001ation 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, the board meeting will be livereamed for viewing purposes only. Anyone wishing to view the meeting may do so via Zoom. Webinar ID is 831158911735 and the required password is 361651. I call this meeting to order. Roll call please. Mr. Lamb. >> Mr. Coplin >> here. Mr. Savaniro >> here. >> Mr. Denise >> here. >> Mr. Gallow >> here. Mr. Yu >> here. >> Miss Jansen >> here. >> Mr. Krismarkski. I said doctor. >> It's okay. >> Oh, I said Miss Jansen twice. Dr. Mor >> here. >> Adequate notice of
002the agenda for this meeting has been provided to the Rididgewood News in the record specifying that the MA Board of Education will meet on August 27th, 2025 in the administrative offices 60 Ridge Road, Mawa, New Jersey. Copy was filed with the township clerk. Um Mr. Coplin, if you could lead us, please the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. uh today. So, let us 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 limit your 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, the group,
003and your position in the group. If you are here as an individual, please give us your name and address. This section public participation will be limited to 15 minutes. All right. I need a motion to open the meeting to the public. Mr. Hughes, second by Mr. Coplin. We are officially open to the public. Seeing no one coming forth at this time, a motion to close the meeting to the public, Mr. Hughes, second by Mr. Coplin. All right. We do not have a MA student representative report at this time, but we will very soon at our next meeting when school resumes. All right. Uh Dr. Dtora, superintendent report. >> Yes. Thank you. Um we have a number of things that we would like to highlight for the board and the community as we have discussed in
004a number of board meetings. Our internship and externship program has been underway. We've received great feedback from not only the students but the parents and also the companies in which uh that hosted our students. So Dr. Farah and I are going to take a couple minutes to spotlight just some of the uh internships and exterships that took place. Um, as I was speaking at instructional the other day, what we're going to do is we're we're going to give the board the date of the um, I guess celebration of internships and externships that happens in the fall that we invite all of the companies in and our interns and externs do capstone presentations summarizing their experience and what they've learned through this uh, internship and extership. So, um, the first thing, summer internships and extership program.
005This summer, MA public schools proudly hosted our 2025 internship and externship program, providing students with meaningful hands-on learning experiences across a variety of fields. Through these placements, students engaged directly with professional environments, developed valuable workplace skills, and built connections that will support their academic and career goals, reflecting our commitment to bridging classroom learning with realworld experiences. As you can see here, and we spoke at instructional about this, if you remember, for board members who were on uh the board about three years ago, we started this with three externships. Um and Mr. Pascal and his team worked extremely hard in getting the word out and educating our community and our students about the value. Um he also engaged the community in in eliciting interest in being a host for these learning experiences. This year we had
006over 60 placements. So we went from 3 to 60. Actually went from 3 to 25 to 60 over the past three years. Um with 33 externships and 32 internships. So this evening we just wanted to highlight a few of the externships and internships from this past summer. Here you'll see Riley uh who had the opportunity to shadow at Valley Health as part of our biotech research and health sciences career pathway. Uh during her extership, Riley observed medical procedures, assisted with patient care tasks, and supported administrative operations, gaining firsthand experience in healthcare and research practices. You can see Riley on the right hand side actually observing uh a surgery, >> right? Incredible, right? >> I could do that. >> Um and this is Gabby. Gabby had the opportunity to shadow at Barlay Center in Brooklyn, New
007York, where she learned about marketing and ticket sales. As part of our business administration career pathway, Gabby participated in reviewing promotional strategies, observing ticket operations, assisting with event day logistics, and exploring customer engagement initiatives, having an inside glimpse into the fast-paced world of event management and marketing. And here you'll see Mandy uh who had the opportunity to shadow at Overpack Creek Animal Hospital. During her extership, Mandy observed veterinary procedures, assisted with animal care and handling, supported front desk operations, and helped maintain patient records, building a strong foundation for a future and veterinary medicine. >> This is Katherine. Katherine interned at Rucker's Health Cancer Institute of New Jersey at University Hospital, where she observed medical procedures, prepared patient charts, assisted with check-ins and organizing imaging and biopsy orders. Catherine also supported the surgical team by setting
008up medical equipment and supplies, developing clinical skills and confidence that will serve her in advanced healthc care studies. Aiden interned in the finance department at Wonder Meets, uh, where he summarized data analysis to create a budgeting plan for the next fiscal year, uh, developing analytical and strategic planning skills that will, uh, certainly benefit him in any business setting in the future. And this is Chase. Chase had the opportunity to shadow at Cisco as part of our engineering and technology pathway. During his externship, Chase observed engineering processes, assisted with technical projects, and learned about network systems and technology solutions, gaining hands-on exposure to the field of engineering and technology in a professional setting. Casey interned at Lystrit's Advanced Technologies Corp. uh where he was able to verify the specifications for several pump parts using a blueprint.
009Uh through his internship, Casey experienced firsthand engineering design, precision measurement, and technical problem solving. This is Nicholas. In exploring the business administration and technical career pathway, Nicholas interned at CLC landscape design where he worked on various planning projects and explored the business aspect of landscape design with a project manager and sales team. Through his internship, Nicholas was able to gain experience both on the technical and administrative sides of a growing business. No pun intended. >> I like that. Uh and lastly we have Tanishi who is a part of the biotechnical techn technology research and health science pathway where she interned at the county of Burton health department focusing on public health by creatingformational brochures and giving a presentation on nutrition to staff representing different divisions gaining practical experience in health education and community outreach. Um,
010you'll see here we have just a range. I know that the board has seen this list because it's been board approved uh over the past few months, but we've had students interning and externing um everywhere from obviously doctor's offices to the University of Pennsylvania um internally through our counseling department here in here at central office. Um they've interned at banks, Mavado Group, um obviously Valley Hospital, local restaurants. So, uh our students have seen and been able to shadow in a range of really cool potential career pathways for them. So, we thank all of our partners and obviously as Dr. Tutoro shared once we have the uh the date solidified in I believe it's late October uh we will certainly share that with the board. Um, the last part of my presentation, um, we spoke about
011this at our board retreat. I was able to speak with our administrative team at our most recent administrative retreat that took place on Monday. Um the the goals that you see here are um really grounded in not only our 2020 to 2025 strategic plan but as you all know on September 17th our 25 to30 strategic plan will be presented. So as you can see we have a curriculum and instruction goal and finance facilities goal. That does not mean that we are not going to remain committed to communication which has been a goal in the past. But our curriculum instruction goal is something that we're going to continue to focus on our NJTSS tier of intervention work. That is something that we focused our attention during our administrative retreat and is an ongoing focus throughout our
012work this year. that in summary is identifying uh proficiency levels for each and every one of our learners and make sure that we're not only just providing foundational support um but we're also extending their learning for wherever they are on the proficiency continuum. Um our goal number two is our finance and facilities goal. We are going to maintain our commitment to ensuring that our facilities are up to up to our MAWA standards across all of the schools. We've talked at length at previous meetings along the lines of our forecasting in a number of different avenues whether it's our roofing, HVAC, uh windows and and and much much more. Um and what we would remain committed to is ensuring that that focus continues this year. And also um as we shared at the back end of
013last year and we'll continue to share it back to school nights and throughout the fall, we are focused on educating our uh our community on an opportunity of referendum. Um that information will be coming out throughout the fall and into the winter. And most of that information will take place between January and March with a March vote. that's an opportunity for our community to come out and and share their feelings on if we should move in that direction. Uh so those are our two our two goals for the district. Um as you all know, there's plenty of other things that are going to be happening throughout the district on a daily basis, but those are our goals that we're going to be focusing on this year. Okay. All right. Thank you, Dr. Dtoro. Um, Dr.
014Far, do you have a report for us this evening or was that part? >> It's very brief. I just I'm really excited. Hopefully, we have some board members who can join us for our opening day ceremony. um instead of uh starting off the day, we will be having our opening day ceremony start at 11:30 on uh September 2nd and then we'll go into our uh first year of our um opening day barbecue. So, I'm excited to see everyone. That's it. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Would you like uh board members to let you know if they >> Yes, that would be great. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. Excellent. >> Um Mr. Lamb, do you have a report for us this evening? >> Uh sure. Just briefly. Just wanted to
015thank Greg Romero, our facilities team, for all the summer upgrades they did. Pritchard uh our vendor for cleaning the buildings are in like the last mile of being ready for opening. They look great. Uh the roofing project at the high school, although there's still workers there, the the roof is secure and it's not a safety risk. They're just finishing up uh final pieces. And the same for the rooftop top unit. at Choice Kilmer School. That project is finished. Just some punch list items, but uh it's it's not a safety issue and the building is ready and uh as soon as uh we get to go ahead, the Joyce Kilmer HBAC will be put on. And great news for those two projects is we are going to get about $600,000 back in Rod Grant funding from
016the state of New Jersey. So, thanks to Greg and our uh cleaning vendors uh for a very busy but productive summer. >> Great. Thank you very much. And thank you to Greg and his team and all the staff uh for, you know, getting us ready to go. Thank you very much. Um okay, my report this evening. I have a slide. Excellent. So, um, a couple things on the president's report this evening. First, um, we're going to just, um, kind of bit similar, uh, at least the first one to the district goals. Um, we also come up with our board goals uh, during our annual retreat um, which was August this year. Um, and the first one again keeping in with the district goal as well. Um so successful planning and execution of a district referendum.
017Um again as we've been mentioning talking about uh and much more information to continue and follow um just to support and um help the administration with successful planning, communication and implementation of a district referendum. again to enhance facilities, our programming and foster transparency, stakeholder agreement and fiscal responsibility. Um, most importantly, we're keeping always in mind fiscal responsibility. I think our finance and facilities committee uh needs to be uh given a lot of kudos. They're working very hard um at looking at all the factors um involved in going possibly to a referendum. So, I think Mr. Gallow uh and his committee uh for uh your persistence and uh keeping that in mind for us and the taxpayers. Number two, um again, it's pretty much one of the more important things that we do as a board.
018Um we keep needing to review policies and regulations. Our policy committee um under Mr. Denise as our chair does a very good job of that. Um this year we reviewed I think a thousand and 7,000. Is that correct Mr. Denise? Yeah. So again for the upcoming year we're going to move on to 200 and 8,000. Um and we'll continue to do this uh to keep with current practice and protocols uh that are required to effectively run a school district. So again, these are our two goals. Um and that's uh what we're going to uh work on for this year. Um, and we'll update as needed. All right. Uh, number two, I know we discussed and I realize that people might not have their papers in front of them uh for the board self-evaluation. Do people
019have that? Need copies? Do not have. Okay. Um, I can do something else. Do you want to print this? Can we print this real quick or you think it's too much? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um I I realized that after that people might have it. All right. So let me move on to something else while we're printing. Um because we did our board self evaluation and reflection. Um we just mentioned it at the last meeting, but then we decided that um we would talk about it at this meeting. So um I just want to have everyone make sure you have an opportunity. Hopefully, I'm sure you studied it carefully and reviewed it and we can have a productive conversation, >> robust conversation. Um, all right. The other thing I just um I had drafted a
020welcome back that we put on the website. Um, Dr. Duro um had sent one out um a couple weeks ago and so um I changed hours also and so I just thought I would read that. So I'll take a minute to read that while we're while we have this little segue. Um on behalf so this is your welcome back. On behalf of the trustees of the MA Board of Education, I would like to personally welcome you and your students back to school for the 2025 2026 academic year. We hope that you had a restful and recharged summer and you're excited for the start of a new school year. We have worked diligently over the summer to ensure that our schools are ready for our students, staff, and families to return. As a board, we have
021been working on several things for this upcoming school year and would like to highlight a few of the important ones. Uh number one um our new five-year strategic plan which uh will be officially rolled out uh in September at our next meeting. Um and this was titled the flight of the Thunderbird. Um so again this was a collective effort with our community um and there were meetings etc. Our short and long-term focus continues to be on ensuring high level curriculum and instruction, strengthening community connections, maintaining and enhancing our facilities, and continuing to support both social and emotional well-being of all our students. Uh secondly, our board goals that were developed. So, I already reviewed those. Uh and third, um just to highlight that, you know, this past year, again, going into a new year, um
022our board was recognized by the New Jersey School Boards Association as a board of distinction within Bergen County. Uh it's really an important achievement. Um and it maintains our strong commitment to effective governance and continuous improvement through training. So, we encourage you and your students to remain connected and explore all the variety of things that our district offers academically, socially, and through sports and extracurricular activities. We encourage you to attend one of our board meetings. Please check out the schedule on the website. And we welcome you to share your feedback with us through board emails. We are committed to support and work collaboratively with Dr. Deto and the entire administrative team to ensure that your students receive a high quality education while feeling safe and comfortable in our school buildings. Good luck and have an
023amazing school year. So that was my little welcome back. >> Thank you, Dennis. Thank you. >> Um, and all right, so let's talk about the self-reflection before and if you just have a copy, right? It is like 12 pages. I'm sorry. A little a little on our part on my part. >> I'll imprint it and then >> Yeah, there you go. Um, you can all pull it up on your phone. I think I sent it out by chance. >> It'll be your um all right, let's talk about how we want to discuss it. let's do that instead. Um because one of the things that we are often sort of, you know, uh one of the issues that sometimes comes up is we don't discuss enough as a board in public session and talking about these
024things. So, I'd like to encourage all of us to go around and talk about in terms of these board goals, one thing that you think is a strength of our board and one thing that you think we could work on because again, we don't share sometimes. So, I'd like to have everyone share because if I ask, everyone's going to just sit quietly. So, I'm putting you on the spot 100%. And maybe Miss Jansen would like to start. What is one strength in your opinion of our board and something that we could improve on? Um, I think a strength of ours is that we always put the student in our community first and that we make sure we achieve excellence and make sure we're in compliance. And I think we have very good healthy discussions that
025have multiple solutions to make sure we're constantly meeting new requirements, but also thinking outside the box and how we truly compete so that our kids can leave here well positioned for whatever path they choose, right? And we I think all of us have different backgrounds, which brings strength to what those futures could be, which is a variety of things. I I really enjoy that because look, I work in corporate, everybody works differently and I like hearing all about those different choices. >> Excellent. Thank you. And something you think we could improve? >> Um, I think that there's the committees each do a really good job on their work within committee. I think the minutes that we're beginning to deepen the conversations that happen and be shared gives us all better insights that we can pick
026up. So, you know, if we're swapping spots, if Mike can't go and I can go, we can pick up by looking at the minutes and participating in those conversations. >> Thank you very much, Miss Jansen. Mr. Hughes. >> So, a great strength of ours, I think, is enhancing the MAWA experience. I think we saw that during superintendent and Dr. Fair's report with the internship externship program. I mean, that was just that was wild. I don't think I would have ever seen a MAWA high school student in their teens watching a surgery or getting that hands-on experience for business administration whatever it is like that is truly hands-on experience that is going to benefit them in the long run. >> So great job on that. I think continuing the work with the internship extership and enhancing
027our MAWA experience and is definitely something we'll continue to do uh something that we can enhance for ourselves or do better at. I agree with Miss Jansen. And I think better communication uh with the committees would be great. Also, maybe we can expand that towards the public. Maybe let the public in a little bit more on what each committee's been working on and, you know, get maybe a little bit more feedback from the public on what the committees are working on. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hughes. Any thoughts on We talk a lot about communication. any thoughts on maybe we think about that a little bit of how because we we talk about it but maybe one or two specifics sometimes of how do we perhaps do that better. >> Well, I think a great
028opportunity could be another newsletter. We sent out a newsletter last year, got great feedback. Maybe we could just have a smaller newsletter saying, "Hey, these are what the committees for the board of education we're working on. Here are some highlights. Feel free to give us feedback. Scan this QR code right here or email us at this email location. So committee highlights >> committee highlights if >> I could add on to's point too um engagement from the the teachers right on what they would like to see too because I know we talk about community and we hear from the administration but hearing from a select few every now and then could represent a different >> excellent thank you Mr. Denise. Yeah, just building on what uh Chris said, maybe have a separate um on the website,
029maybe each committee has a separate page um just for transparency. Um so what we do well is collaborate, collaborate between board members and administration. I think we all work well together. Um we're a good team because we have a um we have the focus is on the students and that's always been our our main objective is to enhance the student experience. >> Great. Thank you John. Appreciate it Mr. Gallow. >> So I I agree with all my colleagues. I think our collaboration and support of our of our individual endeavors in a governing body and along with our partnership with uh the district leadership team at all levels is um a real strength of ours and as many of us who have gone to Atlantic City where you run into board members from other places and
030man can they complain. Um they are not all >> and I I my personal experience and I think the experience of all of us is it's so much different than complaining and whining and being overwhelmed by problems. We're never overwhelmed by problems. We have problems just like any other district, but we we sort of engage them uh directly and head on. And I think that um enures to our benefit over the long run in a way that you know we can continue to make progress. You see things like as Chris mentioned the internship program. >> We have problems but guess what? We're also expanding our internship program from 3 to 62 kids. It's fantastic. So we don't let the little stuff get in our way. We have a leadership team that's focused on strategic stuff,
031the important stuff, but also drilling down for our individual students like the um district goal of using the tiered um the NJTSS um intervention for tier three two and three students. So every single person in our district, every single student in our district is having their educational needs addressed. Nobody is forgotten. We value every single student. It's not just a theoretical, you know, the kids, it's it's a kid in a class in a situation wherever they are in their learning um journey and we address that. Um communication, I think we do a lot of communicating. I think uh the fact that nobody comes to our meetings is both a good sign and a bad sign, right? >> I've invited them now personally. Initially they're >> it's a sign that the public to me it's a
032sign that the public must have some faith and trust in the district leadership team and the board and the overall operation of the district. They go hey things are running pretty well. My students are being attended to in classes. They're offered tremendous amount of variety of um extracurricular opportunities. Things are going pretty well. Um, however, there's always more news to report. Like, how many if we were to take a poll tomorrow of a 100 MWA citizens, how many will know how many kids went to our internship extership program? Probably none. Even though for those individual students, it's a remarkable lifechanging experience. And it didn't happen overnight. Didn't happen by accident. It was a purposeful, intentional endeavor of the district to put that program into motion and it's and it's just one of many things we
033do and we do a lot to we do a lot of communicating to celebrate those things and and it always disappoints me that that it's not getting out to every single every single person out there should be cheering our students on, cheering our district leadership team on in terms of the work they're doing. It's remarkable compared to other places that uh in New Jersey and among our neighboring communities. I'm not disparaging Ramsay, but but I would be allowed to if Ben were here. Um we do a remarkable job and it's a total package. It's it's the entire continuum of the management and governance of the district that is distinctive and unique to MA that when you go talk to your colleagues at board conference, they don't have I had not found those people. >> So,
034sorry I went on so long, but I think we do a job and >> we appreciate your wisdom. >> Engaged appreciate your wisdom. All right. Well, thank you very much, >> Mr. Coplin. just say ditto >> what he said. >> Okay. >> Um, no. Um, I agree with everything everyone said already and I'll just tag on a little bit. The other strength that I have that I see is the level of respect that we have not just for each other. We all come from different backgrounds. We all come from different beliefs. But at the end of the day when we walk in here, we have a level of respect for each other. We respect each other's opinions. We also have a level of respect for our admin team. um we respect what they do on
035a daily basis, but they also show us a lot of respect back as well. They allow us to challenge their thoughts. They allow us to challenge what they're doing in a respectful way, and they do listen. Um so I think it's important to point that out as well. Um from a improvement standpoint, I think we touched on communications. I'm not going to beat that dead horse again. Um, but I think I think the collaboration as Chris and John mentioned with the community, getting the community more involved in what we're doing. Um, and we've talked a lot about doing different things and we we've tried different things over the years, whether it's, you know, coffee with this person or whatever, open houses, things like that, Thunderbird, whatever that was, Thunderbird talk. Um, the strategic Yeah, Thunderbird
036talk. The strategic plan meetings, just getting that out there. And I agree with Mike in the sense that, you know, we need to communicate what we're doing. And I've brought this up in the past. I think we are. I think we're doing a good job. It's just a matter of is is the message getting to the people that need need to get to, right? And when you get the message out to these people, are they reading it? Do they really care? We're in a community of 26,000 people, you know, and how many students do we have in the district? Three. Just about 3,000. >> 27. >> 20. Yeah. About 3,000 or so. So it's a very small percentage of the community that's actually in the school system, but it impacts everyone in the community. So
037the challenge that we always will have is how do we get that message out? Um and when we do do it, will people actually engage with it? So that I think that's going to be an ongoing challenge not just for this year but moving forward as communication channels change and you know we we adopt new technologies and you know we've moved away from smoke signals and maybe we need to bring those back. I don't know but um but I think those are challenges that we'll we'll have to >> we'll let the AI write everything. >> Yeah. >> Thank you Mr. Coplin >> and as chair of community relations Mr. goblin, you can introduce those ideas and and encourage us to do things collaboratively with the community. >> Okay, that's up to you. Um, all right.
038Thank you very much, Miss Davina. >> Um, it's hard not to like repeat everything that everybody said already. Um, I think when we talk about collaboration and being able to work together, it's definitely a pride point for ours. Um, I think we also do a really good job of not holding each other accountable, holding administration, schools, etc. accountable, holding ourselves accountable, which is really important. Um, we also come from very different backgrounds and we don't allow that to get in the way. So, I think a lot of time when you have people who come from different backgrounds, different thought process, different experience, occasionally that could get be a sticking point that you get stuck on. um we as a district don't let that deter the progress that we're making. And I think that's something really
039special about us also. Um we have a a large board of nine. Um and we always find a way to get to the same point. So we always have that open conversation. It goes back to respect us. We respect what everybody else's opinions are, but we always come full circle to what is the most important thing that we're doing. How do we continue to protect MAMA students and move them forward? and we never allowed that difference of background to become a sticking point. And that's something that I really appreciate about me. Um, when we talk about, you know, communication and things that we can do better, we do a lot of inviting the community to us. I think that over the next year, it's really important to bring us to the community as well. Um,
040so we attend a ton of events. A lot of us are parents or alumni of the district. We're at those events already, and I think that's important. um but making sure that we're visible not just as parents or residents but also as board members when we're out at different events that we people find us approachable that they can talk to us etc. And I know that nobody really wants to do that. I've done it myself. I'm at something with my kids and I'm like I don't want to be a board member right now. I just kind of want to be a mom at this event or whatever it is. Um but also any community events that are going on etc. I think it's nice that we are in attendance and that we're seen as part
041of the community. Um, I just think it's important that the community feel comfortable with us and know that we're super involved and when we're making decisions that affect the entire community, just not the school community, those people also feel that we're in the know and are aware of what's going on in town in different programs or areas or whatever it may be. Um, I think we do a fantastic job of inviting the community to us regardless if they're here or if they're reading the communications, etc. So, how do we go a step further to make sure that they're there? also. >> Great. Thank you very much. Um, so let's just quickly look at this. Um, I think we've pretty much highlighted a lot of the information here. Um, I want to say that the two
042things that strike me are our ability to collaborate and build consensus. And I think that is truly one of uh the greatest strengths of this board. And um it's a pleasure to work with each and every one of you uh in doing that because I think we're a very supportive group and um we can come to each other with things. Um the other thing I think that is a real strength is the relationship that we've developed um with our administrative team. Uh I mean Dr. Dtoro we go way back but you know even this internship externship program uh Mr. Galla will remind me uh that this is something that came from New Jersey school boards association many years ago. We attended a uh workshop uh one of these uh seminars and we went to you
043know Dr. Toro and said, "Hey, this was I think Northern Valley at that or Northern was no, it was Northern Valley, I think, regional, right? >> Yeah, the Pathways, but also this whole internship externship because they were they had this whole program set up and we went to Dr. Duro and said, "Hey, can you look into this?" And I think a and this was when he was director of instruction and curriculum. So again, when we go to our individual, when we go to Dr. fair with something. We go to um le Miss Rizzo with something, Mr. Lamb and now um Miss Craft. Um they listen. They listen. They say, "Okay, let's let's look at it and see if we can do it." And a lot of these ideas have now um become actual things that
044we've accomplished. So again, I think that's another um great strength of ours. Um, in terms of our um, further work, I think we've all highlighted it um, and we'll continue to do so. Uh, the other idea that was interesting is, you know, this committee thing, maybe occasionally if we have someone missing at a committee meeting, someone else can come sit in on a meeting. We've we've recently started doing that between finance and facilities and community relations. Um, and I think that's been going well to know what's going on in different committees. So that might be an idea um that we can implement. Um so the self-evaluation, is there other stuff that you guys think we need to discuss? Is there any areas that you were when you were filling it out um that you had
045some particular concerns or questions or you wanted to share further open invitation to do that? >> Miss Jans, >> I just had one thing. We're talking about communication a lot in all of our comments and similar to the concept of no one's here, right? And people are reading what's what's important to them. I think most of the district they think things are going well. So they're not looking for things. So we want to communicate, but I also think it's challenging to find the thing that lights up for people, right? To kind of draw their eye and let them know they're not going to re be able to retain everything in every newsletter. So come coming back to like the highlight moment that that's really I think the bold of what we can do is continue
046to give highlights. So that's hard. Um All right. So is Mr. Gallow anything that you'd like to share? >> I think this is helpful for us to go around. All right. Thank you. I think we're we're done. Let's move on. Um thank you for printing that. Thank you, Miss Craft, for printing. Um all right. Uh board committee reports. Mr. Coplin, >> I'll keep this brief. I'll keep this brief. Uh community relations met last week. I sent an email out to all board members uh with just some highlights. I do want to highlight the talking points that um I sent everyone. Please take a moment, actually more than a moment to read them. Uh be very very familiar with them. Uh this is about the referendum. Um, our work in the community relations committee right now
047is going to be highly focused on the referendum. Um, also take a look at the timeline. As Dr. Duro mentioned earlier, a lot of our work will be um, in January, February, and leading into the vote in March. Uh, more details will follow on that, but please um, over the next couple months uh, as board members, we we have a responsibility to answer questions um, appropriately. Um, so please look at those talking points and be very very familiar with them. Uh along those same lines, on September 29th, uh the district will be holding a state of the facility meeting at 6:30 at a location to be determined. Uh this will be set up similar to the strategic plan meetings. Uh we'll be inviting the community in to have a voice in the process. So we
048talk about getting more community involvement. This will be a great opportunity for the community to come in to kind of voice their uh thoughts and opinions on where we are from a facility standpoint specifically. Uh we won't be looking at curriculum or anything like that, but this is strictly facilities and this will be a um kind of a continuation of the strategic plan meetings because we did touch on facilities um a lot in those meetings, but this will be specifically for facilities and more information will come out on that. So please, as board members um I think it's very important that we're all there. It will be a notice meeting like we do for strategic plan. Uh so hopefully we all can attend. That's all I got. Thanks. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Gofflin.
049Mr. Gum. Uh yes, I just um shortly before today's meeting, I sent minutes from our last uh finance committee meeting to all members. Um uh the key highlight is we're finishing up basically the very very very first step of our referendum process by submitting a package of drawings and documents um to the state to basically get their approval for us to hold a referendum and two to get financing support from them where we can get a substantial amount of money back to the state. So that first phase of our effort is winding down, but we have a lot of work left to go and uh the work will mostly shift to committee relations team at this point. But there's some background um uh decision- making and anal analysis that the finance committee will continue to
050work on to get this um to the point where the public can have a very meaningful understanding of what we're doing. >> Thank you very much. Any other John? You have anything? Um, from instructional uh instruction and curriculum and special education. We had our first meeting um uh this week uh in August and um our first meeting with Miss Craft as our um in our lead position. So, um we discussed um curriculum writing updates. Um so, some of those are on the board agenda. Um and those were approved and things that we worked on that were worked on over the summer both on the secondary uh and elementary level. Um just wanted to highlight for the elementary um there's a new math program uh that's K through 12 that will be um implemented this year.
051So that's one of the highlights for that. >> Oh, that's for K5 only. I'm sorry for the math program. I apologize. Yes, I said elementary. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. K5. Let's be very clear. I'm sorry. Um, number two, um, there was a manual that was created, uh, as Mike was talking about our multi-tered, um, system of support for small groupoup instruction. Um, I think one of the things that really struck me, uh, regarding this is this is a model that had perhaps been used more, you know, K through five. Um the expansion of the use of this at the high school and secondary level is I think a very exciting piece. Um and I think this is something that um each teacher is going to receive a manual and they there's some really
052good information about this whole u process and um tiered um systems of support which is going back to the district goal as well. Um the proposed parent academy calendar um we have pretty much something every month uh covers elementary secondary um and I think that'll be up on the website soon um and again we encourage th this is something that is just additional um and this is to help um parents this is for information about different things about college admissions about kindergarten readiness about things you know you could do with your student to uh you know to enhance their experience. So please take advantage of it. Um many of them some of them are zoom some are in person but we really do encourage you to take advantage of it. It's a lot of valuable
053information uh and the people presenting are quite knowledgeable in their um area. So take a look at the website when that hopefully will be up soon. Uh lastly, um we talked about this last year. Um there's um a new um evaluation um and observation process um led uh the efforts by Dr. Far um regarding reflective practice. Um it was a pilot program and um they're moving to full implementation because it was wellreceived. Um we have approximately 130 teachers who are you know in the um um area of being highly effective teachers who would be able to um participate with this program. Um and again it it's just another way and another option for um teachers to participate um you know more so in their evaluation process. And um I think it's very empowering for staff
054uh to be able to um have some participation in that. So um that's another thing that we discussed. Our next meeting will be um in September. Uh and uh we'll have more to update with you. All right, that's it. Um let's move on to board member remarks. Anyone? Good. Okay. Um let's take 17 old business. Let's take the minutes. I need a motion on the floor. Mr. Hughes, second by Mr. Gallow. Um, I need a roll call, please. Mr. Lamb, >> Mr. Coplin, >> abstain. >> Miss Aanero, >> yes. >> Mr. Denise, >> yes. >> Mr. Gallow, >> yes. >> Mr. Yu, >> yes. >> Miss Jansen, >> abstain. >> Dr. Moore, >> yes. >> All right, let's take new business now. We have A2B. I need a motion on the floor. Mr. Denise. Second
055by Mr. Copan. Roll call, please. Mr. Lamb. >> Mr. Copan. >> Yes. >> M. Ainero. >> Yes. >> Mr. Denise. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gallow. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hughes. >> Yes. >> Miss. Jansen. >> Yes. >> Dr. Mort. >> Yes. >> All right. Now we have new business personnel. Uh, A28. AA. We have A2 AAA. Um, I need a motion on the floor, Miss Jansen, and second by Mr. Mr. Coughlin. Roll call, please. Mr. Lamb. >> Mr. Coughlin. >> Yes. >> M. Dadero. >> Yes. >> Mr. Denise. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gallo. >> Yes. And special thanks to uh Dr. Fair's team for getting us fully staffed to start the school year. >> Mr. Hughes. >> Yes. >> Miss. Jansen. >> Yes. >> Dr. Morty. >> Yes. >> All right. I don't think we
056have a need for exec. So motion to adjurnn. Mr. Hughes and second by Mr. Copan. Have a great start to the school year everyone and have a good evening. >> Thank you.