001all right here we go this meeting of the Mawa 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 live streamed for viewing purposes only anyone wishing to view the meeting May do so via Zoom the webinar ID is 37379 and the required password is 6747 I call this uh meeting to order uh we need roll call please Mr lamb you m de Arrow here Mr copin Mr dilva here Mr Denise here Mr Gallow here Mr use M Jansen here Mr kisar here adequate notice of agenda of this meeting has been provided
002to the Ridgewood news and the record specifying that the Mel Board of Education will meet on March 5th 2025 in the administrative offices 60 Ridge Road Mawa New Jersey copy was filed with the Township Clerk Mr Denise would you lead us in the salute to theed algi of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible andice for all all right we are going to require a executive session in the beginning this evening um so I need a motion to recess Mr DVA second by Mr kesari we should be about 30 minutes at the most thank you very much e e e all right I need a motion to reconvene to public Action meeting Mr kmari second by Mr Dil all right agenda questions please limit your
003questions 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 comments to no longer than three minutes if you're are here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you were here as an individual please give us your name and address the 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 dilva second by Mr Gallow we are officially open to the public all right no one coming for is it sorry excuse me is this only on the agenda items for correct so we're going
004to wait till the end all right thank you so uh seeing no one coming forward at this time motion to close the meeting to the public Mr Gallow second by Mr Denise our Mawa student representative rep birth this evening hi everyone hello she yeah sounds like it um so tonight the boys basketball team is playing in the semifinals at Glenrock actually right now um also this this weekend on Saturday wintergard will be competing at Bridgewater ridan High School um and Robotics will be competing at Mount Olive high school this week Deca is at States at Atlantic City they left yesterday and I believe they're returning tomorrow um also in Atlantic City on Thursday and Friday Avan nello will be competing in the wrestling state championship at Boardwalk call so we wish everyone there good luck
005um the band indoor percussion won second place at Oldbridge high school on Saturday with a score of 7079 and for art the relationship's Art Exhibit organized by the art club and curated by senior Colette Leo um is now open and on view in the T3 gallery and lastly the drama club is continuing rehearsals for the spring play Anything Goes and that will open on Thursday March 27th and it runs through to that Sunday thank you great thank you very much all right uh Dr Juro our superintendent report this evening all right I'll start with something different because have my stuff was just taken now you know how it now now they know how it she she did it better anyway she did it better than me okay so um for all those who don't know
006allow me a moment just to explain the report that's coming up um this is the student safety data system report and itct two types of information information from schools to the district um the two types of information are um incidents of violence vandalism harassment intimidation or bullying weapons offenses substance offenses and any other incident leading to student removal from the school and it also includes HIV training and programs that are provided throughout the school year this information is collected to fulfill the state and federal reporting requirements as well as to The District Board of Education law enforcement and the state through through the ssts system the public school safety law states that all acts of violence vandalism and harassment intimidation and bullying must be reported to the board of education and if you all recall
007um this happens twice a year so I'll be reporting on the first reporting period which is July 1st to December 31st so on the first slide you'll see um the breakdown of all the schools those are the incidences that have to be reported Ed um broken down by all the different subcategories throughout the school give you a minute to take a look then on the next slide it breaks down uh the types of trainings and programs that are housed within the school that took place during that period these are not last and final as I said before two periods um to report just to explain to you the types of trainings we have a laundry list of trainings but just some that I would like to share with the board obviously each year we have
008uh HIV policy intervention and prevention training we have conflict resolution training cyber bullying training threat assessment training and uh school safety team training um along with other programs that are running to really educate our staff on how to respond to different situations that AR throughout the school year the next column is specific to programs um and these programs we have a laundry list of programs but some of them that you're I'm sure you're aware of um we have character education assemblies at all levels we have responsive classroom which is a program K through 5 we have Spirit Week student council again these programs are are done to not only educate the students but bring that school culture and climate uh to a different level we have we could respect assemblies and programs through our district
009we have a short of practice um at the middle school level we have days Field Days um and at the elementary level this year we have something called morning friends that helps support our students that might need to struggle to transition into the school or might have some issues that they need to work through to make sure that they have a successful day so those are just some of the many programs that we have throughout our district and I wanted to make sure that I shared with the board of education so the unit meure sessions sessions yes okay I'm going Swit over to our more exciting things now not the no I'm just saying we we have we have colorful we have colorful yeah so our standing first slide is going to be I'm glad
010we have people in the audience if you don't know already we would love for you to attend our strategic plan meeting that's taking place on March the 12th so I hope to see you there um if you don't know about the Strategic plan process and that's on me um but what I want to share with you is it's really important to hear from our community our first meeting we had over 70 people there and during that meeting we spoke about the strengths of our district but more importantly the areas in which we want to grow the next meeting um we are going to be speaking about what they call it hopes and dreams so what do we want our district to look like um and the experien we want to provide to our students by
011the year of 2030 which is crazy to say um it's really important for us to hear from all different um stakeholders in our in our district we get a chance to speak through our students we get a chance to speak to our teachers and our administrators this is an opportunity for our parents to come out this for other community members that don't have students in our district to come out and what we were able to do which we will share on March the 12th um with the information from the first meeting we gathered all the information the meeting the information from the meeting on December 16th as well as all the survey results that we had and all as well as the conversations we had with our K3 students because our students 42 um completed
012the survey we gathered all that information we're starting to identify themes things that we feel is repeated over the course of a number of different responses that we have to address and look at further in order to build our goals for our 2025 2030 uh strategic plan so I ask please spread the word we're going to send a reminder out with the r RCP again this week and we're hoping to have an even bigger crowd for next week this uh slide represents a number of our high school students in February got a chance to attend the New Jersey Elks peer leadership conference in Long Branch New Jersey each one of the students experienced the conference in different ways but all of them represented MAA in an amazing fashion many of our students ended up on
013stage with different speakers or were found in the center of the of fun activities that were held during the night time I would just want to take the moment to thank the MAA elps as as well as the MAA Municipal Alliance for paying for our students to attend this leadership conference we got a chance to talk to Mr Jan do the assistant principal at the high school who also attended this conference and he couldn't say enough about number one how our students um behav who really took part in the conference um but also what they were able to take back with them specific to leadership and all the different um learnings that they that took place during this time so again thank you to ma Municipal Alliance as well as the MAA Elks for helping
014uh fund this experience for our for our students this is just a picture our student rep did a better job so I'm not going to say it again this is what the the gallery looks like and as as she shared um there's new walls those white uh those standup White Walls as well as pedestals um they were built by um Mr kazone um and they were funded by the m scho Foundation um they really breathe even more life into that se in that section of the T3 building and we're able to showcase the wonderful work of our high school students I don't know if she said it but it's worth repeating um this is she did did she mention the name oh no I was referring more towards this is a smaller exhibit a number
015of you guys are have been able to come in to our art show in May please uh once the date comes out we'll share it with you but we have an ensive art show in May that not only uses this space but a number of other classrooms in the T3 building pardon me that showcases a wide range of Visual Arts that are taking place in the T3 building so it goes from obviously obviously this section where there's paintings and sculptures and things like that but as you move through that building you'll see 3D designs what our woodworking uh students are doing it's a really wonderful display of the diverse experience that they're able to have in the T3 building so again I'll tell you um when that date is in May but I I strong
016yet encourage you to go and Mr call you can attest they have snacks um uh and drinks for all of us toy while we're perusing the T3 building and we might see the boat you might see will I haven't given he's excited to Showcase it this is a huge point of Pride for us Christian matur um he's a senior um he won the states for diving and one of only seven I just learned this at the basketball game the other day because they honored him at halftime one of only seven individuals in school history to be an individual state champion um it was a huge huge um accomplishment for him um just just to get a little technical he uh scored big on Dives with difficulty for all the divers out there difficulty of 2.4
017and 2.5 which is difficult um in the final two rounds getting all seven sevens 75s and Eights on reverse one and a half pike and a back one and a half with one and a half twists which sounds like a lot um while you're diving he is he is a a huge point of Pride for us he actually won states by 20 points so it's a congratulations to him um he this is something that he is an independent diver but uses that Mawa name in order to compete in these different events and he really um represented Mawa very well so congratulations to him again something I was already said but it's worth repeating Ava talking about a point of Pride last year we had a number of our of our uh female wrestlers come up
018and talk about just the importance of the program and what that program means to them their contributions to the program I'm happy to report coach Wagman has done a wonderful job expanding the numbers um in that program it's exploded we have a large number of female wrestlers um what they what they struggled with last year was getting in events that are female specific events because as of right now the way to njsia has it situated when they wrestle and compete against other schools it's whoever in their weight class they really wanted to go to events that they were able to Showcase their skills against other girls and Coach Wagman was able to find um these events that happen on the weekends on Sundays these invitationals Ava has been a wrestler with us in the years
019that she's been I know that she started in the in the youth program and she has had just a wonderful wonderful year she is um she finished third in the 32 person bracket at the girls Regional wrestling tournament she is the first female in school history to make it into the wrestling state championship in Atlantic City and she will be again she will be competing tomorrow morning at 10:00 at bwalk Hall which we are going to be going down Che on so good luck and congratulations to AA and not only AA but the rest of our wrestlers and our female wrestlers that we have another accomplishment that does not happen every single year is a senor briia who plays on the Mawa High School boys team which is playing right now in Glenrock scored his
0201,000 Point uh he is the 10th male athlete and 18th overall athlete in school history to eclipse the one 1,000 point mark for the MAA high school basketball team so congratulations to him congratulations to coach branck and best of luck which we can find out to score after the meeting is over you now we can also stream it that that's not distracting to anybody who's here give us a shout out after the uh I have last but not least let me make sure I get proper I just want to bring everyone's attention to on the agenda um 19 a um we have a resignation um it is for Dr Rino so Dr Rino is leaving us we're still trying to get through it um she is becoming the superintendent of hobus um I just wanted
021to take a moment to say thank you to Dr Rino uh for everything she's done here in Mawa for the last 14 years we started off together at Joyce Kilmer um and then she went from Joyce Kilmer's an AP to Betsy Ross where she did amazing things there and then she came to central office four years ago and during her time in central office she has spearheaded a large number of things ranging from the Thunderbird partnership program uh to most recently which we're all working on she has done a tremendous job and done a lot with our our data work pardon me that's happening k through2 she is going to be a tremendous loss instructionally but more importantly she will be a loss as just a wonderful leader and a person in our district so
022I just want to say congratulations you'll be missed um and best of luck in hus thank [Applause] you that's all thank you Dr Doro um Mr lamb do you have a report for us this evening perhaps you have report for us thank you Dr morthy my report this evening is the budget report uh the uh a presentation on the preliminary budget for the 2526 school year so uh and I'll explain the process uh on the next slide uh tonight we are giving a uh presentation uh focusing on the revenue side of the budget uh and uh on tonight's agenda uh is approval of a preliminary budget um and after the approval of the preliminary budget there will be two more presentations uh with details uh on our Appropriations in our programming on March 26th and
023April 9th and then there'll be a final presentation on April 30th and that is the official uh budget public hearing uh and that is when the board will approve the final budget for the 2526 so we're trying to have transparency and show details uh in steps so you're not just giv all the information at once um so uh focusing on the revenues uh New Jersey has a tax levy cap of 2% % for school districts uh to increase their local tax levy uh there are some waivers that allow districts to go above the 2% the most common waivers are a health care waiver uh thank you much better the uh most common heal waivers are a health waiver uh to go above the 2% uh to raise the cap above 2% in instances where the
024health costs uh are significantly higher than 2% uh and then on occasion districts will have a waiver for enrollment if their enrollment is going up uh by a large amount then they could have a waiver to uh expand that cap as well uh another type of waiver is Bank cap if a district is below cap they can bank that money it's really just uh kind of you basically use it as a at a later date you Bank the money and if you're below 2% then you can use that money within the next three years to go above 2% so if you were below cap by 500,000 within the next three years you could add that 500,000 into your uh tax levy in addition to the 2% and still be within the cap uh for next
025year's budget there's no Bank cap available uh but is a health waiver adjustment available and a health waiver adjustment is available because health benefits uh continue to go up although the district did change plans to a private carrier uh to save money this year next January the state of New Jersey is expecting their state plan to go up by 14% uh so uh that allows Bap to be available uh excuse me that allows a healthcare Weaver to be aailable for next year's budget even though vanap is not available thank you uh so uh the simple math is there's a 2% tax cap uh the health waiver is about a million dollars just over a million dollars that allows the district uh to be within cap by adding another 1.49% to the tax levy uh the
026total tax levy would be is about $73 million uh and the budget is about 10 million more in that as you'll see in the uh subsequent slides uh so a little more details on this uh what what is the impact of using the health waiver not only does it fund health benefits so if we didn't use the health waiver we would still have to fund health benefit increases because contractually we obligated but if we didn't have the healthcare wave of Revenue we would have to cut other programs or spending in order to balance our bud so we we're still uh looking at our facilities technology different school supplies and programs to see where can we save money where we where can we uh purchase more efficiently without hurting student programs uh the health waiver will
027allow us uh a little more flexibility in that it gives us a little bit of margin for error for increases in utilities Insurance out of District placements a concern uh school districts just like it is homeowners or businesses is that with inflation utility prices may go up significantly uh same thing with our outside of health insurance we also have property casualty liability insurance and U that also concern about going up uh having the health waiver gives us the ability to budget uh a little more cautiously and then we're able to fund our capital and maintenance Reserve accounts to upkeep our buildings and then it's kind of a re a a cycle we put money into those Reserve accounts and then in this budget we take money out of those Reserve accounts to help out keep
028our buildings which you will see in uh some of the uh next slides uh so how much state and federal aid we get uh again we have a $73 million uh tax levy $83 million budget our state aid is only about uh just over 5 million so a very small portion of our budget of state aid semi- Revenue special education Medicaid initiative from the federal government uh they actually give us this number uh they told us last year that we would get about 38,000 in the current Year's budget to expect and this year they're telling us we're going to get about $8,700 next year that's coming from them uh that's not a number that we budget they tell us what the budget federal grants uh we do get several hundred, and federal grants uh most
029districts that I know uh it's a standard practice throughout the state uh even before political climates have escalated that districts always budget their federal grants conservatively we're budgeting a 15% reduction to be conservative we got over 700,000 in the current year we're budgeting uh almost 600,000 next year uh if we get more then that's good news and main federal grants title one uh for at risk students title two for professional development uh title three for your uh ESL and your immigrant uh students uh idea is for special education probably three4 of that is for idea uh for special education most of that does go for out of District tuition thank you uh other revenues I did mention this budgeted fund balance is uh Surplus that we had at the end of last year's budget we're
030allowed to use that in next year's budget so that we uh to offset the tax levy and to not have to cut programs our budgeted fund balance was over $3.3 million as a revenue in the current Year's budget uh I've had many conversations with our superintendent our administrative team and our auditor and our finance committee about this that we really want to bring that number down it's uh it's kind of like someone in their personal life you're using savings that you've had to fund your to pay your bills but eventually you might run out of that savings it's not sustainable so we want to wean that budgeted fund balance number down to not relying it in the budget as much so we're reducing it by uh 4 almost $450,000 in next year's budget uh emergency
031Reserve uh you're allowed to use reserve for uh either true emergencies uh or health benefits increases so in addition to the healthare waiver we're withdrawing 200,000 from emergency Reserve to fund part of the health benefits increase maintenance Reserve uh we're withdrawing 300,000 maintenance Reserve fund some of our maintenance costs uh capital reserve is outside of the operating budget but we still have to approve it uh and capital Reser for projects the two capital projects that this $800,000 will cover would be a walk-in freezer at the high school cafeteria kitchen uh along with uh Roofing and the JK rooftop unit uh just to knowe there are other Rod Grand projects out there uh that we hope to uh and we plan on doing within the next couple of years and if we uh are ready to
032do those projects during next year or start then uh even at the uh end of June 2026 into the next year at any time the Board of Education canot vote to withdraw more money from capital reserve to fund any other projects so this is just a minimum this is really we know we're going to do these projects this summer so that's why they're in the budget and any future plans we can add in later uh unemployment account that was another Revenue that we had to PL a home in our budget but it's probably not sustainable longterm every year so we're we're not withdrawing money from our unemployment account this year in our budget uh we still have a balance in there but we we don't want to rely on it too much so the purpose
033of that last page was just to show that we are trying to use our other Revenue sources and not just only rely on the tax levy to fund the budget uh and this is a summary of the different lines that I talked about you see some of the lines have positive increase and those lines that we're trying to lean down uh you see decreases in it you know so overall our our our budget is not increasing by a high amount when you take all the pluses and minuses uh collectively uh and then the rest of the budget calendar again just repeating tonight focused on the revenues uh March 26th uh planning on uh explaining special education benefits operations April 9th enrollment Personnel uh capital outlay and capital projects and a final summary uh and board
034approval of the final Budget on April 30th so thank you for the time and I just want to thank it's been a pleasure working uh with our Administration on the budget it's been a pleasure working with the finance and Facilities committee and the full board uh on this process and thank you to the business office staff for all their help as well um any questions or comments thank you thank you thank you very much Mr lamb for that detailed presentation um and uh it's actually very helpful to see the numbers and and see where we are thank you for the hard work of the finance and Facilities committee uh and yourself and your team um all right Dr Fair our assistant superintendence report hello I I do have a report this evening do you have
035a report this evening I sure do um some really awesome news to celebrate with the board and our few guests uh last week our MAA high school girls bowling team uh competed and won the 2025 Patriot division Championship so congratulations to our high school girls and congratulations to coach delissio who is there on the right of the picture if you've ever you probably haven't heard of straw bees so um this is Theo he is a student of ours in our GI talented program um over at GW uh he he's here using straw bead which are building materials to construct a mechanical crane as part of our program study of simple machines so this is an image of Theo and his cream creation after building and testing Theo applied his skills in division as they studied
036mechanical advantage the Classon worked on practicing their math skills through extension activities related to their build so um really great things happening in our gift and talented program I'll touch uh on a few other things uh later in my report um our community problem solvers at the high school uh they just completed an awesome children's book as one of the solutions to this year's project the title is the adventures of Bergen the bear uh students self publish the book and it's available on Amazon as an ebook just to give you a little context related to the problem um MAA New Jersey is known for its vast woodlands and parks and has seen a sharp rise in Black Bear encounters due to Habitat destruction and an increasing which has risen 80% since 2018 bears are now
037present in all 21 New Jersey counties and frequently appear in residential areas leading to safety concerns reports of bear sightings and incidents including school closures vehicle collisions and aggressive encounters have surged surveys indicate that most residents and students lack proper knowledge of be safety uh in response The Adventures of Bergen the bear aims to educate the public on how to handle bare encounters and reduce risks in the community so you'll see that we have uh our two students who are authors and we have uh one student uh who made all of the beautiful illustrations in the book and just so you know it's only $1.99 so it's a steel it's quite a steel so we strongly encourage you to consider it and if any of you have encountered a bear like these things do work
038the strategies in the book grew up in war County so I know what are we having the video with you guys role play the oh maybe that will next year I mean next up meeting we'll have a slide I'll dress up as a bear all right so we had the really great opportunity to witness a m high school graduate come back and present to our fifth graders over at JK here is Kristen Dolan who also happens to be the daughter of one of our fifth grade teachers she's from the class of 2007 um and she participated in our Thunder ship program Christie is the senior vice president of growth at influential she focused her presentation to our fifth graders on how MAA schools prepared her to do her present job that was not in existence
039when she was in high school and college uh she discussed what the Creator economy is and how our world is ever evolving due to technological advances and social media so the kids were captivated they had some really great questions and CH Chrissy did a really nice job of sharing kind of what she does what it's going to look like in the future and how MAA played a part in who she is professionally today which is really nice we have H law Fair competition winners for our project challenge students in sixth grade we have Alexander Buchanan Ki Jack Charles fine Stanley Chen Aaron hung arav meta Christian ohans Colin Ian and Audrey tremble uh congratulations to all of them for their success in mck trial there were 68 submissions in the New Jersey State Bar Foundation
040law Fair competition this year and this Ridge team's case fire Insurance Fiasco earned first place in their division uh every year rampo Ridge project challenged students engage uh in this law Fair competition uh whose purpose is to promote understanding of the law and our justice system and to educate students about their rights and responsib under the law so students use uh their analytical thinking uh and uh to develop an outstanding legal case so uh congratulations to our winners uh I know that there have been many emails that have gone out and I thought that this would be um a good opportunity to throw out another plug uh for one last push for tickets for our Harlem Wizards game this upcoming Saturday March 8th at 6: p.m. at rampo Ridge Middle School tickets can be purchased
041online and all profits uh go to support the class of 202's Project Graduation and just to Echo some um wonderful words about our colleague Dr goino you will be missed um it's interesting is we've been talking about this resignation for a while because we knew that she was leaving and it just Dawn to me that your name was there and it's actually real so we will miss you um we've loved working with you and um I consider you not only a colleague but a friend so best of luck and I'm sure you will be calling us for help I will yes can't we can vote it [Laughter] now all right thank you very much thank you is there anything left for you to say I I think there's very little to say I I think
042I found well I I because I haven't been invited to the presentations yet of yeah the planning part I'm waiting for my invitation to the uh planning parties because all of you know I'm technologically challenged there will be no slides in my presentation um all right so a few things uh first of all all Ramadan Mubarak to our uh Muslim Community who is celebrating this month um I also we didn't talk about our top soaring Thunderbirds so that's all you that's all me I get to actually uh share something so for February here we go our top soaring Thunderbirds there's a student Chosen and then a faculty member so the student is Tracy picuno um who's a 12th grader uh and uh the attribute is for being determined um and for our teacher it is
043Mr Matthew domville uh he's a biology special education teacher and he's also quite determined so that's the attribute now I don't think we actually talked about January so maybe I can go back and our January Top we we need photos I'm going to have to send this to you Advance our top storying Thunderbirds in January are uh our student was Marissa Jansen who's a junior for being inspiring and our teacher is Mr Jason nahem our theater teacher for being trusted and just a reminder the t- bird pillars everyone are t for trusted B for brave I for inspiring R for resilient D for determined and S for spirited so those are the attributes um the other thing is I just wanted to highlight um about the strategic planning meeting um next week that Dr Doro
044spoke about um one thing I just want to share is that um you don't have to attend all three or if you didn't attend the first one you feel like okay I missed out no each one sort of focuses on its own theme uh this one is dare to dream so think about things that you would like or Envision for our district and expectations for the future um it's really one of those opportunities for um our larger Community but also our um parent Community to get involved and to have have a say um what you said is what we listened to the first time in creating the Strategic plan um and that has been The Guiding sort of principles for our district so um what you say counts and I just want to reiterate that
045so um please sign up I think something will go out again uh please register so we know who all coming uh and uh we look forward to seeing you next week um lastly our best wishes to all our winter sport I mean it's just it's tremendous um I was actually the girls basketball game last week um and they they trounced the other team we don't even need to mention in the team because they did a great job anyway um it's tremendous uh our our Deca students our robotics our Winter Guard um again it's it's just amazing what our students do in this district and all the opportunities that there are so um thank you uh to everyone and good luck all right board committee reports we're quiet tonight all right let's move on board member
046remarks additional comments okay and I I feel like I'm not saying goodbye yet to Dr deina that we've got we've got her till June okay so and we haven't voted I may abstain in the voting it's it's possible it's very possible um so we're gonna we're going to share all the good things uh for you but but but congratulations to you and it will be a tremendous loss in fact my daughter started in the district with with Dr bino um and Ria is now 23 and in medical school so uh thank you uh I well started with Dr Doro and and that was your all's first year together in the district as principal vice principal and Ria entered fourth grade and had a tremendous experience so anyway but we're we're not I'm not doing it
047today not doing it Dr Rina all right um let's take old business 17 a and B I need a motion on the floor Mr Dall second by Miss tting Janssen roll call please Mr Lambo 15 Mr D Silva yes Mr Denise yes Mr Gallo yes M Janson yes Mr gar Dr Mor yes all right let's take 18 new business uh 18 A through M motion on the floor Mr kmari second by Mr Denise um we need a roll call please Mr lamb M yes mrva yes Mr Denise yes Mr Gallow yes M Janson yes Mr giz marski uh yes I would also like to thank superintendent for giving back two days assuming we get them yes I knock out wood I knock out wood and Dr yes um all right all right and now let's
048take 19 new business Personnel uh let's take 19 a to BB motion Please Mr kisari second by Mr Gallow 19 M Evano yes mrva yes Mr Denise thank you to theun agend thank you Mr Denise yes Mr Gallow yes M Jansen yes Mr giz Mary yes Dr yes all right public questions or comment public participation at board meetings is in accordance with byw 067 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're asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks 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 are here as an individual
049please give us your name and address uh motion to open the meeting to the public um Miss tting Jansen and Mr D Silva we are officially open to the public sorry I got up here a little too soon that's okay you're good um so I'm just going to ask can I have an extra two minutes I will try and make it to 3 minutes but I don't think there's a lot here so we appreciate the request with me oh we just need a name at least sure uh my name is ISA grel and my address is 10o pleas thank you so I'm here today as a parent who is deeply alarmed by the recent events involving some threatening text messages exchanged by fifth grade students at our JK School I already discussed my concern with
050Dr Toro thank you for that um but I felt the need to stand in front of the board so you can see my face and my concern and share with you that I am still alarmed and I also want to be able to tell my boys and look them in the face that I've done everything I can to ensure their safety and the safety of the kids that they call friends the text messages and I won't say names but these read in part students name I have a gun right and shoot up the school for real for real you wanted it pointed out your head haha so funny your mom would never let you touch it also do you really think that your mom would let you shoot students name an assault rifle were characterized
051by an email sent out at 4M on January 24th by Dr Boe as not a safety issue specific to the school and while an investigation was undertaken and I am of course extremely thankful and grateful for the quick actions of the school and of course our MAA Police Department I am a little concerned by the lack of meaningful consequences that these students received and the perceived lack of meaningful consequences that the rest of the students see in the school we are all parents we know kids do stupid things we know that kids will humble us on a daily basis but we also know that we can't dismiss threats like this as harmless we can't tell our kids that there are no consequences for saying alarming things as a mother of two boys I can tell
052you that my son has been disciplined with detention by JK for far less than the gravity of what occurred here and I'm here to remind you that what might seem harmless to some can be the very beginning of something much worse we've seen tragic patterns too many times in schools across the United States in Parkland Shooters troubling behaviors were ignored for years and 17 lives were lost in New Town 26 innocent lives were lost in yal we witnessed again tragedy 21 innocent people were lost 19 of them children so my question is really how many more signs do we need until we take some action where are we setting the example of accountability of safety and responsibility for our kids we do not want to ignore these behaviors that doesn't make them go away it
053doesn't make them okay it actually emboldens them so I'm asking to take action and force meaningful consequences for actions that are threatening kids need to be told this is not okay and other kids need to see that action is being taken or otherwise you lose credibility when you enforce disciplinary actions for other things do not allow a dismissive attitude to create a future where we will regret in action because our kids deserve better that's all thank you thank you could you just pronounce your last name again grel gral thank you thank you Miss gral um and Dr dor did you w to respond I I I can just say uh to you that um you know the district followed um their our protocol and appropriately addressing the situation uh it took place outside of school
054grounds and the incident was referred to um appropriate um police for investigation that was conducted um and unfortunately we're not at Liberty to discuss any of the specifics of the situation I appreciate you not um saying uh names in in particular um and maintaining a confidentiality and we have to maintain that with respect to the individuals involved um I'm not even sure that some of us board members have even seen those text messages so well I can assure you that many parents have seen them it doesn't escape us that there is I'm sure the mother of one of those students sitting here on the board today uh well first of all let here we're not we are not going to start talking about any identifiers about the incident so let me go back to the
055conversation that we had the two of us there are some things that were said that I I really I don't want to go back and forth with specifics but I just want to make sure because this is in public I want to make sure that the public hears the conversation that we had I'm glad that you acknowledge the fact that when you when you and I spoke I spoke about the lengthy process that we took in this specific situation we didn't dismiss it and we didn't take it lightly and when we connect these things to Parkland which is so significant I don't want to leave it there because the fact of the matter is is to to give everyone as much context as I can this incident happened at night between some students I don't
056take that lightly at all unfortunately it did become a school matter because there was a reference somebody made reference to a school so we did make make it a point to say we're not going to say well that happened outside of school we're not going to handle it we said we're going to do everything we can within our threat assessment protocol which we discussed and we engaged all the appropriate authorities which did not happen in some of the cases that you're referring to so we made a point to not only investigate internally we engaged the police we did our threat assessments not only internally but external assessments are also done and we also made it a point to alert not only the families of the people who are involved but we wanted to make sure
057that we were as transparent as humanly possible to the grade that in which it occurred I do understand as a parent no matter what so let's be very clear when you get a letter like that there's a lot of questions I understand the frustration that could come up because that search for clarity and that search for more information and you're not able to get as much as you that you're searching for aside from the consequences which we can talk about that at at a different time along lines of the the purpose and worth of those in this type of situation the biggest value is the investigation the assessment of is this in are these individuals a threat to themselves or to others all of those things were done to the letter specific to our threat
058assessment protocol and all authorities and individuals needed to be brought into this event we're brought we're brought into the event so I don't take this lightly at all I can assure you but I also don't want to let things linger or let them be out there that it was ever dismissed things like this are not dismissed and I want our community to know that we take these things very seriously and as much as I can provide I will provide to the community because I don't want them to feel like this is something that our kids are going to be kids at no point do we ever take it that way so I do want you to leave with not only our conversation you have over the phone but also leave with the understanding that at
059no point do these things ever get dismissed thank you for that I I appreciate that thorough response I think that my search for clarity again has to do with the fact of the of consequences like things like detention suspension if someone says this I I don't know what the when does a when does some action that is you know deemed wrong rise to the level of suspension or detention in the school because as I mentioned you know my kids are not perfect no kids are perfect they have had detention for far less and so when these things happen and other students in in the school see that hey these you know these kids don't they're here they weren't they don't have detention they're sitting right next to me what message do we tell those kids
060what am I supposed to tell my son the the the fact fact of the matter is is you tell your son that or or daughter whoever it is that the school takes these things seriously and it's not about the visual consequence that addresses the matter and I know that that's hard for a young child to see or to understand but it's not about we're going to Showcase what the consequence is to the public and and that's not a part of the the measures that need to be taken in this type of situation so I can't get into it any further than that but I understand that conversation and difficult of that conversation of well I need to see what what's taking place the conversation is I spoke to the school I spoke to the superintendent
061they don't take it lightly it's not about if you see them in a detention hall or if you see them whatever whatever consequence you're going to we can uh decide it's not about that it's about how it's handled and with these types of situations things are handled outside of what even the kids see and as I noted before confidentiality of these sort of students matters is utmost Paramount and I actually thanked you for maintaining confidentiality uh and then you chose to bring up uh something else uh related to that so again I implore you that uh there are board members here who have students in the district who've had students in the district before and again matters related to individual students are not something that we are privy to discuss so we thank you for
062your comments uh and we appreciate it but again we really have to maintain the utmost of confidentiality uh for a parent in this district for any parent including the board members sitting here on the stage tonight absolutely that's why I didn't say the name thank you I appreciate the opportunity to stand here in front of you all right motion to close the meeting to the public uh Mr Gallow and second by Mr karski all right we do not need an executive session at the end so motion to adjourn U Mr Galo second by Mr giz Marcy thank you everyone good night well I win could win