001[Music] This meeting of the MA Board of Education is open to members of the public to be physically present. Sorry. 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 850-6298-5301 and the required password is 142296. I call this meeting to order. Uh roll call please. Mr. Lamb Mr. Cop here. Miniro Mr. Dilva here. Mr. Denise here. Mr. Gallow here. Mr. Uses here. Miss Jansen here. Mr. Msari here. Dr. report here. Adequate notice of agenda of this meeting has been provided to the Ridgewood News and the record
002specifying that the Mala Board of Education will meet on April 9th, 2025 in the gym at Joyce Palmer School, 80 Ridge Road, Malawa, New Jersey. A copy was filed with the township clerk to our salute to the flag which was honorable. Miss Jansen, would you lead us, please? 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. All right. We do not require uh an executive session in the beginning this evening. So we will move on to agenda questions. Agenda questions. Please limit your questions at this time to resolutions under new business on this agenda. As a matter of fairness, you are asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your
003remarks to no longer than 3 minutes. If you are 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. This section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes. Please specify the resolution you are referring to in your question. All right, I need a motion to open the meeting to the public. Mr. Kismarski, second by Mr. Dilva. Right, we are officially open to the public. Seeing no one coming forth at this time, I need a motion to close the meeting to the public. Mr. Kismer and Mr. Gallow. All right. Thank you very much. Um, thank you. Okay. This evening we won't be having a MAWA student representative report. So we will move on to Dr. Durro's
004superintendence report this evening. Uh thank you. So just for everyone on the board to know in previous retreats we've talked about getting board certification. There have been a number of trainings that we've been able to take on uh through our retreats and through uh regular board meetings and uh Matt is here to work with us um on the final component of board certification and it comes at the timely part of the year uh your chance to evaluate me. So you'll be trained on evaluating it. So enjoy the training and be confident. Okay. All right. We're getting up to move so we can see the screen. I think we might have to go this way. Yeah, we'll set it under the table. [Applause] I know, right? Sit right in the middle. I said I I offered
005that I can stand I can sit right in the middle of the table. We are still here. Last time I cleared out a table that fast, it was Thanksgiving. Okay. So, um, as Dr. Puro mentioned, tonight we are going to, um, work on the CSA evaluation process. Um, and you know, getting our time in here tonight is going to put us over the hump for board certification. So, I will, yeah, congratulations to you all. So I will um be in touch with Prima about further details on that. But basically our NJSBA Bergen County May meeting will be where you folks will be honored. So hopefully you can all make time in your calendars to attend and it'll be great to see you there. So uh walking through the CSA evaluation process. I know many of
006you are experienced with this already. So, I'm going to um probably speed through a number of pieces that I think you've all pretty much got. I'm open to questions anywhere along the way. Uh this is a good refresher that we do to many boards at this time of year, especially when um folks may not have been through the process before or are new to our tool. Um so, the basis for the evaluation is really um in statute code. You can see on the left side of the slide that it talks about the fact that it has to happen at least once a year. that the evaluation needs to be in writing and the board and the superintendent need to meet. Uh in some cases, boards um infer that they only have to have board leadership
007or the board personnel committee conduct this process, but it's really done by the entire board. Um and there's a number of criteria around which the evaluation is based and we'll talk about that as we go forward. The other really important part of this is that it needs to be done by July 1. And that is critical not only to meet stashing code but also for QAC monitoring. You can see on this chart, one of the pieces of governance indicators which the board is responsible for is around the superintendent employment and evaluation and that is seven points connected with having a policy and a contract to evaluate the superintendent and then six points around completing it by July 1. You certainly don't want to lose 13 points on QAC uh by missing the target line evaluation.
008Um the the whole point here is that the evaluation is part of a process and the process is geared toward continuous improvement in your district. The um board self-evaluation is really the last step and this all really started when you created your goals last year and the goals are a full 50% of the evaluation that you're going to be conducting on your superintendent because of course you have charged the superintendent with fulfilling those goals. Um those goals led to the action plans that have been presented to you in the past. They also um have been uh part of your conversations all along as the superintendent gave you progress reports going through this process and the evaluation and board subaluation are really sort of the the uh culminating pieces of the of the cycle. Um, okay.
009So, our evaluation tool was developed in cooperation with ASA, the Association of School Administrators, and it is meant to address all of the things that are important to professional growth for a superintendent and also those things that that a board of education is responsible for monitoring through its oversight responsibilities. There's two components to the tool. Firstly, there's a piece about progress code district goals. That's a full 50% of it. The next piece is on leadership standards and that is designed to meet all of the things that are required in the statute on evaluation. You can see that our tool has um places for both the superintendent and the board of education to supply comments and ratings. There's a self assessment by the superintendent. uh he or she will uh support his or her self assessment
010by documentation and comments. Um the board of education also supplies a grading there and they also have an area to make comments. There's a place for superintendent to also include a link to uh a drive where ex extensive evidence can be put for the board to review. Um the standards part of the evaluation is based upon the professional standards for educational leaders. There's six of them included in our tool. They look like that, right? Those all have their own rating scale and they all have a different set of standards and indicators that are part of the evaluation of that standard. That looks like that. If you look at the very top, I know you can't read this of course, but each of those um parts of the rating scale have specific language related to that
011particular standard. So board members should be careful to read those and to apply that uh criteria to their evaluation of their superintendent. Um, of course, here there's also an area for a self rating by the superintendent and an area for him or her to apply comments and evidence. Uh, same thing for the board. There is also an overall rating for performance on the standard. So, there'll be a bunch of indicators that you'll give a rating to, then there'll be an overall rating on the standard. And of course, those should correlate. You can't do excellent on everything and then give an overall rating of poor, right? That doesn't make any sense. So, um that that is we'll rely on board members to uh to uh fill that out in a way. Um, okay. Really key thing
012we stress with all boards is to look ahead to the timeline that you have because these meetings come at a very tough time of the year. There's a lot of activity at the end of the year and you don't want to miss the deadline. So, backing up from July 1. there's at least two uh and a recommended third meeting that have to happen with the full board to complete this process as designed. So, we have a July 1 deadline. Backing up, there's a meeting just prior to that where uh the board and the superintendent meet with the final evaluation document. Uh prior to that, there's a meeting of the board without the superintendent to arrive at consensus opinion. And then prior to that, we recommend an evaluation pre-conference, very similar to what a supervisor would
013do for a teacher. So there's three meetings of the board. Rice notice is needed for the superintendent in those cases, and those all need to happen um again uh leading into that July 1 deadline. So these are all the steps. I kind of went over them in a backwards order just to stress that July one deadline, but it starts in the upper left of the slide with the goals setting that we mentioned earlier uh and progress updates that happen throughout the course of the year. uh the evaluation super evaluation uh pre-conference is in green up there and again that is really about sort of setting the expectations the common language the uh sort of current standing of each of the goals so that the board and superintendent are speaking the same language when they start
014to document this stuff in the tool. The next piece is a superintendent goes in and completes their board goals and their self assessment. Once that is done, um, board members will receive a system generated email that lets them know that it's their time to go ahead and do their part for the evaluation. If you do not get the email, don't panic. You can just go straight through our homepage website, the superintendent evaluation uh, area and you can go to the exact same place. It's not a dedicated link in that email. um board then individually uh puts its own assessment in there and then if you look at the uh the left side at the middle of the slide you see the BOE needs to review the compiled superintendent evaluation results. So that's a um a
015sort of aggregated document of all of the input from each of the board members who are taking part in this and from that they develop the majority opinion. So there's a conversation using those individual contributions as source material in order to create the final document. The next piece is the annual summary conference where you take that final document, review with the superintendent, board president signs off, superintendent signs off, process is complete. Talked about that already. Yeah. So, you will need your username and password on njsba.org in order to complete this. Recommend you try it. sooner rather than later just in case you run into a problem, you can get it corrected and you won't get um sort of into a time crunch around completing it. Um there is a password reset link right next to
016where you sign in. So if you do forget, you should be able to recover from that very quickly on your own. But if something happens, you email me, spam, whatever, get in touch with me and I'll help you out. Um that is where the CSA evaluation instrument sits on our website right on the homepage kind of middle of the way down uh without the email you can still access the tool. This is the board president's view of the compilation documents and the template for the annual performance report which is the final document. You can see there's a report one and a report two. That's the goals and it's also the standards put together that that's the uh aggregated input from each of the board members. The annual performance report template is a word template. It
017does not live on our system. It's a personnel document. We don't want to keep it on our system. So you can download the template and there's a very nice onetoone correspondence with each of the sections of the um compilate compilation document so that you can quickly transfer the information from one area to the correct area on the final document. Uh those are what the evaluations look or excuse me the uh compilations look like. That's the goals piece. That's the standards piece. Um, couple quick notes to finish. Uh, is responsibility of the entire board. So, everybody should take part in this. Uh, I can't tell when you guys are done. So, I rely on the board president to let me know that everybody who's going to take part in this is done. And that way I
018can open up the gate and allow this board president to download the compilation documents. So, do keep an eye on that as you go through. [Music] Um board president typically writes the evaluation final document. If he or she is not comfortable with that, they can designate something to do that as well. This is what the annual performance report template looks like. This is the final document. As you can see, it's one to one correspondence with the items that are requested from the individual contributions from the board. Last piece that I think is important is that when you do meet with the superintendent to have your final conference um evaluation meeting, it is a majority opinion document which means that of course if six people feel one way about something, three people feel another way about
019something, the six people's um opinion gets recorded. in the document. But at that conference meeting, if there's minority opinion that wants to be discussed or aired, that's the place to do it. It however does not get entered into the document. It is an opportunity though for the superintendent to hear opposing views and that's a an an opportunity for professional growth for the superintendent. And then finally, uh just a sort of obvious thing, but it's something that we like to stress. Make sure that you have considered the uh 12 month performance of the superintendent when you do this as opposed to things that may just have happened in the prior few months. It should be a fair evaluation that really takes into account all of the superintendent's efforts throughout the year. Okay, most of this stuff.
020Oh, yeah. That's a number of resources on our website that if you get stuck on pieces of it, you want to learn a little bit more about it. There's a webinar, there's a document, there's templates, examples, etc., you can go there and review anything you need to. And certainly, I'm always available for questions. I think we did it. Way to go. Thank you. Anyone have questions? [Music] I'm gonna ask you one question. Um there has been feedback. We've said this a couple of times in a followup. Um and there has been some feedback that some of the questions are a bit static and that they don't allow for um our as board members sometimes to know um some of the intric intricacies of what you know might may or may not do with staff or
021there just come up once or twice that some of the questions are don't seem relevant to our sort of um eval EV valuation, right? Um and and and maybe I could talk to you about it. The superintendent evaluation or the board celebration? No, the superintendent evaluation. They just come up a couple times. So I don't know if NJ the question was has NJSBA looked at you know we've had this kind of similar one and so I don't if you know they've looked at maybe looking at the questions a bit or changing because there's been the feedback from some board members that we kind of end up giving similar feedback because the the questions remain the same and then you kind of feel like you're just you it's thoughtful we go through it Well, but um
022sometimes there there's a question that we wouldn't know because it's maybe a dayto-day operational thing that's going on in the school, but we're not there in the school to see if that's sometimes happen. Right. Those kind of things. Okay. So, I guess to start um have we relooked at it? Yeah, we have. So, it's it's about a six-y old tool. And uh I think two years ago, possibly three at this point, uh we went back to ASA and said, "Hey, let's look at this again and make sure this is serving both our memberships the way it should be." And the consensus was yes, it was. So, that part, yeah. Um when it comes to some of the things that you may not be able to see, for instance, you mentioned things around staff. Um, I
023think it's important first of all to make sure you're asking the right question, right? Because some of the things around personnel, for example, um, really aren't the board's role, right? So, if you're asking those types of questions, it's kind of kind of follows that they really need to be part of the evaluation document. I think that's pretty point. There are questions on the document that ask us how, you know, our observation of things that we don't see. things that are, you know, dayto-day staff things that I'm on. Like I I've never seen it. I don't have access that way because that's not our role. And the fact that this evaluation is asking us for our opinion on things that aren't our role, I think is an important point. Okay. So, I think there's a couple
024things to think about there as well. The first is um there's opportunity there to say not observe, right, on some of those questions. Okay. Um, and then I maybe we've not felt that like we feel like we have to Yeah. Because you know it's so bad when you when you check off not observe. It's kind of like I've never seen them do that. It's it's kind of like a ding and that's not really kind of where where we're trying to be as uh constructive or right descriptive as possible, right? We're trying to like answer. So, but that's the point. I guess we and and I think the comments sometimes have been we've not directly seen that, but we can give like an overall score, but perhaps that and what I'm what we're talking about, Matt,
025is you know, there's like six questions in sections, right? So, it may not be. So, this sounds like the standards area, right? Correct. Yeah. It may not be Yeah. Not the goals, it's the standards area. Yes. So, it might be like the one in the seven questions that we're like, well, we don't know for sure. This might just be feedback to take back to go back look at the questions and say why are you asking for this? Yes. Because it's not relevant to their role. They shouldn't see this in some cases. So I guess you feedback to So it would be helpful if you could show me exactly right offline and I'll get I'll look at the last years and and bring it back to you. Okay. Yeah. Um, and we understand we're looking at
026it in an overall perspective, but I think sometimes it it that's just been the feedback in the past that we're not sure how do we go behind on something that we may or may not have seen and it's really not an appropriate um role of board member. Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah, happy to take that back. Thanks. Sure. So when do you uh suggest we begin this process because um timeliness we have always not been so timely in the July. So let's be timely this year. When do you think we should start this semester? So um I I get everything done. I think the the first way to look at this is to look at your own calendar and see how we fit this into the other things that we're working on at this point.
027Um backing off that July 1 is usually the best way to do that. We can fit this in at our June meeting, we can fit this in at our May workshop, etc. The thing you can do pretty much right away is have that conversation, whether it be in person or uh you know, a series of of documents that come out from the superintendent to set that kind of stage for the evaluation through the pre-evaluation conversation, whatever that turns out to be. Um after that it's really up to the superintendent to get into the tool and start to populate it with the um goals and with the self assessment. Um and the board really can't do anything until that happens. So that's probably uh we'll talk Mike and I'll talk it'll be completed the the superintendent
028self evaluation will be done by the end of the week we get back which is April 25th that Friday which then you'll get prompted to start your your process from that point there'll be I believe three meetings that we'll have an opportunity to go through that timeline that you had along the lines of your your opportunity to complete your assessment, but my my artifact self assessment upload be done by April 23rd. Great. Thank you. Okay, we'll be this should be very timely this year. Which reminder do you want to change? How about that? We'll put that on there. All right. So, like I said, if anybody gets stuck anywhere along the way, just reach out to me. Um or the call center if you're familiar with them. Usually has login problems and they can figure
029it out. Uh, nobody here's really new. So, usually the problem comes in with like a new person who got in our system with a personal email and now is on a district email and those things collide. So, I don't think we'll have that problem here, but just as a matter of for this year to be as effective as possible. In the past, I've put different artifacts in. If you guys feel like there's a question that you need more, so when you go back to the evaluation, if you have a question that you think um is something that you're not able to see as much and the artifacts will speak to it, let me know and then I'll make sure that prior to pressing submit for April 25th, you'll have information. I think that's an ideal
030topic for the pre-evaluation conference is, hey, we really like to see more robust stuff on X, Y, or Z. Thank you. [Music] We have a one more presentation. All right. Let me just get a microphone. [Music] All right. Looks like Bryce is right. All right. Here we go. Uh, all right. Now we have report. Mr. Lamb, do you have a report this evening? Yes, I do. There we go. All right. We're on to our business administrators report. Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Morphy. Tonight's business administrator's report will be a presentation on the preliminary budget for the 2526 school year. This is the third of four presentations that we're giving on next year's budget. Uh so just showing you clickers not working. There we go. I'm sorry. Thank you. Here we go. So, again, the calendar, we
031had uh two presentations already. The final budget presentation will be April 30th. Uh the official public hearing and when the board votes to approve the final budget for next year. Tonight's presentation will focus on enrollment, personnel, transportation, capital outlay, capital projects, and some other summer projects. uh our enrollment data as of October 2024. The reason we use October uh October 15th is the official uh record date where the state uses our enrollment numbers uh as a uh calculation of how much state aid we're going to get. So that's a very important date that we look at the enrollment. Uh and the enrollment for our preK through 12 is listed there. uh and October 2024 enrollment had a decrease of about 80 students uh districtwide from the prior year's cap. So there was a has been
032a trend of enrollment decreases. Uh and the the uh top part of enrollment is on roll enrollment and then there's also out of district students. Uh we have 68 special education students. For next year's budget we are budgeting three contingencies. uh because we there's always the unknown or uh uh future out of district placement uh that we expect although it's not final. Uh we also have a county vote, one shared student, they spend a half day here, a half day at the VOTE. Uh we're budgeting two for next year. Uh and then we have a number of students uh going to themies in Bergen County. Uh we're budgeting about the same for next year. And then we have two charter school students uh that go out of district. Charter schools are considered public schools. We
033are required to provide tuition and transportation for those uh our staffing. We have 454 full-time equivalents of staff. Uh because we are having a reduction in the total number of staff. Although salary increases uh will be occurring next year as per contract uh because there's a lower headcount next year compared to this year. The actual salary in the budget is lower for next year than this year. So that doesn't happen often. Uh even in spite of that, the health benefits costs uh which we discussed last time are still going up significantly. uh uh the decreases to staff is in line with the enrollment changes and then uh we have independent contracts and other associated costs uh with our collective bargaining associations uh and of course our unaffiliated staff. Uh next slide on staffing. Uh each
034year we thoroughly examine the uh our staffing needs uh to address the educational, curricular and enrollment needs of the district as well as instructional and support areas. Uh and just want to uh say that our uh administrative team, Dr. Fair, Dr. Dur, Dr. the Turo, excuse me, all of our supervisors and principles spent an enormous amount of time looking at the needs of the student to see where changes were needed. Uh, in some case fewer staff needed, in some case more staff needed. Uh, the most important point here is that the staff changes will not impact any student programs or class sizes. All of the current programs are staying in place and the staff the class sizes are about the same. Uh for next year's budget, a net decrease of nine full-time equivalent positions is
035anticipated, inclusive of uh additional school security officers for the K to5 buildings. So really, it's a a a decrease of 13 staff, but then you add four security officers, that's how you get a net decrease of uh nine full-time equivalents. And uh just want to say uh the township of Mawa has been very cooperative in helping us fund the uh school security offices in the building. So thank you to them. uh transportation uh transportation uh we spend almost $7 million in transportation and uh it in a town ma being the largest uh land area in Burton County uh our buses drive many many miles we're also required to transport out the district students it's about 8.4% 4% of our operating budget. Uh and uh the prior year we uh consolidated and made our routes a
036lot more efficient uh for some savings. This year uh the routes are being budgeted uh the same number of routes as for next year's uh budget. The routes are being budgeted the same number of routes as the current years. Uh even with that uh our bus contracts with the vendors are uh increasing by the CPI rate 3.57%. That's a lot lower than it's been in the past four or five years. So we're we're actually grateful that it's only 3.57%. Although our CVI rate is still going up by a higher rate than our tax increase. Uh again, we we provide busing to uh a high majority of our students. Over 2,000 students of about 2700 students in our district are eligible for busing. Uh again, and then about 100 out of district students. Uh we have
037an ad hoc board committee that meets several times a year to review our policies and to make sure our busing program is working well. And I just want to say that that committee has actually provided a lot of good ideas and our uh transportation team led by Tracy Spender has really done a great job of being proactive with our routes. The state gives a transportation efficiency rating uh to every district in the state. One is really the average or the status quo. The higher the better. Malawis is 1.257 257. And so we're well above the county and the state averages in transportation efficiency. Uh capital projects. Greg Romero uh does a great job in managing our capital projects. Uh we're planning this summer uh in the budget but paid for with from withdrawal from Capital
038Reserve. $100,000 to replace a walk-in freezer in the Mawa High School cafeteria kitchen and also to replace the roof over the cafeteria at the high school. Uh the total cost of the project is about $1.1 million. The good news is the state of New Jersey through a Rod grant uh is paying for 40% of it. if the district cost is less than $700,000 and uh the state will be paying over $400,000 for that project. There are other rod grants that the district has been approved for. They are not included in the budget yet. And I say yet because at any board meeting during the uh during the year, a board can vote to uh go forward with a Rod Grant project. And uh but we do have on the table uh almost $10 million of
039potential rod grant projects. Again, the state would pay 40% of the costs. And some of those projects include HVAC at Betsy Ross, HBAC at George Washington, HVAC at MA High School, and then roofing at George Washington. Again, the state would pay uh if we were going to do all those projects, the state would uh reimburse us an additional $5.7 million for those projects, but we have to fund the money uh from our capital reserve. So, we do expect to move forward with some or all of those projects in the next several years. And then other proposed summer projects uh in addition to the ones we mentioned included in next year's budget is uh paving of the various parking lots uh in the district. Uh we piggyback off a bid that the township of Mawa conducts
040uh annually and that saves us a lot of money by uh being included in their bid. So some of the paving that will be done is the uh loop at lenipe meadows uh and then Ramico Ridge uh the asphalt walkway area. Uh additionally not included in the actual financial part of next year's budget but to be completed during the summer uh is a rooftop HVAC unit replacement at Joyce Kilmer School. uh that money was already uh budgeted last year but the pro when in terms of planning the project sometimes projects they're budgeted one year but then they get extended into another year. So that project was planned last year uh board approved it this year and the work will take place in the summer. The total cost of the project is 442,000 but again the
041state is reimbursing us 40% of that cost. So the cost of the district net is about 265,000. We will also be uh doing some upgrades to kitchen equipment at various schools. Uh buying uh miscellaneous items like cafeteria tables. The good news is uh anything related to the cafeteria or the kitchen, we can charge to the food service account. It does not get charged to the operating budget. So it's it's really the sales and the uh surplus that we have in our food service account uh pays for anything related to the food service program. So it does not take away from our operating budget. Uh and then just a review of the calendar again. This is the third presentation. The final presentation on April 30th will be an overview summary and the tax impact. And then
042of course the board will be approving the final budget for next year. So if there are any uh questions or comments, be happy to take sure once they're approved, what is the time period that we have to how long is that money set aside for us to use? Uh I've never seen a specific deadline on it. Uh I' I've seen some districts where the money has sat there not completely spent for even a decade. I would not recommend that of course uh with deadline that we have to use there's no set deadline but I would not want to wait too long because given uh a political environment changing uh office you never know how an administration would uh potentially take back money if it went unspent. So, I would I would recommend spending it in
043a relatively uh timely manner and not waiting too long, of course, but there's no official deadline. Okay, any other questions? If not, thank you. All right. And now, Dr. fair. Do you have report this evening? Typically I do. And he usually has audio visual. So we'll remain here. So typically I would have slides but we have we have the actual people here. So we're going to have person. Yeah. I'll stand beside uh behind them as they introduce them. So we'll start with Mr. Jim O'Hara. If you just stand up and wave to our board since they're they're essentially voting on you. So uh all right so let me introduce you to Mr. O'Hara and I'll explain why we selected him the many candidates that we interviewed. So our job posting yielded over 60 applications for
044our director of guidance vacancy. In review of those applications we invited 18 candidates to meet with our team for an introductory Zoom screening session. From those 18 candidates, we invited six candidates in for an in-person interview with a full committee, including administrators and school counselors. Two candidates were asked to complete a finalist presentation that introduces and outlines the candidates's unique vision for our program to our district. Mr. O'Hara has been selected by our committee. His finalist presentation focused on actionable ways to move our existing programs forward with an understanding of our district. Mr. O'Hara comes to us with experience as a high school counselor for Ry High School and a K12 director of guidance for Ry schools in New York. He is presented with leadership and vision and was able to connect with all members
045of our interview committee throughout our final interview process. According to Mr. references. He quote is a special colleague who finds a nice balance of leading while also allowing his people to have the space to expand professionally. Additionally, Mr. O'Hara has a firm understanding of elementary and secondary school counseling programs and quote has a keen ability to see how things connect and come together across a district. We look forward to having Mr. O'Hara join our leadership team. [Applause] Um, lastly for my report, uh, we recommend for our supervisor of English language arts, grades 6 through 12, and our supervisor of performing arts, grades 9 through 12, Miss Caroline Cougar will also have her stand up and wave. Let's get started. Uh our team underwent a thoughtful interview process to find our next department supervisor where we
046reviewed 55 candidates application materials followed by the interviewing of 18 of those candidates via Zoom through introductory meetings. Five candidates were invited for in-person interviews with our panel. Our two finalists were tasked with drafting a 20inut presentation that reviewed our department's data where our finalists were to create an action plan to address areas of need. From this exercise, Miss Krueger served as the clear choice. Her thorough presentation was carefully crafted to think about teachers as individuals while also creating a roadmap that would be collective to the team, all inclusive of resources to support the work and to provide clarity along the way for the department. Her approach was balanced, supportive, and direct. According to Miss Krueger's former supervisor, uh she expressed, quote, "She will always show up for your people. She does everything to the
047best of her ability and takes extra time with anybody explaining concepts and she cares. Additionally, she also shared that Caroline is a quick learner, integrates contemporary ideas, translating difficult concepts to students and colleagues. And she emphatically closed with, I know she is ready, she's capable and authentic. She thinks about every dimension of a problem and works to find a solution. So, Miss Critter comes to us with 27 years of teaching experience, most recently from Tennifly High School. She has had several extracurricular and lead teacher positions through her tenure, and she believe she believes all of those have prepared her for the role supervisor, and we certainly agree. So, we recommend both Mr. O'Hara and Miss Krueger without reservation. [Applause] Thank you very much, Dr. I could just stay in the audience today. Uh, residents report,
048which I have I have no report this evening. Um, all right. Uh, board committee reports. Oh, okay. So, Brett Brett. Oh, Brett. Board committee reports. Uh, transportation last seat. Camera hear me? The camera. Thanks. Look, but I think we might have to return to our seats for voting and I think we'll do Okay, at some point we're going back to our seats. Go ahead, Mr. Goth. Uh, transportation committee met last week. Um, want to thank Mr. Lamb and Miss Spiller again for taking the time to be with us. Uh, just two highlights real quick. Uh, we started a legal process for the 2425 school year. We're going to be discontinuing it. uh found that there was no efficiencies that were found um based on the feedback we got and it added a great deal of
049work on Mr. Mill's desk. So, we're gonna uh discontin that for the 25 26 year. Um secondly, a couple years ago, we started sending out courtesy letters to current fifth graders and current eighth graders that'll be losing transportation options for the next year. sort of in ninth grade and in sixth grade when the uh mileage changes based on the schools that they're going to be in. So those letters will be going out the end of April and they'll only be going out to those that'll be quote unquote losing the opportunity for busing. Those are the two items. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Black. Anyone else? Mr. D. Okay. All right. Okay. So um brief report from instruction and curriculum um from our uh February meeting. I just wanted to um provide some update on
050the reflective practice program. Uh Dr. Fair came and spoke to us about that. Um it's uh going well and teachers have liked it. Um they've particularly liked videoing themselves. It's been helpful to see themselves in practice. That's something that Dr. fair also mentioned that towards the end of the year uh there'll be uh they'll be showcasing it for the faculty and this is a pilot program hopefully uh more teachers will uh participate in the future. Um there was also curriculum writing and that was on uh the previous um agenda. Uh the there's also been additions to um our BCCS program. Um and that was something we voted on uh at the last agenda. Uh adding the K3 autistic program that's being added at Lenap Meadows. Um the extension of our prek program and um also
051the transfer of self-contained program back to GW. So those are a few of the things there. Um BCSS has been very supportive and collaborative and that was report from Miss Rizzo for us. Um from the March meeting um I just wanted to highlight that there will be a spring um uh roll out of an additional reading program. Uh this is um a special education reading course um that is related to the Orton Gillingham program. U Mr. Posine came and spoke to us about this. Um it's a focused uh intervention program uh helping uh students um who are having reading challenges. Um and this will be something that will be implemented um in the spring. Um so and some of the benefits is is to help improve word coding, enhancing spelling skills, and increasing reading confidence
052for our students. And this is going to be um mostly a K through 12 program. All right. And that's all I have. Any board member remarks this evening? All right, let's go back to the table to conclude our voting. I'll get it done. [Music] Um, all right. Let's take old business now. 17 A and B. Uh, I need a motion on the floor. Miss Ting Jansen, second by Mr. Hughes. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Lamb, whenever you're ready for roll call, please. Roll call on the middle 17 AB. Mr. Coughlin abstain. Mr. Dilva. Yes. Mr. Denise. Yes. Mr. Gallow. Yes. Mr. Hughes. Yes. M. Jansen. Yes. Mr. Kizarski. Abstain. Dr. Yes. Uh, now let's take new business. We have uh this evening 18A through M. Um, we do also have a donation that uh I would
053like to just recognize and that's 18 I from Orange and Rock. So, thank you very much for uh the donation to our schools. Um, and uh we'll take that all together. 18 A throughM. I need a motion on the floor. Uh, Mr. Gallow, thank you. And Miss Ting Jansen again. Thank you. Roll call, please. Mr. Lamb. Mr. Coughlin. Yes. Mr. Dilva, yes. Mr. Denise, yes. Mr. Gallow, yes. Except on 18A, I'm abstaining from check 119254 and 119 382. Thank you, Mr. Hughes. Yes. Miss Jansen. Yes. Mr. Marski? Yes. Dr. Yes. All right. Now, let's take 19. Uh, we have personnel. This is A through K this evening. Um A through K. And we do have two appointments. So we on behalf of the board welcome James O'Hare and Carolyn Krueger to the Mala family this
054evening. Thank you very much. And uh I do need a motion on the floor. Mr. TZ Marski second by Mr. Dilva. Thank you Mr. Lamb. Roll call please. Mr. Copa. Yes. Mr. Dilva. Yes. Mr. Denise. Yes. Mr. Mr. Gallow. Yes. And welcome Miss Krueger and Mr. O'Hara. Mr. Use. Yes. Miss Jansen. Yes. Mr. Kizarski. Yes. Dr. Yes. All right. 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 or school matters of community interest. It's a matter of fairness. You are asked to limit your questions to three minutes and um your remarks to three minutes and your questions to no more than one. If you are here representing a group, please identify yourself,
055the group, and your position in the group. If you're here as an individual, please give us your name and address. Um I need a motion on the floor to open to the public. Mr. Gallow, second by Mr. Hughes. We are officially open to the public. Seeing no one coming forth at this time, uh I need a motion to close the meeting to the public, Mr. Kesmari, and second by uh Mr. Copelan. Thank you very much. Um we do have our strategic plan meeting. This is number three work session uh that is going to be starting at 6:00 p.m. Um so we look forward and thank everyone in advance for their participation for that. Uh and now I'll have a motion uh to uh close the meeting, a motion to adjurnn. We do not need a
056exact section at the end. We keep it open. Oh, keep it open. Brief recess. I apologize. All right. We do a brief recess. So, do I need to open again? Yes. Yeah, might as well. Okay. So, motion to open the meeting to the public. Mr. Dilva, second by Mr. Karsski. We are open to the public and we'll be beginning at 6 pm for our strategic plan work session. All right. Thank you very much. [Music]