001Okay. Good evening. This meeting of the Malawa Board of Education is open to members of the public to be physically present. Members of the public that attend will be asked to follow the same procedures as all other visitors to our schools. Those procedures can be found on the agenda page of our website. Additionally, board meeting will be livereamed for viewing purposes only. Anyone wishing to view the meeting may do so via Zoom. The webinar ID is and the required password is 51323. All right. I call this meeting to order. Uh we need roll call. Please make your motion. >> Mr. Dao >> here. >> Mr. Pesarksby >> here. >> Mr. Coplin >> here. >> Mr. Galla >> here. >> Miss Davinero >> here. >> Mr. Houston. Mr. Mrs. Tay Jansen >> here. >> Dr. Morphy
002>> here. >> Adequate notice of the agenda for this meeting has been provided to the Ridgewood News in the record specifying that the Mala Board of Education will meet on February 11th, 2026 at George Washington School, 39 Farale Avenue, Mala, New Jersey. Copy was filed with the township clerk. Uh, our salute to the flag. Miss Teen Jansen, would you please? >> 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. >> All right. Uh we do not require an executive session in the beginning. So we will move on to agenda questions. Please limit your questions at this time to resolutions under new business on this agenda. As a matter of fairness, you're asked to
003limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than 3 minutes. You're here representing a group. Please identify yourself, the group, and your position in the group. If you're here as an individual, please give us your name and address. Please specify the resolution you're referring to in your question. All right. I need a motion to open the meeting to the public. Mr. Dilva, second by Mr. Gallow. We are open to the public for agenda questions. Seeing no one come forth at this time, I need a motion to close the meeting to the public. Miss Tain Jansen and Mr. Kriski. All right, let's have our MA student representative report this evening. Starting off our winter guard won second at 13 in the division scholastic region A for the first competition at
004Hillsboro High School. February 24th the internship extership program will have interest meeting. Last week MC core came to the high school to do our screenings and also last week was our annual supermarkets game. Um all our winter sports are going to be starting state tournaments and they've been doing really well so far. Bowling and wrestling specifically are doing absolutely amazing. >> [snorts] >> Um, our junior formal is on March 19th and the first weekend in March is our new school. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> Um, all right. At this time, we are um going to have a portion of our superintendence report. Um, Dr. Dorro and Dr. Fair are completing the virtual referendum town hall that um is going on or still going on. So, but we do
005have a presentation this evening. So, we thought we would uh invite uh the Levo representatives to come uh and present. We have uh Violet and Lauren. Uh thank you very much. And the floor is yours. And uh I think you have you have a clip. Yes. Okay. Perfect. >> Oh, and look at that. What timing as always. Would you like to say anything else or Okay, perfect. >> Is this on? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. >> All right. Well, thank you so much for having us. Uh my name is Violet Reed. I'm the executive director of MEO. I'll start off the presentation and then um Lauren will take over. She's our manager for the farm to school program. So, we're just going to give a little bit of a rundown of what we've done about
006the past year and a half with the Mama School District doing farm to school programming. Uh the farm to school programs came out of the USDA grant. We first approached the district in uh late fall 2023, pitched the idea of the farm to school program. Um and ever since we've been programming, so we're going to take you along for a few of the activities we've done over the past year and a half. Just as a reference, MEVO is the MA environmental volunteers organization. We started out of Mawa High School. So we grew from a not for-p profofit from a high school club. uh in 2008 we had our first volunteer event uh in the community and we were doing hands-on environmental projects and we incorporated 2011 since 2008. So a lot of these founding members
007are involved up until today. Uh we've worked with a problem solving class out of the high school for a few cycles of the class that was focused on a stagna which has been illegally dumped on for over 70 years. We're the uh prime premier group up there doing the trash cleanups. And so the problem solving class in 2021 focused on taking on a portion of the cleanup work we were doing that year. So some of the tribal members and a ton of MA high school students are in this photo. And here's just a bunch of MA students at work. So we had almost 100 MA high school students out for that cleanup as well as administration. We also have done sign days at most of the schools over the past five years. at Etsy Ross.
008Uh, and then when students come to our farm, which we'll talk about through the farm to school program, they're coming to our fresh food farm, which is in the campa reservation. So, like I mentioned, we um started the grant process in the windfall of 2023. We got it in July 2024. We received an implementation grant. That's the highest grant award you could have gotten. received $100,000 which was split about half and half over the course of the 2-year grant cycle. This cycle ran from July 1st of 2024 and ends on June 30th of 2026. So, while we did apply for funding and we'll renew this grant hopefully if we get it, uh the program is set to end on June 30th of 2026, um and we will hopefully know about the next award cycle um
009if we got the grant in June. So hopefully there's no um lack of funding here and I'm going to hand it over to Lauren who's been running the program and helped to design it with me. >> Hi everyone. Thank you so much for having us tonight. We're all so passionate at MEO about the farm to school program. So I can't wait to take you along a little bit about what we've been doing the past year and a half. So, our grant activities are what we basically signed up for with the grant when we applied. Violet made a very thorough list of everything we wanted to get done and our goals. Some of them would be to build and restore the elementary school gardens. Um, that's Ross obviously already had a beautiful garden so we would
010need to resoil it and just um update it a little bit and then we also built out beds at um Monafe Meadows in George Washington. Another uh task we had was the field trip. So, we've had two field trips so far. One in 2024, one in 20 2025. Um, that's all the third grade comes to our farm and they get to learn about the farm. We do rotational learning. I'll go over that in just a little bit. So, the next one would be we have a garden education program. So, kids get to come out to the gardens. They get to learn. Um, we do a lot of different things. Again, I'll get to that in a little bit. Um, and we do that twice a year. So, this spring will be our fourth that and
011then we also have a lunch hour formed uh taste test. So that is really exciting. We're starting that at the end of February. So this month um beginning of March, we've been working with a lot of experts who have done this before to make sure that it's a really great experience for the kids and it's really memorable. So this is just a quick timeline of the implementations of what we've done. I'm going to go over it a little bit and then I'm going to switch to some photos that are nicer to look at. Um, so the first big thing is me and Violet flew out to Omaha, Nebraska in 2024. It says 2026, but actually 2024. I'm sorry about that. Um, and we learned all about the implementation grant. We learned from a lot of
012people all over the country that had this grant. Um, what they're doing with schools, how they're implementing it. Um, it's really exciting to see how many different ways it can be used. Um, some photos. This is our first field trip. That is my assistant Dan working with them. Um, we learn a lot of different things. On the field trip, we do rotational learning, so they do 15-minute walks. We work with the principles. I decided that was a good amount of time to keep their interest and have them excited about each program. More photos from that day. Um, here is us building the garden beds. So, this is brand new to us. We had an Evo plant in the ground, so garden beds were completely new. So, we spent a lot of time learning about them
013and making sure that they were going to last years and years and years. Um, this is us bringing them to George Washington. We somehow picked the only day it snowed last year. Um, it just like everyone on their toes, so that was exciting. Um, here is us filling the beds, getting them ready. We have a really great partnership with the DPW. They drop off dirt whenever we need it. They're really great about that. And it's also a combination of the compost that we make at the barn. One thing that we really wanted to make sure is that we had a it running through the summer. A lot of schools build school gardens with great intention of having teachers come out and use them as learning um devices and with their kids. But unfortunately over the
014summer they tend to get overgrown when no one's there. And it's just a lot of work for a teacher to come back in fall, have so much to do already, and then battle the weeds of the summer. So that's where um school gardens tend to fail. So we made sure that we were going all summer long. Um, one of my big goals was to have everything completely planted and growing really strongly when the kids got back so they could walk into a really full garden that they could name the vegetables and knew what was going on right when they saw it. Some of the impacts made, we've had over 380 kids come to the farm between 2024 and 2025. That will also reflect how many kids we see at the schools once we're done with
015our classes this spring. We've built 12 garden beds. They're all 8 by4. Um, and they all hold a very substantial amount of vegetables. Um, and we also cleaned, refurbished and resil vegetables, sorry. Um, and unfortunately this year we didn't end up putting them into the school system. Our goal is to have the vegetables from the gardens come out to the school and be in their cafeterias. This year was a big learning year for us. We wanted to know how much they produce, what school did what, even though they're so close, all the schools kind of grew differently. Um, so we learned a lot about that and then we donated the 200 lb to local places around mostly the center for action in Ma. Um, this is just a brief overview of what our class learning
016day looks like. Um, we had so we have two learning days. We have one now in the beginning of spring and then one at the end of spring to kind of see the life cycle of the vegetables. Um we specifically picked third grade after a conversation with Dr. Duro about how in third grade you learn about the life cycle of a plant in science. So we thought that that would be a great way to introduce real plants and really get to touch them, feel them, see them in real life. That was really exciting for us because a lot of the kids got really excited when they could take things that they learned in the classroom and answer our questions with that. We did lots of different activities where we made our own salads. Um, we
017got to do a seasonal salad. So, the kids got to pick their veggies, what they wanted in them. Um, we harvested vegetables when we were ready. Um, and then we also got to see beets, which is really exciting. They made the beets and it was it was a very cool experience. They got very close to their little beat. Um, we also play an identify game where you get to identify dill, parsley, chamomile, some stuff like that. which was really exciting. Um, the salad making class was really cool because we did do it at 9:30 in the morning, so we weren't sure if salads were [clears throat] going to go over at 9:30 in the morning. I love to say it, I'll say it a thousand times, kids love vegetables when they're presented in an exciting
018way. So, salads at 9:30 in the morning are exciting and unusual, and we had a blast. Um, this is some photos from our field trips. Um, as I said, we do rotational learning. Some of the stops we do along the way are plant. We get to do the plant dance. That's always a big hit. Um, second stop is we eat seeds and how they travel. We learn all about where they go, what they do, water streams, stuff like that. Um, third stop is composting and everything that entails composting. And then the fourth stop is bees and pollinators, how they affect our environment today. This is just a quick list of everything we grow. Um, we grow everything that we grow and we also grow the same vegetables in schools. We want that to be uh
019pretty similar. Um some of them we are growing new this year because of the cafeteria. We really wanted to reach out and see what main vegetables they wanted us to grow. Bo choy is a big one. Um which I was really surprised about. That's exciting. We're also going to be growing for the first time. Ginger and mushrooms is brand new to us. So it should be a lot of fun. These are just some before and after photos of the gardens. Again, Bessie Ross just did a quick clean up. It's a beautiful the garden. Um, and that didn't take too much work. We also have um irrigation systems running through all the schools. So, even if we're not there, no one else has to maintain them. They'll completely fine for a few days. This is George
020Washington School. Um, this school is amazing for for growing vegetables. It's in a courtyard, so it doesn't have any predators around it. We don't have any deer or ground hogs or anything like that. So, everything at George Washington took off, which is exciting. She said >> nothing. This is our our big challenge school. It doesn't have any fencing around it currently. Um we're currently looking into that and working on that. And there is a quite a big deer population. So we had some fun figuring that out. But once we got it down, everything moved beautifully there was really nice. Um this is the biggest school where we have the biggest plot of land to put things. would like to expand it and add more beds as we go. Last year it was really about putting
021those vegetables in the ground. This year it's going to be more about decorating them, making them feel like a good safe space for it, but they'll want to come out and hang out. >> And now I'm going to hand it over to Violet who's going to tell you a little about what we see for the future school. >> Thank you, Lauren. So this is just our final slide. Um like I said, we did reapply for the farm to school grant. Uh we met with Dr. Turo and other administration to see what could the focus of the grant be going forward. The farm to school program was on pause in 2025. So we weren't sure if the 2026 grant cycle was going to be open and it did open up last minute with an even higher
022award ceiling. So the award for the previous grant was up to 100,000 which we got. The award ceing now was up to 500,000. I believe we applied for around 300,000. So that could effectively double the program. What we're hoping to do, and this would be with strong district collaboration, is keep everything we're doing now, but then expand. So, we're hoping to have a focus on fifth grade, seventh grade, and then high school seniors. Fifth grade, this is this is all open for change, but fifth grade, the hope is that we can focus on herbs, talking about how they're used in different cuisine around the world, and talking about plant families. Herbs are very distinct when it comes to plant families. It's a great way to learn plant identification and they're fairly easy to grow and
023you can grow a lot of them in a small space and many different varieties. Um for 73 we're hoping to focus on the history of agriculture in Berg County. I'm on the board of agriculture for Bergen County. They're really excited about the possibility of collaborating with you know us in order to see if there's more people students who would be interested in agriculture as a career. In Bergen County, agriculture is now very bottom tier as far as what could be possible career rise. So the board of ages is trying to figure out how can we, you know, engage more of the population to be supported and interested in agriculture. So the hope is that maybe the seventh graders would go on a tour of two, three different farms right in Mawa and see what's growing,
024what's possible as far as an agricultural career. We'd also focus on organic versus conventional growing and the harm or the benefits agriculture could have on the environment. And then right now for high school seniors, um we're hoping to do a summer internship with them this summer, just waiting on some applications. Um their focus in the summer and the fall, uh would be a little bit more on regional food waste. So what plants really were cultivated in this region that are supported by this region. So in this area, it looks like a lot of squash, different tomatoes, um different varieties of strawberries. So we would be trying to get seeds from local seed savers and seed saving groups. And then also bring in the um who have local food ways about in regarding to different foods
025that they grow in the area. Um however, the high school seniors this summer would mostly just be helping Lauren uh maintaining the gardens. The produce that comes out of the gardens in the summertime we're hoping to use in a way that can help the students learn a little bit about marketing, business development. Maybe they're running their own plant at the farmers market every two weeks. Maybe they're doing a farm share program that we market to teachers. them no cost to teachers, but they can come and pick up that produce in the summertime. So, we're thinking about a bunch of different ways to engage uh the students with the public interface and the vegetables. Um, and then like Lauren mentioned, we're hoping to grow three to five very specific crops for the school cafeterias. We're going
026to grow a bunch of fun stuff, but we can just focus on three to five full crops that we know we can produce continuously for the cafeterias in the spring and the fall. But, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for really broad district support for this program. We love working with MAWA. We were born in Mawa, so it just feels such a great fit. Um, our contact information is up there, but thank you for having us. [applause] >> I just I just want to close out this presentation just to say a couple things. Um, first of all, Mr. Gallow uh was uh very important in connecting us with Levo. Yes, we did that project which was really impactful to our students and the administrators and teachers who went because we had a
027chance to connect with the community, understand the history of the tribe um and really uh do some serious work. They went up there a number of times and and were very productive and you could see the commitment of the students to make a positive impact on our community. So that was a really meaningful moment just for me um to see our community and more importantly our kids um at work. The second piece I just want to thank um Lauren and Violet because you know when we first started off we started off with a field trip idea and we really developed that something for the past 15 years since I've been here a challenge that we have being a past JK principal is all of our third graders come into JK and that's the first time
028that they're all together. So we really made a commitment that field trip was an opportunity and a learning experience that we were able to cross schools over. So when we say field trip, we had a couple kids, a couple classes from each school come together and learn together and enjoy the day together. So that team building experience is really powerful as well. Um and as they shared, it was such a tremendous success and having kids being excited to eat salad at 9:00 in the morning, I would say is a success right there. Um, I've learned so much from Nevo on the complexities of their work and more importantly the impact that they have and it's really exciting for our kids to have access to that knowledge and those experiences and really see what we can
029develop within our own children. So, we had a really strong K3 experience. I'm really excited that we're able to expand out across the other schools. Most importantly, um, our internship and extership program if Mr. Pascal is out and about trying his best to get as many uh opportunities that really cross over different experiences. And when you sit with uh the Nevo team, you can see the complexity of their work and it's not about planting a seed. There's a lot of layers to running that business and the impact that it has on the community. So when you think about the internship experience, yes, the agriculture piece is extremely important and the kids can take part in it, but on the business side of the work, there's a lot of learning that can take place. So I'm
030really excited about the opportunity of continuing our relationship with Eagle and more importantly, I'm very grateful for the work that you have done for our kids um up until this point and excited to see what's going to come in the future. So thank you so much. The presentation was absolutely spectacular. Thank you for doing that. switch over. >> All right. >> Perfect. Now we have a Now we have a clicker that I'm confident in. All right. >> Okay. Uh can you just pass? All right. So, we have a number of slides. We're going to clip through them uh as as as quickly as possible, but it's there's a lot of good things to share um with the board and the community. Um as you can see, we have up our schedule for our information sessions.
031We just came out of one of ourformational sessions for our referendum, which is on March the 10th. Um, we I'm going to say March the 10th in my sleep. Um, we have had uh really great feedback along the lines of questions that have been asked at all theseformational sessions. It's been a great opportunity to connect with the community. It's been a great opportunity for us to speak to the community about the work that's being done in the district and the opportunities that can be afforded to this district with a positive vote on March the 10th. Um, I ask for us to continue to reach out to all of our neighbors and friends in the community and talk to them about um this this this proposal. More importantly, getting people out to vote on March the
03210th. It's important that our community is active in this vote, and I'm going to leave that there. That being said, the information that's shared has been through a number of different um formats. Number one is the Inerson meetings. Number two is our comprehensive website. Number three is our social media campaign. Number four is our newsletter. Uh number five is our emails. Um we have lawn signs, we have brochures, we have cards. I really think, and I'm not trying to be obnoxious, I'm really I really think that we have been comprehensive in our approach because our commitment, as I said earlier in the town hall, is to make sure that the community is aware. Um that's the most important thing to me. I don't want this to be a surprise to anyone or anyone come up
033to any of you and say, "What are you talking about? Um, so, uh, that's that's where we're at at this point. Uh, the next slide, >> that's you. >> No, that's me. I did not put that there. Um, the next slide I am super excited about. We've talked a lot about there's been great things happening in Mawa. How do we share that out with the community and Burton County at large? This week's been hot. So, what I can tell you and hopefully you received the email and hopefully you shared it with as many people as you possibly can. We have three individuals that are up for players of the week. We have Emma Jordan for girls basketball uh that uh Dr. Far and I were able to witness her play and she is spectacular. So
034was the team, but she is up for the vote for this week for girls basketball. We have EJ Shear for hockey. I believe he is a freshman. Um and he is up for player of the week. exciting stuff. And we have Lindsay Cunningham, which is another example of our wrestling program is booming. Um, she is a really strong wrestler for our wrestling program. She is up for player of the week. I really ask you to take a couple minutes and vote. Vote often. You can vote each day. I found a little workaround. You can vote once. It shows you the poll. You can go return to the poll and you can vote probably 15 or 20 times in one day. I'm just saying it's not cheating because you're allowed to do it. So, keep voting
035as many times as you can. And we also, which is not here, there was also a phenomenal article written about our wrestling team um in the paper this week as well. So, congratulations to our athletes, congratulations to our wrestling team. Keep going strong and it's definitely a major point of pride. The QR codes will take you to the building. So, everyone watching right there. >> Speaking of Lindsay Cunningham, congratulations to our junior Lindseay Cunningham who captured the gold medal at the Bergen County Wrestling Tournament. Not only did Lindsay pin everyone of her opponents, but she also was selected as the event's most outstanding wrestler. Okay. the Thunderbird mascot. So, we have the Thunderbird mascot that's in uh the build stage. I called >> It's in production. >> Production. Thank you for that. Uh it's in
036production. Um I called to get a status update. We are still in the queue. Um we put the order in and we are waiting for that to be completed. It is my hope within the next couple months we get the mascot, but as of right now, there's digital opportunities for this mascot. So, u Mr. Pascal and the team have been working with the mascot to make it specific to different experiences that our students have so we can utilize it on social media in the meantime. So, those are the images that we have and thank you to the MAWA boosters and the MAWA schools Foundation for their support in working with us on this exciting opportunity uh for MA public schools. >> Thank you. Um um all right. Thank you very much Dr. Doro and um
037again thank you to uh the the uh presenters from NEA. It's very exciting. I mean that whole garden and the schools. Um it's it's actually really great stuff. I didn't realize that this may be until today. >> I believe um and thank you to Mr. Dow for making uh the connection. Um all right. Uh Dr. Fair, do you have additional reports this evening? >> Okay, >> I do. >> All right. >> Yes. Sometimes I know you too tag team but you've become quite a >> while I'm sure you've heard enough from us. Uh we didn't want to bypass the fact that there are really awesome things happening throughout the district and uh Dr. Tour is right. This has been a really exciting last two weeks of really awesome news uh that would be a shame
038to just not highlight. So uh you'll see on this slide uh huge congrats to our uh color guard team. Uh they recently won first place out of nine color guards for their performance of the garden in Maine's Scholastic Regional A uh competition at Lakeland Regional. Here we have Breen Cole on the right and Victor Yang on the left. Uh really exciting news for them. Uh they both play string bass and they were just accepted into the All North Jersey Region One High School Orchestra. Our bowling teams have recently had some awesome achievements. Uh, congrats to our girls uh, bowling team for defeating South Planefield 2 to1 led by Angelina Lafieri with a 188 point high game. And congrats to the boys bowling team for defeating High Point Regional 20 in round one of the state
039tournament. Kieran Hedel led with a 209 point high game. I know, right? That's pretty That's pretty awesome. Yeah, we've been working a lot on again communicating our career pathways to all of our students along with uh the internship extership program that we've been highlighting so frequently at our our our uh board meetings. Uh so there is an upcoming meeting on February 24th at the high school for current sophomores and juniors for those students to explore uh and be introduced to possibilities for internships and externships along with how those internships and externships connect to uh potential career pathways. So that's during lunch so all students have opportunity uh to join and learn. If I can just continue on this, five years ago when we first started together, the career pathways program we were so excited about,
040but when we got a chance to speak to the community, oftentimes the community said, "Well, I don't know what career pathways is or are." Um, and what I can tell you is we are saturating the community with information about the career pathways uh early and often. We're talking to our eighth graders about it, our seventh graders about it, their parentmies, um, Mr. Pascal and Mr. Rohara, our director of guidance are all over the place, making sure that our kids know the opportunities that afforded to them and really capitalizing on that. So, this is just one example of us getting out uh to the community and talking to them. If you walk into the high school at any given time, not right now because the referendum's going on, but right when you walk in, there's a
041display that is broken out by pathway that they change out either, I think it's by month, uh that they showcase the pathway, the professional opportunities, and the product. So, uh, we will make sure that we take pictures and share that with the board if they're unable to get to the high school. Uh, but the wood shop did a great job of putting together the display and Mr. Pascal and the team, uh, did a really nice job of representing each of those. Uh, last school year, we highlighted our homework club that continues uh, to be really popular this year. Uh, the homework club is where our older students help to assist their younger peers with their homework. uh we've been trying to make efforts for students across school buildings to connect. Uh so uh there have
042been such growing participation that's led to an expanded space in the library. Uh we're strong in and uh for strong encouragement for both students and the volunteers who assist those students. The program is supported by a dedicated group of high school helpers who provide academic support, organization, strategies, and skills, and encouragement, resulting in improved confidence and school performance for many younger students. Also, here we have our high schoolers reading to our kindergarten kids, which is awesome. So, earlier this month, a group of students from the high school visited George Washington School to read to a kindergarten class. These are our students in our self-contained class at the high school. Uh it was a great experience for both the elementary and high school students uh and connects to our strategic plan making purposeful efforts to connect
043students ac across school communities # connects indeed. A big shout out to Miss Jodie Crash. She is in our audience earlier earlier this week. Our newly formed district AI committee met to do some real deep work. obviously led by Miss Craft, our director of curriculum and instruction, as well as Miss Neglia, our district's technology coach. Uh staff across the district shared their classroom experiences and professional insights as uh they continue to work to hone how our district approaches AI moving forward. Uh with each meeting dedicated to an intentional step towards a district-wide framework for AI use, education, and integration. We've uh we've appointed our uh summer school leadership where we are recommending that appointment and [snorts] uh these are our dates. Uh we'll be uh communicating to all of our families in the next few
044weeks so that those families can uh plan their their their summers accordingly. this slide. If if you attended the town hall, we talked about building programs over the past 5 years. Uh Camp Ignite, formerly Camp Invention, as well as Kindergarten Kickstart, our new programs that we had in our district over the past 5 years. And it's definitely exciting to see our young ones come in and get access to our schools prior to coming in in September as a kindergartener and also the steam activities that they're able to take on during camping night. So, it's just a celebration there along the lines of expanding our summer programs to connect with our communities. >> So, we're we're entering that bittersweet time of the school year where we start receiving retirement announcements from uh some of our great
045staff. Uh you'll see here Miss Nancy Marrian. Agenda item 19B formally announces her retirement. She is currently the teacher of ESL at Lenipe Meadow School. Uh Nancy American has been instrumental in supporting our multilingual learners in MOA for the last 24 years. She has an uncanny ability to build rapport with her students and make them feel comfortable taking risks while learning the English language. Miss Marrian will be remembered as an educator who is always looking to grow as an educator. as someone who is reflective and consistently implements new instructional strategies with the consistent aim to benefit her students. Miss American will be missed not only by our students but by the entire MP Meadows staff. We wish her the very best in her retirement and know she's looking forward to spending quality time with her
046granddaughter and spending time up at Upper Greenwood Lake. Moren Shaner uh too has given a great deal of service to our district. 40 years as a teacher of math over at Joyce Kilmer School. For nearly 40 four decades, she has been more than a teacher. She has been a steady presence, a guiding light, and a source of encouragement for countless students and colleagues she has encountered. And speaking to Miss Shaner's commitment to excellence, her patience and her deep belief in every student's pot potential have defined her legacy. Through her work in district, families have trusted her, colleagues have leaned on her wisdom, and student students have felt seen, valued, and inspired because of her. In fact, her whole class of students attended her own wedding years ago. Uh in her role at Joyce Kilmore School,
047Moren has always served as a lead in preparing and organizing retirement celebrations and events for retiring colleagues. And now it is her time to be celebrated by her JK family. So Morin plans on truly exploring in her retirement with her first stop being Colorado to see her son with the possibility of maybe getting a dog when she takes a little break from all that travel. So we wish Moren all the best in the coming years. And lastly, we have um Miss Lori Bregman. Uh agenda item 19D for her formal announcement. Uh Miss Bregman has given 36 years of service to the district and will leave a lasting impact on the Betsy Ross School community. As she has spent the last 22 years uh 22 of her years at Betsy after teaching over at Commodore Perry
048School. Throughout her career as a teacher, Lori has been a strong advocate for children, consistently placing students needs at the center of her work. Beyond her classroom, she has served as a mentor to colleagues, generously sharing her experience, insight, and support with staff. Her commitment to students and to the growth of others has helped shape the Betsy Ross School community in meaningful ways and will continue to be felt for years to come. We know Lori will enjoy her time with her grandchildren in the coming months for sure, and we wish her all the best. And if you've ever been in Lor's classroom, I know Dr. Toro has, it's super organized. Everything is labeled and everything has a place. So, uh, we we wish Lori all the best. That is my report this evening. Thank you.
049>> Thank you very much. Um, [clears throat] let's, uh, turn it over to our business administrator, Miss Gomez. Do you have a report for us this evening? Thank you. >> So, I just wanted to let everybody know that we reviewed a draft of the preliminary 2627 budget with the finance and facilities committee today and we're continuing to refinance. Um, I have to say we're very pleased with the progress made thus far. On the facility side, several bolts on the Lok High School stadium field lights were replaced given the 60ft height of the fixtures. This was a significant project and the field is now ready for spring sports. Our buildings and ground supervisor also met with the township engineer to plan some paving projects and the team also created costume racks for the theater department as
050part of our ongoing building organization efforts. Lastly, I would like to thank the Fischer family for their generous donation of flute and baritone instrument to the district. reflecting on tonight's agenda under resolution 18. >> Thank you very much, Miss. Um, all right. My report this evening, um, I have, uh, just a few things. One is, um, just, uh, to our community who will be celebrating Lunar New Year. Um, it's coming up uh, next week. I think it starts on the 17th, and it goes on for about a 15-day period. until the next full moon. So, happy lunar new year. It is the year of the horse and uh that is symbolizing bravery, strength and independence. So, um I also wanted to share about our top wearing Thunderbirds uh for the month of January. Um and
051uh so just to remind people, we haven't done it in a while. Our pillars, this is at Malo High School. Uh the T-Ird pillars are T for trusted, B for brave, I for inspiring, R for resilient, D for determined, and S for spirited. Um so the student recognized uh in January for being determined is Tyler Sue. Uh I sometimes Dr. Perry has a visual for me, but that's okay. Um but um because he he actually sent it to me, but anyway, thank you, doctor. Um Tyler is uh from a staff member, he's always very determined to help those around him and one of his peers noted that Tyler's positive attitude and persistence inspired those around him and he always strives to be his best. Uh Tyler is a member of the BI business administration pathway,
052DECA, Habitat for Humanity, Athletes in Action, president of Rebel, and a member of the track team. Um and then the teacher staff member recognized Mr. Walker Larson. Uh he's a math teacher. Um and he was recognized for being inspiring. Um students wrote, "Mr. Larson inspires people daily uh through his fairness, patience and genuine belief in every student's ability to succeed. Um so uh the other thing I just wanted to mention was about uh the forum the virtual forum that just took place um on the referendum and again wanted to thank uh Dr. Durro, Dr. fair, Miss Rizzo, Miss Craft, and Miss Piramoto for putting it together. Um, and also our uh we had a a large group of panelists as well who spoke. Um, one thing I just wanted to highlight about that is that
053that is recorded that was recorded. Um, and um, please, if you need additional information about the referendum, we'd like um to still find out what's going on. Um, we can go to the you can eventually go to the website in the next few days um and that will um that there's a very detailed presentation there um and there's a lot of good information um that has now been shared at multiple presentations uh or I think 17 uh we have the dynamic duo here Dr. Jurro Dr. there um who have been um providing all the information about what the process is, how we got here, etc. So, I would just say go look at that um and uh inform yourselves and please vote again on March 10th. We are less than a month away to the
054special election. All right, that's all I have for this evening. Um, do we have uh board uh committee reports this evening? Uh, Mr. Coughlin, >> thanks. I'll be quick. Um, we've already talked a lot about the referendum, but I want to remind everyone we're 27 days away. It is less than a month, but I did >> 27 days. >> 27. >> I do have a copy. Um, our next board meeting was on February 25th. We'll be meeting at Betsy Ross. And then on March 4th, we'll be at the high school. So, I uh, as I did with this meeting, I encourage all the community to come out. Um, I do know there's a a lot of people who have never stepped foot in Betsy Ross or even in in high school. So, please take this
055opportunity to come in, see the space because as we sit here at GW, it's obvious that this gym is inadequate for what we want for our our district and for our community. And when we go to Betsy Ross, it'll be even worse. So, um, so please come out, see the space, understand what we're proposing. Uh, I do want to point out that the three athletes, Emma, EJ, and Lindsay, are all products that use sports in town. Um, and as we talk about the community impact of our referendum, um, it directly will have a significant positive impact on what we're able to do from a youth sports uh, aspect. Um, Lindsay was a driving force for girls wrestling uh, in town. uh she and a handful of other girls really pushed for it in high school,
056but that came out of a push uh from the youth side uh when prior to them getting to high school age. Uh so please go out uh understand what we're talking about in the referendum, ask questions, and I encourage all of our uh board members to continue pushing as much information as we can out to our circles as well as the community. So that's all I got. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Copelan. And according to Dr. Toro, we have uh like CNN now. We have breaking news of some sort and a text that he was receiving. >> Yeah, I feel like Adam Shaper on ESPN. I just got an update that um our hockey team >> uh just won against DCTI 3-2 and advance to the Big North Cup final on Friday night. >>
057So, breaking news. >> And DJ is a freshman starting >> DJ >> and possible player of the week. Possible >> vote now. >> If you have something to say about it, it would be possible. >> Vote multiple times. Vote now. Vote multiple times. >> All right. Thank you. I thought we should have had a digital for. All right. Uh do we have um report for you, Mr. Gallow? >> Yes. I'm just I'm going to echo a little bit what Motto reported on. Um the finance facilities committee met this morning to review the first sort of cut of the preliminary budget. Um we're very encouraged by the work that was done. We have um still some challenges ahead, but we're very optimistic that we'll meet those challenges in the time required. Um one outcome of our
058discussion this morning was to um change our board meeting schedule in March. So we originally had a meeting scheduled for the 25th. That meeting will be changed to a meeting on the 18th and that'll allow us to get the preliminary budget to the county on time so they can do their work. And then thereafter the budget from a public perspective, there'll be a number of uh presentations at board meetings on uh the 26 27 budget and then early late April, early May, there'll be a final budget resolution. Um couple things that are hanging out there is obviously state aid which we'll know about hopefully in early March. Um but otherwise uh the leadership team and business officer getting together and bring power to our challenges and uh we're very optimistic that we can meet those
059challenges. Um, and we did have one of the things that we discussed this morning too is an important factor for everybody in our school district to really understand about the referendum and our its relationship to our operating budget. Um, yes, the referendum will do amazing, remarkable things for our our facilities and provide opportunities and new programs for our students, but the day-to-day costs which drive our operating budget will continue and they will continue to be a challenge to us until we um potentially get relief at the state level from the way that our funding formula is established. Um but it's important to realize that um yeah this a huge amount if if the public um votes in a positive way on a referendum yeah a huge amount of money is going to flow into the
060district but those dayto-day turn the lights on type of costs will continue and um will require constant prudent management as we've been doing for years. Um and we'll meet those challenges as we go along. Um, but it's important to to keep the eye on the prize, too, and keeping the lights going and our our programs intact in terms of class sizes and the broad diversity of our programs. Um, so we'll be updating the board as we go on with additional information as available. Um, I will translate this my little note and I'll share that to board um so everybody has sort of a copy of what happened. So any questions can be, you know, obviously sent the mic to Katherine or any of the committee members. >> So thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Gallo.
061Uh, Miss Ting Jansen, you have a report for us this week. >> Just a brief report from the policy committee met and we have additions on the agenda for H&I, abolishing some policies. That's really just an update. And then under I we have P2432 which has an addition um updating Asian-American Pacific Island history contributions according to. So really good information there if you want to take a peek but really appreciate the consistency and reviewing policy with the administration um to make sure that we're we're looking at these frequently and really good shout out for girls wrestling. Those girls came into this room um at the ridge and neither were us. I'm really proud of them giving them action and making sure they're showing up for groups. So, great great work there. >> Thank you very
062much, Miss Tansen. Um, from instructional um our instructional um curriculum and special ed committee meeting uh that we met um on January 23rd. Um just a few things I wanted to highlight. Uh one Dr. there um already mentioned um but kind of a a hot topic area of artificial intelligence um and we had an update from Miss Neglia and Miss Craft um and again appreciate the proactive approach and us really being thoughtful and looking at it under the direction of Miss Craft um and doing some monthly meetings uh etc. One of the things uh that they did come up with, they've created a sort of an AI vision statement and that's going to sort of lead them uh along the way in their um you know monthly structure and meetings. So again, thank you for
063that and it's appreciative that we're looking at it. It's affecting all our lives. It's going to affect our students lives. So um I appreciate that we're taking a proactive approach on that. Thank you very much. Um we also had a math committee update um from Mr. Sheik and um this is uh towards uh the new math initiative that they have been looking at. There's a committee that um started and have been looking at different programs and different vendors. Um and this is for Rampage Middle School. This is for our sixth through 8th grade uh program. Um they did uh actually have a program that was selected um and that is actually on tonight's agenda on 18J um and it's the I Ready classroom uh program. Some of the things it was a unanimous decision by
064the committee. Uh the specific things that he highlighted that they really liked was the use of vocabulary. We talked a lot about how language skills and math skills can go hand in hand sometimes. Um and then there was a lot about how to facilitate classroom engagement with students and building on word problems. Those were some of the things that he highlighted. Um this would be something that they would look at um curriculum writing, professional development over the summer and hopefully in orientation uh in the fall of uh 2026. Um the other thing that Miss Craft reported to us is there's um NJSLA tutoring that's taking place third through 8th grades um in math and ELA for uh middle school students. And lastly, um, Miss Craft reviewed with us, um, the I Ready results, u,, Miss
065Craft and Miss Opier Karns, um, and, um, it certainly seemed like there were a lot of positives, um, and this was from fall to sort of midyear, um, and, um, a lot of improvement uh, in different areas, etc. So again, all good news and things that our diagnostic and universal screenings are um being helpful with. Um our next meeting is February 20th and um that's all I have. Do we have uh board board member remarks this evening? Anybody? Okay. Um all right, then let's move on to the minutes. Um we have 17 old business. These are the minutes and um our minutes from our public action meeting and then from executive session. This is January 21st. I need a motion on the floor. Mr. Gallow, seconded by Mr. Coblin. Uh and I need roll call,
066please. Mr. >> Mr. Dilva. >> Mr. Kasmarski. >> Mr. G. >> Yes. >> Miss Daviniro. >> Yes. Mrs. King Jansen abstain. >> Mr. P. >> Yes. >> Dr. Morty. >> Yes. >> All right. New business. Let's take uh 18A through N. Need a motion on the floor. Mr. Kismarski. Second by Miss Teen Jansen. Uh roll call, please. >> Mr. Dulva. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kasmarski. >> Yes. I'm standing on check 122713. >> Mr. Gallow. >> Yes. Accepted 18A. I'm standing on check number 122646. >> Miniro. >> Yes. >> Mrs. King. >> Yes. >> Mr. Coffman. >> Yes. >> Dr. >> Yes. All right. New business personnel. um let's take our retirements first separately because we like to do that and then we'll do the others and um I mean lots of years of service with
067our three retirees um so that is 19 uh BC and D motion on the floor Mr. Gallow second by Mr. Coplin call >> Mr. Silva. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kazwarski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gallow. >> Yes. And I just wanted to congratulate Lori for making it all those years. Uh she's been a force at the Betsy Ross community as as Dennis outlined and she will surely be missed by the community and especially her colleagues who she was sort of a uh really an internal mentor peer um to them for many many many [snorts] years. Wishing you much luck. Thank you, M. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Timson. >> Yes. And a big shout out to Mrs. Shaner and Mrs. Breman. Both of them significant presence and my youngest has the shaper and she had an old
068appreciate service. >> Mr. Pin. >> Yes, >> Dr. Morphy. >> Um, yes. All right. Now let's take 19 A and then E to D. Yes, 19 A and then E to DD. Motion on the floor, Mr. Kosarski. Second by Miss T Jansen. Roll call, please. Miss Yuna. >> Mr. Dulva. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kasmarski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gallow. >> Yes. >> Miss Daviniro. >> Yes. Mrs. King Jansen. >> Yes. >> Mr. Coplin. >> Yes. And thanks to all our volunteers. >> Dr. >> Yes. All right. Let's take public questions or comment. Public participation at board meetings is in accordance with bylaw 0167. At this time, members of the public may ask questions or make a comment on educational issues for school matters of community interest. As a matter of fairness, you're asked to limit
069your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than three minutes. If you are here representing a group, please identify yourself, [clears throat] the group, and yourself, the group, and your position in the group. If you're here as an individual, please provide your name and address. All right. Motion to open the meeting to the public. Mr. Coplin, second by Mr. Dilva. We are officially open to the public. Okay, seeing no coming forth at this time. Motion to close the meeting to the public, Mr. Pismarski, seconded by Mr. Gallow. We do require an executive session at the end here. Uh and then we will adjourn directly from there. Thank you all for coming out and nice to be here at the school for this meeting. Thank you very much for hosting us
070this morning. Thanks.