follow and as administrator of a very different end of the um learning agenda in early childhood um we you know where that's exactly what we're following and um you know it's just i just wanted to make sure that everyone is sort of getting i feel like if the high school gets on to to that and and says that this is what we're going to follow then perhaps elementary schools
091will also follow that um due to the sibling relations um so thank you for answering my question thanks mary okay that is all i have for hands great okay um then can i have a motion to adjourn excellent okay thank you deb do you want to read us out sure there being no further business before this board of education be it resolved that this public meeting be adjourned at 8 50 p.m so moved second second okay everyone have a good night thank you good night everyone thank you good morning everyone thank you hey everybody have a good memorial day week happy memorial day yes everyone say even healthy yes