001Good evening everyone. We'd like to call the meeting to order and welcome everyone. This meeting is being held in accordance with the schedule of meetings adopted at the organizational meeting held on January 6, 2025. Adequate notice of this regular meeting of the Kennorth Board of Education has been provided to the Home News Tribune, the Star Ledger, the local source on January 16, 2025. The copy has been filed with the Kennorth Burough Clerk, posted in the board office, the Kennorth Burough Hall, Brilliant Harding Schools, as is provided by the open public meetings act. Thank you. Please rise and join us in the salute to the flag 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. Mr. Gallala,
002can you please have a roll call? Ber here. Crinkolei here. David here. Ferrara here. Habith here. Herdina here. Lead here. Kenichi here. Zimmerman. We have quorum. Okay. Thank you. We will now have the receiving of the minutes of the secretary from June 9th, 2025 the regular board of education meeting minutes and June 20th, 2025 the special meeting. Can I please have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Habithther, seconded by Dr. Conoli. All those in favor of accepting the receiving of the minutes, please say I. I. Opposed. Eyes have it. Motions carry. Mr. Ganella, do we have any U monthly correspondence? Yeah, we have two items of correspondence. We have a thank you note from Danielle Scaffington to the board of education regarding uh her saludiatoran appreciation. And we have a thank
003you note also from Danielle uh Scaffington to myself regarding the Horus Haymon uh memorial scholarship. uh she was a recipient for that uh scholarship. And then wait a little more. Uh then we also have uh a letter uh from Executive County Superintendent Daryl Palmary uh to Dr. Panichi uh regarding the certification of the uh C notification. Thank you. Any questions? Okay. Can we please have a motion to accept the monthly correspondence? Second. Second. Motion made by Mr. Ferrer, seconded by Mr. Biner. All those in favor of accepting the monthly correspondence, please say I. I. Opposed. Eyes have it. Motion's carried. Thank you very much. We will now have the superintendent reports and presentation. Superintendent Davies. Thank you, Dr. Kichi. Good evening, everyone. Happy summer. Hope everyone had a good Fourth of July. Um, it's been
004very active here in Kennallorth. Uh, Mr. Ganella is going to provide us his monthly update regarding our construction referendum projects. uh while he's getting that prepped, uh I can just say seeing all the uh the flurry of activity has been really um wonderful. Um things are looking really sharp. Uh we're looking like we're on schedule, excited for the upcoming school year. Uh each day there's wonderful new transformations happening and I think our kids are going to be entering into a wonderful middle school. Our high school students are going to be entering into a wonderful new science labs. Um and there's a lot of movement over at Harding. Um, so there's a lot of activity in the district. Our grounds crew, maintenance staff, and custodial um folks are working really hard. And just a shout out
005to we have um several students working this summer. Uh so a shout out to them. They're doing a lot of paint work and uh moving of stuff. So um thank you to them. I'll have a few more updates once Mr. Ganell finishes his monthly update. Okay. Uh good evening everyone. Um to get right into it, the HBAC uh upgrades. Uh the final closeout documentations are re in review. So we'll hopefully be uh wrapping that one up in the next couple of months. Uh very little work is left to be done on that project. Uh the additions uh and renovation work uh continues. The storefront installation of the addition uh is complete. Uh glazing and area A, which is remember area A is the new addition is in progress. So, we're about 95% just a couple
006pieces that are still uh uh um that need to be installed. Uh site work the field has been hydro seated. We're not totally happy with that. So, we're going to be having having a discussion with our construction manager uh the architect and the contractor regarding that. Uh the MEP, the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing insulation is nearly complete. Polish uh concrete on the first floor is complete and looking good. Uh elevator installation has been delayed um due to supply issues. Uh so that will not be ready for September, but we do have a second elevator in the the uh building. So that's not going to be an issue. Uh paint is complete. The only thing that needs to be done is the final coating. Once uh all the contractors out and the cleaning is done, they'll
007come back and do uh a final coat. Uh tile is almost uh complete. Uh the remainder is to be finished after the in the elevator is installed. Uh so we don't damage it while the as the elevator is installed. Uh and flooring in the rest of the uh addition is complete. Regarding area C, which is the multi-purpose room for the middle school or the old back gym, uh the air handling unit or the spiral duct installation is in progress. You It's pretty impressive when you go in there to see that light fixtures are are have been installed. The windows are installed. One of them did break while installation. So, they're waiting for new glazing for that. You'll notice that if you look at the back of the gym. Uh, and then painting is uh in
008progress, and I could show you some examples of that later on. Uh, area B and D auditoriums and second floor renovations. The cloud installation at the um um Brillley Auditorium is it's pretty much complete right now. So, if you go in there, you'll see the clouds uh uh the acoustical clouds on the ceiling and they're looking pretty sharp. Uh flooring abatement uh was complete and we passed all our monitoring inspections. So, that was good news. So, we can continue with the uh demolition and the renovation of those uh six classrooms on the second floor. Um and then finally also in that area, the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing are comp is is in progress. So here are some pictures that you could see the entrance and the side of the new addition. Uh the you could
009see in the third picture there the uh clouds for the acoustical clouds in the auditorium. Um u up um and then if you go down to the bottom that is the multi-purpose room uh in the middle school. You can see the uh spiral uh duct system that I was talking about as well as the new uh ventilation and air conditioning. remember we had to we we decided to install air conditioning in the back gym here because it's also being used as the cafeteria. So that uh received a whole new system there. Um the second picture you can see the the windows uh including on the left corner there the broken one. Uh but you can see there you can see the also the painting and the the the painting schematic uh that we we chose.
010Um the third picture on the bottom you could see uh as well there's a painting but you could also see into the uh which is going to be the serving area for the kitchen uh for the middle school cafeteria. Moving along, you can see the bridge between the old and the new. Up at the top is the first floor uh going from old to new. Uh and then the second one from new to old. Uh the third third picture there is the middle school lobby. toss that in there because it's looking pretty sharp. Um on the um bottom row you could see the old to the new of the second floor and also the new to the old on the second floor and then a picture of the thermostat with the temperature showing that the
011AC is working. Um so that's good news. um uh some first floor edition. The high school uh science labs Longo uh has been in there for the past couple weeks uh getting um lab equipment and uh um all prepped. Uh the first uh room there you see is a biochem room with the lab tables. The second one there is one of the prep rooms. The third one is the chemistry room. Uh you can see in the back of the chemistry room the two fume hoods there the white uh objects there in the back are the fume hoods. Uh the third room is the uh environmental science. The fourth is the physics and uh the next one is a duplicate picture of a of uh the storage shed storage uh rooms or the prep rooms. Uh
012the alterations uh they just started they started this work um literally the day after school started. Um in addition to the the bridge connecting the the old and new, uh they started um uh knocking out walls and installing new walls. You could see here, this is where the first picture is where a new door is going to go for uh uh one of the larger classrooms on the second floor that's being split into two classrooms. Uh and then you could see the demo work. The ceilings have been ripped out uh in some of these rooms. And uh you can see the prep work that's going in there. On the bottom uh picture, you can see that the tile was removed on all actually tile was removed in multiple classrooms here. Um and then the middle
013uh one on the bottom, you can see the studs going up for the for the splitting of the room. And um um the final picture just shows another classroom that's being demoed. So if you look at the project breakdown, we're still on schedule. Um you can see here that the uh field and improvement uh project is 100% complete. Um, we did have some change orders, but as you we have noted, uh, majority of those change orders were applicable to the contaminated soil that we found out there, and we recuperated much of that money through the insurance claim that we filed with our uh, environmental um, insurance um, company. Uh project number two, the mechanical, it's 95 almost 96% done. So we're just waiting for some final punch list uh on that. Uh and then the
014the uh additions and alterations. Uh it's about 78% complete. Uh we did have some change orders. Uh there are some change orders on this evening's agenda. They were reviewed in detail with the uh finance and facility committee earlier this evening. Uh we do anticipate some other ones that but we do not do not anticipate them um uh significantly impacting the overall budget of the referendum. Uh the auditorium seating is complete for both Harding and Perily. The science labs are 78 and 79% complete um as well as the art room um for the um uh middle school. Um so that's uh what we got. Are there any questions? I just have one question actually might be able to answer it. Are the science teachers um looking forward to doing more projects and um demonstrations with these
015new labs? Yeah, the science teachers are stoked. Um they're so excited for these new facilities. Um yeah, they they couldn't wait to pack up their old places and move into their new places. Uh yeah, absolutely. That's really exciting for for the students to do. Yeah. And we've added um just so you know too, we've added a number of electives over the last few years. Um we now have astronomy which we didn't have three years ago. We are having zoology. Uh we have forensic science. So we've added a lot of science course work um to really um inspire our students. So those rooms are really going to be that the students of count are going to be able to really experience. Absolutely. And the one thing we did make sure when we were going through the
016finance committee when we first started the whole referendum was to continue to press the superintendent at the time or to make sure that we were getting up to date because we didn't want to put you know stuff in the science lab five years ago that's the time we get it done was going to be obsolete right so that's one thing we just made sure that we were trying to press forward forward thinking to try to make sure we time we get this all done it's not obsolete already then we're repaying for something out. Agreed. Yeah. Any other questions for Mr. Ganella or me regarding the referendum? It's really exciting stuff to see and and just want to thank the community for their support. Um and I think everyone's going to be really pleased when this
017is all done and we can showcase it. Um I was hoping to do a couple of tours uh over the summer. Uh not sure where we are with that on the in terms of timeline, but for for sure a first day of school. Uh we're planning having a grand opening ceremony of the new wing, the middle school um on that first day of school in the evening. Uh so that's September 8th at 6 PM. We're tentatively scheduling a grand opening ceremony and then of course um parents will be enjoying the new spaces on back to school nights and things like that. So it's very exciting fall coming up for us. Are you going to need a pair of those gigantic scissors? We we have the giant scissors already. You first did that. still have them.
018Yes. On my background picture, but I don't want to put you guys out on my social media. Um I I often use the the idea of uh I've been using the term building. We're building in Kennallorth and we're building momentum in Kennallorth. We're literally building in Kennallorth as you just saw from Mystic and Nella. There's great stuff happening, but I wanted to to bring up this slide here uh for everyone to see. We're also building momentum with our academic achievement. A lot of work has been going in from our teachers and our students uh to raise expectations of our students and uh data is coming out now. Uh last week our AP scores were released by the college board. Um so our AP program exists at the high school level. For those of you who
019don't know, we offer 13 AP courses at David Brley. There's 11 teachers involved in the program. We administered 137 exams this past May. And um the data is coming out that 94% of our AP students um earned the passing score of three or higher. You want to make sure your students are getting a three, four, or five. Typically, if you're earning in those four and five zones, colleges to which the students are applying uh oftentimes accept the College Board AP credit and it can reduce tuition costs for families and students. Um, so it's a great um, benefit to students to be able to excel in this area and I'm just so proud of that trend line that you're seeing there. That's hard work and I wanted to make sure and kind of punctuate that. That's
020hard work on the part of our staff, our leadership team, our teachers working really hard to raise expectations. Um, and kudos to the students, of course. They're the ones who earned the uh, scores, but there's a lot of hard work behind that. um to see those scores rising steadily over the last five years is really great stuff going on in our district and it takes the full district for that to happen. Um it starts at Harding and works its way up to David Brley. So there's a lot of good movement there and so we're building um our academic achievement as well as our facilities. Um so congratulations to those students who earned those scores. Um, a number of the of our seniors are going to be applying those credits to their colleges uh in the
021fall and congratulations to our teachers um for really delivering on um academic achievement. Um so that's that. Uh any questions on that slide. You'll be getting a more comprehensive overview of um standardized test scores that we currently have um at the August meeting. NJGPA results, AP results, and the WEDA scores. WEDA is for the ELELLL population and then in the fall either September or October we'll have our NJSLA score report as well. So we'll go in depth into that data but I just wanted to kind of present this highlight because we just learned this and it's really exciting and I want the community to share and know this. Um I emailed out this to to staff to parents um and we'll be posting on social media as well. Is it the 137 is that 137
022unique students or some students might have AP? Yeah. Some might take two tests, some might take three. Um, a number take one. So, that's not exactly students, but uh, yeah, that's what uh the second piece of news that I wanted to share is that the the state of New Jersey released its preschool expansion aid grant application last week. Uh, so that's big news for us. We were waiting um, we were thought because usually it comes out right before Fourth of July. This year came out right after 4th of July. Um, so that's exciting for us because we are eagerly and excitedly applying for that grant. Um, that grant will enable Kennallworth to have free full day preschool for all of our residents. Uh, so that's wonderful. It's going to take a a couple years to
023uh get us to full capacity. Um, but we're in the process of making sure that happens. And also just a few announcements. Uh, this Thursday, the 17th, um, Mr. Bubnowski will be holding the three-year-old prek uh lottery. Um so he's advertised that and those families that have registered for prek are aware there's going to be a lottery held. It's public. It's on Zoom. Um so those families that have registered their children for three-year-old prek, we'll see where they fall in the um priority order. That's on Thursday. Also, we're going to be holding a preschool parent information night in August on Zoom uh in the evening for all those parents, whether you have a three-year-old or a four-year-old child and you're looking to know more information about the preschool um education expansion um and what things
024look like and how it's going to work. Questions that you have about um afterare, transportation, lunch, whatever it might be, nap time. Uh we'll answer all those questions in August. Um, so you'll get more information about that in your email soon. Uh, and then finally, the grant, the PEA grant that was released last week. The application is due on August 20th. So, we're spending these weeks in addition to all the construction um, and the analysis of our test scores. We're looking at um, you know, filling out that grant application, make sure it's uh, the best it can be so that we win that grant. That concludes my report. Uh just to note board members, there are your typical updates in your packet. There's the discipline report from June, the enrollment report uh at the end
025of the year, residency report, and the HIVs. Uh there were no HIVs in June that were um investigated. Um, but do note that when you vote on um the HIB resolution tonight, when I originally reported out at the last meeting regarding May, there was only one case at the time and there was one case that was pending. That case that was pending um has been resolved and it was not a founded HIV. So, I just wanted you to be aware of that. It doesn't show up in the June because it was a May um case, but the the May number was updated. So, you're voting on the May uh HIV situations from from that month. Uh so, any questions about anything that I reviewed or that's in your packet? Good. I just want to thank
026your team for all the hard work you guys are doing. Thank you. Yeah, we're working hard. Uh, but that's our job. Excited to do so. Thank you, Superintendent Davies. We'll now move on to board uh report of committees, review of resolutions, and board discussion. Up first, finance, facilities, and negotiations. Mr. L. Great. Thank you. Um, facilities and finance committee met this evening. We we discussed topics such as the additional additional anticipated grant aid and and the funding from the state facility projects including the change orders that Mr. Ganella spoke about which are resolution number six on the agenda. We also went over the plaques for the um new lobbies for the new lobbies um discussed policy um and regulation number 7510 which is the use of u the facilities by outside organizations. Um we review
027that. Um we'll have a recommendation before the full board in August meeting. Um the annual agreement with the burrow and the officer special law enforcement officer um was discussed um including the rates for 2526 school year. Um we spoke about um policy regulation number 5111 which is the el ele elig eligibility el elig I can't even say it eligibility of of resident non-resident students was reviewed uh specifically towards tuition rates um required by the New Jersey Department of Education. Again we'll have a recommendation and we'll present that in the August meeting. Uh Mr. Ganell and his staff are preparing for the annual audit. It seems like we're always doing this preparing or having the audit, right, Vince? 12 months a year. Um the buildings are currently being cleaned and prepped by our staff. At this
028time, we anticipate um no issues with opening in September. Um now, um I could go into the resolutions. Um resolutions one to four are the the normal um first four resolutions each month, which include the superintendence report, which Mr. Dave just presented um along with um the billing report and the financials. Um the billing report was reviewed. I found no outliers. The financials are proper um and there's no line item transfers that were um equal to or greater than our $5,000 cap. Resolution number five are conferences and workshops and the only one we have is a safety and security meeting that Mr. Ganella will attend. Um six are the payment to the contractors. Um I reviewed all the payments uh made to the contractors and found them all to be accurate and based on the
029work performed. Uh Mr. Ganilla spoke about the change orders. None of the change orders that you see on the resolution um cost us any additional dollars at this time. Um seven is insurance. We belong to the New Jersey um school insurance group which kind of get a break in on these premiums but you can see the premiums are pretty um pretty high. I mean total premium for the school for just for insurance is $365,000. Um number eight is student accident insurance. That's a premium of almost $40,000. Resolution is the Individuals with Disability Act. Um again that's for the um grant money in um the totals received 367254 for basic and preschool 11 amounts to um $378. Okay 900 3 $378,925. Um 10 is pretty simple. there just increasing the the threshold from 44,000 to 53,000
030um in tuition reimbursement um for our teachers. Um that's kind of self-explanatory. They're all all did well. They all passed their classes. Um 12 is the approval of district learning plan which we have to do. And 13 is a co-op David Burley gymnastics team with Springfield. And that's all I have. And the negotiations committee will be meeting right after this meeting. And that's all I have. Anyone have any questions for Mr. Lati? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Liddotti. Up next, personnel management. Mr. Davis. Thank you. There's 10 resolutions tonight. 14 and 15 are for resignation. Uh resolution 16 is to hire a custodian maintenance person. Um, resolution 17 is a hiring of a library media specialist consultant. 18 is a rescending of a leave replacement employment off offer. Resolution 19 is a approval for a change
031in salary. Uh, resolution 20 is the approval of unused sick sick days. Sorry. Resolution 20 and 21 are the approval of payment of unused sick days. Resolution 22 uh is the approval of summer programs substitute coverage and resolution 23 uh is the appointment of various doctors. That's it. Questions for Mr. Horn? No. Okay. Up next, critical instruction. Mr. Fair. Uh resolution 24 is just the hip report for May. Um that's it for curriculum instruction. Anyone have questions about the H report? No. Well, maybe one. How do we do compared to last year? Do you have a comparison of the number of cases? Are we doing better or worse? So, that's a separate presentation. I don't have the data right now, but that is something that we next meeting or September's fine. Yeah, we do report
032out that u and look at the trends over time and compare it to last year. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move on to old business. Any old business? Okay. Want to remind the public, please um check our social medias, look at our website. If you have questions about anything, continue to reach out to your building leadership and follow the hierarchy um of command in each building. And if your concerns are not addressed, reach out to the superintendent so that we can help support any of your needs. Any new business? No. No. Okay. We'll now move on to opening up the meeting to public for comment. Is there a motion to open up the meeting to the public for comment? So second. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Fra, seconded by Mr. Haber. All
033those in favor of opening the meeting to the public for comment, please say I. I. Opposed. Mr. Ganala. Yes. Uh, public comment will now be accepted. The board sets the limit of uh for the public to speak to five minutes per person unless prior permission has been granted for by the board of education to extend that time. Uh please be reminded that while board uh while members of the public may speak on personnel matters during the public, the board of education is legally prohibited from discussing individual personnel issues in public session unless the employee at issue has requested a public discussion. The board's role is to set policy and ensure the uh the effective operation of our schools while personnel recommendations are the exclusive responsibility of the superintendent schools. The board reviews and acts these
034recommendations acts on these recommendations in accordance with state law district policy uh but not does not initiate or manage individual staffing decisions. The board and superintendent work closely in collaboration to maintain a professional well functioning school system that serves the best interest of our students, staff and community. For the record uh please indicate your name and address prior to making your comments. Any com any public like to comment at this time? No. Okay. Hi, I'm Stacy Miller. Um, I live at 154 Hill Road, West Orange, New Jersey. I just wanted to take a minute to introduce myself because I've been sitting in a lot of meetings and in case you don't know me or you haven't interacted with me, um, I am a teacher at Harding and I'm the new vice president of the KA,
035a role that I've been waiting to take over for many years. So, I'm really happy to be in this capacity doing this. Um, I feel like because I have I've been here in this district longer than any other teacher at Harding School. I have a lot of the history and the backstory of where we've been, where we're going, who we are, what we believe in, and I'm just looking forward to working together with you guys. Um, as I mentioned when I came in, I spent the day in my classroom. I'm one of 20 teachers that's moving into a new room. So, I was pretty excited about moving. Um, I was mostly excited because this morning someone told me that all my boxes were moved up to my room. So, 32 boxes that I packed in
036June did get moved up to my room, but I don't really have any closet space to unpack them. So, I haven't unpacked anything yet. Um, and just that's me. I'm just one of the teachers that's going to be doing a lot of unpaid time in the school cleaning and setting up my classroom and making it the best that I can for your kids. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment? No. Motion to close. Second. Okay. Motion made by Mr. David, seconded by Mr. Ber. All those in favor of closing the meeting to the public, please say I. I. Opposed. Eyes have it. Motion's carried. The meeting is now closed to the public. Mr. Ganella, are we ready to vote on roll call of resolutions? Yes, we are. There are 24 resolutions on this
037evening's agenda. Do any of those need to be voted on separately? Okay. Viner, yes. Crinkolei, yes. David, yes. Ferrara, yes. Ather? Yes. Herd? Yes. Panic? Yes. Motions carry unanimously. Okay, perfect. Uh, do we have a need to go into close executive session? We do not. Do we? No, we don't. So, at this time, since there's not a need to go into close executive session, I will make a motion. We're not going back to vote on anything, right? No. Okay. Make a motion to adjurnn, please. Second. Okay. Second, John. Motion made by Mr. David, seconded by Mr. Ferah. All those in favor of adjourning, please say I. I. opposed. Okay. Eyes have it. Motion's carried. The meeting is now adjourned. Thank you very much.