001This meeting of the MAMA 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, the board meeting will be livereamed for viewing purposes only. Anyone wishing to view the meeting may do so via Zoom. Webinar ID for this meeting is and the required password is 436763. All right. I call this meeting to order. Uh Mr. Lamb, roll call, please. >> Mr. Copelan >> here. >> Misso, Mr. Denise. Mr. Dilva >> here. >> Mr. Gallow here. Mr. Yu >> here. >> Mr. Kizmarski. Miss Jansen >> here. >> Dr. Morty >> here. >> Adequate notice of this meeting has
002pro been provided to the Ridgewood News and the record specifying that the MA board of education will meet on July 23rd, 2025 in the administrative offices, 60 Ridge Road, MA, New Jersey. A copy was filed with the township clerk. Uh salute to the flag. Um Mr. Dilva. >> First, we got to straighten out. anything for you. >> So, please face the flag of our nation. Place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me. I pledge algiance 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. No. >> Um, all right. Thank you very much, Mr. Dilva. All right. We do not require uh an executive session in the beginning. So, let's go to agenda questions.
003Please 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're here, okay, if you here with a group there, maybe the agenda is a little different. Went to minutes. Sorry. >> Do you guys have a >> here group? >> Group. State your name and your position with the group. If you are here as an individual, please provide us your name and address. I need a motion to open the meeting to public. Mr. Dilva, second by Mr. Hughes. We're officially open to the public. >> Yeah, we're missing an entire It's okay. >> No worries. I can I can >> I can do it on my
004phone. >> Dr. >> All right. See no one coming forth at this time. >> Uh let's move on to >> minutes. >> Oh, motion to close. Thank you for Mr. Dilva. I'm falling apart without my >> That's correct. I think that was >> Mr. Second by Mr. Gallow. >> All right. >> Yeah, that's what I was >> for I got it. >> Everything 10 11. >> Yeah, I can pull it up. the time. So, no big deal. No, actually minutes is further down. Next is um we have no MA student representative report this evening. So, Dr. Dtoro, your report this evening. >> I would love to give my report. >> Sure, let's do that. That sounds worth real quick. We're missing page four. I'm printing out the whole packet now. >> We're missing all the
005pages. >> They're new for me, too. J. >> Okay. Summer programs in action. Thank you very much, Dr. Fair. This summer, our students have been fully engaged in joyful, enriching learning experiences that thanks to the creativity and dedication of our staff and program coordinators. Over the past few weeks, students have participated in hands-on projects, collaborative activities, and field trips that bring learning to life. These images capture just a glimpse of the excitement, including a recent visit to Pony Power in Mawa, where students connected with the natural world and a few gentle horses through an unforgettable day and experiential learning. And if you see on the um on the bottom right, you can obviously see the the pony, but on the left hand side are um is one of our staff members. She actually works at
006Pony Power and she's one of our special education teachers, Sarah Ley. >> Oh, cool. >> Uh Mr. Thank you so much. Did you get a chance to see the Emerson Habitat for Humanity House yet? >> I have not. It's right down the street. So, I I get there. >> No, cuz we were we were we were talking about it. >> Um so, this is uh from the students who um started to work with the Habitat for Humanity. They were nice enough to allow the students to sign one of the beams that are going that's going up in the house. >> Um this is on the build site. You can see there that the students who participated actually signed it and also there's a ma logo that's going to be on one of the beams in
007that's in the house. So, we're it's just another opportunity for us to show how the project and the work of our students continues to be um create a positive impact in the towns around us. So, we wanted to showcase that at at our board meeting. Yes. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Jurora. Um, Mr. Lamb, do you have a report for us this evening? >> Sure. Just briefly, a few items on the agenda just to explain. uh 18 yeah 18 KLM regarding the uh acceptance of the rod grants. It does not bind the district. It just uh accepts tenatively from the state that we're not turning down the money and then uh the board could decide later to move forward with the four remaining broad projects or to not accepting them more. And then item
008L, excuse me. Item N uh is authorization to do an auction for electrical and utility rates. Uh if approved tonight, we will hold an auction tomorrow and then that also doesn't bind us. We can accept or reject the bids depending on the outcome of the auction. And finance and facilities committee members received an email today uh with an invitation to view the auction online. You'd like to The 11. >> Thank you, Mr. Lamb. Dr. Fair, do we have a report this evening? >> I sure do. You can see we have some more images to highlight some things happening over the summer. Uh here we have our girls wrestling team at Ramsay Summer DS. We wanted to highlight the girls wrestling team who recently rec recently participated. This offseason opportunity provide our student athletes with valuable
009experience. Team building and continued skill development. Their commitment to growth even during the summer months months speaks to the strength of our athletic program. So congrats to them and their continued success. Uh our advanced placement results, we recently received them a few weeks ago for the 2024 2025 school year. You'll see here is a breakdown um and we're really excited about our students success here uh which reflects the continued academic excellence of our students and the dedication of our educators. This year over 93% of MAWA students earned a score of three or higher, a benchmark that demonstrates strong college readiness and content mastery. In addition, 35 students have been named AP Scholars, a recognition awarded by the College Board to students who've earned scores of three or higher on three or more AP exams. So,
010these achievements underscore our program's commitment to academic rigor, high expectations, and preparing students for success and postsecary education and beyond. If you've been on the high school's uh Instagram page, you'll see that we have a cohort of our um high school musicians uh currently on tour in Europe through a program uh called AMA Red Tour, which is an American music abroad performance experience uh and obviously led by Miss Morwick Fold, who's there on the left hand side with our students. Over the course of 20 days, our students performed in multiple European countries while immersing themselves in rich cultural and historical experiences. The image here captures a memorable concert in the center there uh in a castle courtyard in Germany just before the group of Ma High School musicians traveled to Austria. Their journey concluded with
011a final performance in Switzerland, marking a remarkable achievement for these talented young musicians and obviously an unforgettable highlight to their summer. So, congratulations to them. And as you can see, Miss Mortum Fold is uh is super happy. >> Mr. Pascal didn't make it out there. >> No, >> so far, >> but Mr. Pascal is currently in Alaska, which is great. >> It's no Europe, right? >> Yes. Yes. Uh we've been talking a lot about our internship extership program. So we thought we'd uh showcase some highlights from our programs in action this summer. Um our MAWA internship program continues to grow and thrive this summer providing students with authentic real world learning experiences aligned with our career pathways. Uh this slide highlights Aval to the left, a student in our engineering and technology career pathway as
012she supports major projects at DMR Architects, including organizing professional design materials for upcoming architectural work. Uh also featured is Lena from our performing arts career pathway who served as a teaching intern in our summer music enrichment program. Uh here, Lena assists young students with lessons in both ukulele and guitar, gaining hands-on experience in arts education and mentorship. And lastly, we had an extern who is a rising senior who joined central office uh this summer through his externship. Um Alex is, um part of our business administration career pathway. uh he participated in a series of activities related to business office operations and learned all about human resources. So Alex was introduced to our payroll system along with how employment contracts are drafted. He assisted with our transportation department. He participated in electronic deposit process, a facilities
013walkthrough, assisted with bank reconciliations. He updated our leave of absence process researching NJFLA and FMLA and created information sheet for our employees. And here u uh pictured he participated in an interview process uh where we ultimately um selected an ideal teaching candidate. So um Alex generated questions, he asked questions, he participated in uh asking follow-up questions and uh we did a lot of reflecting afterwards. Uh we're really proud of Alex and um hopefully he can be back next summer. >> That's it. Thank you. Um all right. Um president's report. Um I just wanted to briefly highlight that um yesterday um thanks to our um great administrative team uh who um helped uh put together uh a great retreat for us. Uh we had our board retreat uh at the T3 building. Um, and this is
014something that I think we're now in our fifth annual um that was started um uh under the leadership of Dr. Duro. Um, and it's really given the board an opportunity um to get trainings if we need them to do things in governance to um have um you know conversations about goal setting for the year. So, it's a it's a nice opportunity for us to get together as a board um and look at the upcoming year. Uh this year um we had um a representative from the New Jersey School Boards Association who came to speak with us um and discussed with us about um sort of board members and their role in a referendum process. Um so that was very informative. We also had our um a representative um from Laura Bishop Communications who came and
015did a presentation as well uh with a similar focus about um referendum and materials and messaging and those kinds of things. Um we also discussed district goals um and our board goals um and those are getting finalized and board goals will um update probably in September. Um so uh anyway great day um thanks to all the board members um who could could come and participate um and all the discussion and feedback. Um I think it's a great opportunity and we look forward to uh you know doing a lot of good stuff in the next school year. So thank you very much and thank you again to Dr. Dtoro and his team for um putting it together for us. Um, all right. Any uh board committee reports this evening, Mr. Galla? >> Um, uh, earlier today,
016KMAT sent out the committee uh, minutes for the finance last finance committee meeting and obviously a lot of our work um, of late is related to our perspective referendum. Um, and there was a lot of details in the minutes and if you have any questions, please reach out to Tom, myself or any committee members. One thing I did not mention was Greg Romero applied for a tree planting grant and the district received a $7,000 grant to plant trees throughout the district. So I thought that was um a really cool little thing. >> Is that through the state or >> it was like the arbor society or something? It was like a tree lover society. You know I'm not the national back. The bottom the bottom line is we get $70,000 to beautify our campus. Excellent.
017We all love trees. >> So, thank you to Greg and and the business office staff for pursuing that. He he didn't win the first time, but he went won on the second time. So, we persevered to get some trees. >> So, but um obviously uh the committee will be busy with um the preparatory work for the referendum issues. And I just wanted to highlight I believe it is 18J which is on the agenda for tonight to authorize land to begin the process of preparing the materials for our project uh submission to the state in September. So a critical point in our referendum process. >> Thank you Mr. Gallow. Uh any other committee reports this evening? Um, okay. Just briefly from instruction curriculum, I just wanted to officially welcome uh our new director of curriculum instruction
018uh Miss Jody Craft and just say thank you. We had a quick informal meeting um with committee members and we're looking forward to uh working together and a really great year. So, welcome again uh to MA and hope you've uh felt settled and welcomed into your new role. All right. Any board member remarks this evening? All right. Let's move on to 17 old business. We have a uh minutes A and B. Uh do I have a motion? I need a motion on the floor. Mr. Gallow, second by Mr. Coplin for 17 A and B from July 9th. >> 17 A and B July 9th minutes. Mr. Cofflin, >> yes. >> Mr. Dilva, >> abstain. >> Mr. Gallow. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hughes. >> Yes. >> M. Jansen. >> Pepsi. >> Dr. Mort. >> Yes. >>
019All right. Let's move on to new business. 18. We have A toy. See X. A to X. Anything I need to take separate? I think we're good. All right. Motion for 18 A throughX. Miss Jansen and Mr. Hughes. >> Items 18 A throughX. Mr. Coplin. >> Yes. And thank you to Malik Corporation and the Betsy Ross HSO for that very generous donation. >> Mr. Dilva. >> Yeah. I want to highlight X, which is uh the the new program that we're going to be bringing back uh kids that we used to have to send out a district uh for for their to take care of their special needs. We're going to be able to handle that in uh in district which is much better experience for the families and for the students and it's going to
020save the district a lot of money. So there's it's there's a lot of work going into putting that >> you know that program together. So, >> she's there. >> She's looking down. >> There she is. >> It's a It's a ton of work, but that's something that is is it's the right thing to do for our students and for our taxpayers, and it's it's awesome all around. >> Mr. Galla, >> yes. >> Mr. Yu, >> yes. >> Miss Jans, >> yes. >> Dr. >> Yes. All right. Let's take new business personnel. Let's take 19 A to BB. Need a motion on the floor. Mr. Coplin. Second by Mr. Hughes. Roll call, please. Mr. L. >> 19. Mr. Coplin. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dilva. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gallow. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hughes. >> Yes.
021>> Miss Jansen. >> Yes. >> Dr. >> Yes. All right. Public questions or comment at this time. Although 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 or school matters of community interest. 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, and your position in the group. If you are here as an individual, please give us your name and address. I need a motion to open the meeting to the public. Mr. Gallow, second by Mr. Dilva. Okay, seeing no one come forth at this time, I need a motion to
022close the meeting to the public. Mr. Copelan and second by Miss Ting Jansen. All right, I don't think we need an executive session today. So motion to adjourn. Mr. Dilva, second by Mr. Gallo. Thank you everyone. Good night. Have a good evening.