001Can I call the meeting to order? Roll call, please. >> Mr. Akamando, >> present. >> Miss Bali, >> present. >> Mr. Oello, >> here. >> Miss Einelo, >> present. >> Mr. Laurentino, >> present. >> Miss Roloff, >> here. >> Miss Torvik, >> present. >> Miss Traverso >> here. >> Miss Otterelli >> here. Please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance. I shut my mic off 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. >> Such a difference from when there's nobody here, >> isn't it? It's great. [laughter] Adequate notice of this meeting has been sent to all members of the board of education and the Bergen record in accordance with the provisions of the open public
002meetings act chapter 231 1975. Do you want to go straight to We're going to do student Okay. Uh the student representatives >> here this one. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. Let's see. Is this on? Is this working? No, it's not working. Okay. Good evening everyone. Oh, it's not working. Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Good evening everyone. I will now share a little bit about what we have going on in our district beginning with our high school. The second part of the fall field tests for grades 7 through 11 will take place tomorrow. Also, marking period 1 ends the following day on Friday. On Tuesday the 18th, the first parent partnership night will be held at 6:30 p.m. and include a variety of presentations such as ones on the FAFSA process and artificial intelligence.
003Additionally, on Friday the 21st, 11th graders will participate in their junior breakfast. Jumping back to Halloween, the annual club and activity fair was held and saw great turnout, reinforcing the importance of students getting involved in things that interest them. Students say that they really liked how so many people were a part of it and enjoyed the live music being played by our band. Finally, two important college decision days will be held on November 18th and 24th. Caldwell University and Ramapo College, respectively. Over at our middle school in October, the marching band gave a successful preview to the middle school students who seemed to genuinely love what they saw. They made a great first impression on future members. Middle school students also completed the NJSLA and NJ GPA fall field test at the end of October.
004This practice assessment is vital to smooth out any potential issues ahead of the official testing period later in the school year. An important internet safety assembly for the seventh and eighth graders will be hosted by the middle school. Sergeant Buchek from the Saddlebrook Police Department will present a program in partnership with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office that will teach students the critical dos and don'ts of navigating the internet safely. And finally, over at Washington School, they wrapped up October with a successful Halloween parade and class parties. They are also very thankful for the high school service learning club for coming to paint pumpkins with their students. The club read stories and took time to play with them as well. This month at Washington School, they look forward to their annual Thanksgiving feast which will be
005held in the gym with the whole entire school. Parent teacher conferences are also being scheduled for the first thing in December. That's all for our high school, middle school, and Washington school. Now, I will pass it over to Zuzie for news on our elementary schools. Hey, give me Mia. Starting at Long School, students had an engaging and educational month. Grades four to six completed the NJSLA fall field test, helping them become familiar with the new assessment tools and preparing them for the spring test. Halloween was celebrated with the festive parade, showcasing creative costumes from both students and staff. The PTO generously organized pizza parties and fun activities for the students. Several grade levels participated in curriculum- based field trips. Kindergarten explored the Saddle Brook community. Third grade visited the Bronx Zoo and fourth grade explored
00619th century life at Museum Village. These experiences combined academics with hands-on learning, providing enriching educational opportunities for all students. At Smith School, they're heading into November reflecting on a successful month focused on perspective taking. Our students engaged in important work learning to see situations from others viewpoints. A critical skill for navigating relationships and handling tough situations with the classmates and friends. Now we shift our focus to the themes of gratitude and mindset. While we strive to always start with kindness, we challenge our students and ourselves to truly take this t time this month to stop and be grateful for the people, opportunities, and things in our lives. A strong sense of gratitude directly fuels a positive and resilient mindset. We look forward to celebrating this focus as a school community with our annual tradition, the
007balloons of Smith school. Keep an eye out for the parade on our Smith scoop. This past month has been busy at Franklin School. Our fourth fourth through sixth grade students participated in NJSLA field test sessions and ELA writing and math. Our student council organized their socktober collection, collecting and donating new socks to those in need. Picture day captured memories of our growing learners. Students had an opportunity to show off their costumes at our Halloween parade. We also celebrate celebrated red ribbon week and clubs had the honor of presenting at the board of education meeting. We are looking forward to our upcoming parent conferences in December. Additionally, this year we started a student rep Instagram account where I I interview students. I've interviewed at football games, soccer games, and the club and activity fair so far.
008The videos highlight school spirit and have become super popular. Now students want to be interviewed. It's been a fun way to boost involvement, get feedback, connect everyone, and show off our school pride. As the holiday season approaches, students are feeling excited and ready to get into the winter spirit. Many say they're looking forward to the winter vibes around school, like our winter pep rally and the new snowland dance. There's also been a lot of talk about wanting to bring back door decorating, a favorite tradition that lets each class show off creativity and school pride. It brings up the energy in the halls, makes it feel more cheerful. Students are hoping for more fun ways to celebrate together. Thank you. >> Thank you, ladies. I'm going to turn the meeting over to Mrs. Vileti for our
009presentations. Thank you. All right, girls. Thank you very much. Um, I love that you are interviewing our students and I've actually witnessed some of the interviews at the football games. I'm glad you brought up the door decorating. That is not It was brought to me as a question and I did say no. Not because it's a Grinch, not because I'm being a Grinch, but because it's a fire safety hazard. So to have all that paper on doors, you're blocking the exit and entrance. You're you're blocking that entryway. So that's why we're not able to decorate our doors, but definitely keep the ideas coming and uh we're looking forward to more. Okay, as far as tonight goes, I'm going to finish up my updates. Then we have a testing presentation. Our district testing um coordinator Jane
010Ellen Bear Jenkins actually had an event, a last minute event. She's being honored by the Arthritis Association as a woman in motion. And there's a commitment for your for a cure gala in New York City tonight. So she is there this evening. So Mrs. Dabonis graciously accepted my invite to present with me. So we'll be doing the testing presentation. We'll make it we'll make it nice and easy. And then after the testing presentation we are going to honor our students that have earned perfect scores on our state test. After that we have our SBF education foundation um presenting the walk-athon winners with their prize. And then we have our Smith school. So, we'll start with our Smith School student council first and then go on to the PR club. So, I appreciate your patience. It'll
011be a little bit longer, but you guys are doing great. So, for my announcements, I want to share with everybody that we are doing a delayed opening for seniors only tomorrow for the NJSLA writing field test. This is mandated by the state, the writing field test, but seniors do not participate in this test. We thought they did until a few days ago. As usual, information from the Department of Ed has been inconsistent. The writing test is 120 minutes, so it doesn't make sense to have the seniors come in. And we also want to make sure that every staff member becomes comfortable with the new testing platform that Mrs. Dunes and I will be talking about. I also just want to say a thank you to Raymond Karate, our business administrator, and Anthony Jam Fakaro, our
012architect. Um, we attended the town's planning board meeting and talked about two digital signs that we're looking to install. One in front of our new board of ed offices, which is what is was Koolage School and Solo River Road, and one at Washington School. Fior coolage school is right on the main road saddle river road and the traffic lights there and Washington schools at marketer street by the traffic lights would be a good way to disseminate information to our community. Um they accepted they did accept our proposals. We appreciate their openness in communicating with us and their support of our public schools. Also, if you were not made aware, Smith School on election day, Smith School is one of the schools across the state that did receive a bomb threat early in the morning. When
013this happens, the K9 unit the K9 unit is activated and they need to clear the school. There was no students that day or staff. It was a PD day here. Staff had the option of going to the school if they wanted to. Um, they were notified. The state security team said the email that we received was identical to many of the other districts across the state. And I just want to say thank you to the Senbook Police Department. They had a very quick response. One of the detectives met me at Smith School at 5:00 a.m. The captain called me a little bit later, see if I needed anything. and the chief emailed me a little bit later to make sure that we were good as a district. So, just want to say thank you to
014the Southbook Police Team. They're extremely supportive. Also want to share that Franklin School submitted a grant for a confidence closet initiative and it looks like they'll be awarded $3,150. It is from the Bergen County Youth Services Commission to provide unspent partnership and family court grant dollars that will allow local school districts to provide to purchase personal hygiene products for students. The goal is to reduce chronic absenteeism and have overall improvement um across the school. Also wanted to share that the high school we do have a Sbuk high school alumni wall of fame. We've been working on creating criteria and we'll be sending out nomination form as well. Will be posted on our website. Those are the photos that are in the main hallway right outside the auditorium. Then we also are working on creating an
015athletic hall of fame. We've been having several meetings over the course of this school year. There was a meeting last night. We are now We have bylaws. Again, this is posted on our website. There's bylaws and the nomination form. And last night, they did meet. They were choosing nominees and setting the details of the dinner and all of that for the event. Okay. Parent partnership night is going to be next Tuesday. There is a vaping presentation that will be given by the Bergen County Department of Health and I really implore our community to attend. We have students vaping in our K to6 buildings and it continues into this building. I actually attended a workshop that was hosted by the prosecutor's office where they showed us all the new items out there and I would have
016no idea what to look for. Attending this workshop will allow you to share with your child the specifics as to why this is a bad idea and we'll also inform you of what to look out for if you suspect any vaping. Then we also have the FAFSA HIB link parent portal. The link parent portal is new for us this year and it will allow our parents to log into the parent portal within linkit and see how their students are specifically see how their children are performing on our benchmark assessments. There's a lot of information it will provide you and then the AI for parents artificial intelligence that's going to be hosted by one of our high school teachers Mr. Shalcross. He's a parent of young children himself and he knows all the tricks and he's
017excited to share them. High school 101 for middle school parents. And then there's a board of ed meet and greet that I'm going to talk a little bit more about. We also have acme gift cards for those attending the vaping presentation as an incentive. Um I understand it was brought to my attention that the parent partnership night is the same night of some of our athletic dinners. I know our athletic parents work so hard to host these events for our students and the dates are really hard to reserve at the restaurants. They're always very extremely supportive. But moving forward, if we can please do our best not to have the dinners on our parent partnership nights, that would be appreciated. I've already had a couple parents reach out and they're torn because their child is
018a senior and they want to go to the dinner, but they also really want to attend the FAFSA event, which is now mandatory for parents. Our parent partnership dates are put out over the summer. So, I do ask that you please add them to your calendar. That was already mentioned. Parent teacher conferences are the first week of December for K to 6. Those are minimum day schedules for K to6 buildings only. Okay. So, before we go on to the testing presentation, I just wanted to share a few thoughts with our school community. We're creating so many positive changes in our schools and as we head towards the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm grateful to be a part of this school district. Saddlebrook is a special community. Our staff are in it for the right reasons and our
019board trustees are supportive of our schools and families. They take their role seriously. They're professional. They communicate well with one another and they are genuine in their care for the Saddle Brook school community. So, please come out. Parent partnership night. They'll have some giveaways for you. Introduce yourselves to our board of ed trustees. Speak with them. Thank them for their service because sitting on a board of education is sometimes a thankless position and we all know that the one positive message that you may receive during the day keeps you going. All right. It's also frustrating when people believe that nothing has changed in our schools from many years ago. Actually, my hope with all the facility improvements that you see happening across our buildings, especially here at the middle school, high school with the front
020almost being completed, the athletic field, is that it provides a visual for all the changes that are occurring in our school district that may not be seen by our parents and our wider school community. We need to shift the narrative about Saddle Brook public schools. First of all, our district is no longer on the lower end of the county when it comes to staff salaries. One of the reasons in the past that we struggled keeping teachers wasn't that there wasn't much movement in the salary guide. We used to have 28 steps in our salary guide. However, during the last negotiations, we made significant investments in the salary guide and beginning next year, we have a 21st step guide. We also continue to provide opportunities for advancement across the salary lanes. We have BA plus 15,
021MA, MA plus 15, plus 30 plus 45. And as a matter of fact, our highest salary is now among the most competitive across Bergen County. Our schools are also stronger than ever. With a consistent and dedicated leadership team and a fully committed staff, we're making tremendous progress. The conversation across the district has evolved. Following COVID, our primary focus was on social and emotional learning. And in fact, we're recognized at both the county and state levels for our exemplary implementation of SEAL initiatives. Since then, we have taken the next step. We're integrating SEAL into children's literature, embedding multicultural literature aligned with the SEAL compet competencies. struggle saying that word. This year, our district goals focus on improving student attendance, implementing instructional rounds in mathematics, and increasing science achievement. Across our all of our schools, our staff
022are engaging in meaningful conversations about student academic performance. Our intervention and referral service teams are operating effectively. Our school data teams meet regularly to monitor progress and identify areas for growth. We have taken and continue to take intentional steps to enhance our overall academic school performance. At the high school, electives have been redesigned to better align with student interest and future pathways. Our program of studies at the high school now offers a wide variety of opportunities that prepare students for success beyond graduation. Saddle Brook High School is truly making a name for itself and as a district, we are moving in the right direction. So, I want to thank my leadership team. I want to thank the staff because in order to have this change and growth, we need to change some of our practices
023and our staff has been open to this. They're open to our instructional rounds initiative. They're actively looking at student academic performance. They're collaborating with one another to work to enhance their instructional practices. And it's really great when you're walking around and you hear teachers discussing student academic performance. So, we are going to show you the growth in our testing presentation, review some of our instructional practices with you. So, at this time, I'm going to ask our board trustees to please Switch over to the chairs. >> Is that your good one or your bad? >> [laughter] >> I got you. >> Sorry. Okay. All right. So, if you do not know Mrs. Nicole Dabonus, this is she. She is our director of curriculum and instruction. She works very closely with our leadership team and we are
024going to talk about our NJSLA assessments from the spring of 2025. Now, this slideshow is many, many slides. We are not going to go through them all. They are going to be posted on our district website for your perusal. Please feel free to go through them and if you have any questions, reach out to one of us. Okay, we'll just tag team. So, this is just an overview. The NJSLA's New Jersey student learning assessment. These are the grade levels that it's administered in. It starts in grades three and next year they have a new test. So, we are going from Pearson to Cambrian, which is a new platform. And it's going to be an adaptive state assessment, meaning that as the students answer questions correctly, the questions get more challenging. As they answer them wrong,
025the questions go down a little bit to match their level. So, it's an adaptive test next school year, so we'll have a different baseline data. >> Notable achievements. These are the things that make us so happy. Um, before we actually go through all of this, there can I just take the opportunity to do this? >> There are so many staff members in the audience tonight. Usually Tony and Jane Ellen and I, we present this basically to the board and maybe one other person. If you are a Saddle Brook staff member, can you please just stand for me for one minute? This group of teachers plus all [applause] plus all of our staff that is not in attendance tonight. I [applause] Tony and I and the rest of the leadership team could not be prouder of
026the work that they are doing since I got here four years ago. It is a major transformation. The conversations are different. The instructional practices in the classroom, it's completely different. It's better. There's it's like it's it's like the um renaissance here. It's like the rebirth. And it it feels so good when you walk around the buildings to see that. So, thank you to all of you that are really busting your humps to make sure our kids are getting what they need. Um, so in ELA specifically, we have made significant gains, 18.5% in third graders meeting and exceeding standards in ELA with the implementation of our Amplify program. Our Amplify program started as a K2 initiative. We moved it to grade three this year. Um we are now we have now moved it to grade four
027and the hopes is that we can continue that movement into grade five because our students are really excelling. Longitudinally students in grade three in 2023 rising to grade six in 2025 increased the amount of meeting and exceeding standards by 22.3%. So for those of you that may not have children at the testing grade level, meeting is what you want for passing. Exceeding is obviously a little past that. Before that, you get approaching. You get needs improvement. >> Yep. >> And one other. >> Yeah, >> there's three before that. The meeting and exceeding are all your students that are passing. >> So there is another longitudinal increase to track when you look at fifth grade in 2023. students exceeding standards equal 2.3% but by 8th grade in 2025 that percentage increases to 17.9%. So you see
028the growth of the groups as they move across the grade levels. Ninth graders jump the achievement of meeting and exceeding standards in ELA by 9.7% from 2023 to 2025. and we're going to talk about evidence statements, but I can tell you that um when we get there, I have some more exciting stuff about eth 9th grade ELA. Overall, the district has seen an increase in 9.4% of students meeting and exceeding standards in the last three years. As for as for increased achievement rates, Saddlebrook students in grades three, four, six, seven, and nine outpaced the state average. So we are really doing well overall in ELA science science across the county. I attended a workshop over the summer and science the science scores are kind of dismal across the country. However, when you look at our
029numbers, we're definitely growing and gaining across of these. So I'm not going to read each bullet point to you, but you can see science is a little bit different. proficient is passing and then advanced proficient instead of meeting and exceeding but you can go through that and we are seeing growth across science as well. These are notable achievements in our subgroup data. So the state likes to take everything and and kind of make it more specific. So instead of having all of our students then they look at our subgroups which might be by race, it might be by gender, it might be by economics. So that's how they go through this. And Jay Ellen actually I believe she did this. She went through all the subgroups and just kind of noted all the achievements across
030each one. Okay. So evidence statements are something that um our teachers are now very familiar with. The state when they give us our reports of this of how students did, they also give us a report of what they call an evidence statement. What that is is a a number that attaches to the state standards and the state will give us a a graph that I analyze and then present to the teachers that tells us how we did on each evidence statement or standard in comparison to the state. >> All right, I'm gonna just cut in right there. So, if you don't know, New Jersey has student learning standards. Those are what makes up our curriculum. That's what comprises our curriculum, what our teachers teach daily. So, every single lesson is tied to a New Jersey
031student learning standard. The state assessment is also tied directly to the to the New Jersey student learning standards. So, that's the importance of this activity, >> right? So, we look at those specific evidence statements and how well we did. So, we can see if we exceeded the state average, met the state or fell below the state. So some things that we look at um we can measure how Saddlebrook students performed in comparison to other students in the state. We can review item types and level of difficulty. So when we look at the standardized test, it also then tells us what types of questions our students need more assistance in answering. Are they what they call techen enhanced where there's a video that students might have to analyze data from and then provide evidence when they're
032responding to something. Was it a straight multiplechoice question? uh inform curricular decisions. So this work has helped us purchase programs that we feel are targeting students that need certain that have weaknesses in certain areas. It's also helped us rewrite and revise our curriculum. Um it's helped us refine instructional practices. So the the shift to Amplify was because all the research out there and our student scores were showing us that what we were doing in the classroom for reading instruction was not working and we needed to make a change. So when we look at those evidence statements and we've looked at them trending now for over three years, it is incredible, incredible growth of where we came from in 22 23 to where we are now. The reason I brought up grade nine ELA is because
033every year that we have analyzed the data, grade nine ELA students have exceeded every single evidence statement in comparison to the state, which is just incredible work. Um, so I'm just so proud of what's going on in these classrooms. Um so some more notable achievements things that we have done on our end to ensure our students are getting everything that they need and that our teachers are getting everything that they need to instruct our students. So increasing instructional time in math in grades five and six has definitely shown an increase in our scores and yes we know we need to do that in more grades and are working on a way to make that happen. faculty members working together on evidence statement analysis during professional development time. It's been phenomenal. It's opened our eyes to
034see trends and to see areas of weakness and areas of strength. New Jersey tiered systems of support, our NJTSS teams and our school data teams are looking at providing targeted interventions to support our students and what they need. So this assessment data is being pulled into a ton of different areas than just on a piece of paper. >> And those school data teams meet at a minimal of one time per month. And they actually do review all the student assessment data, behaviors, attendance, and academic performance. And that's and it's a group of professionals sitting around a table talking about like strategies as to how to improve. So, our NJSLS aligned curriculum guides um that was a major overhaul and I'm proud to say that we are in a really great place with our curriculum and
035we were noted for that during our QAC. >> She's being very modest. The county literally emailed saying that we had one of the best curriculum in the curricula in the county thanks to Mrs. Davonus. >> Thank you. Um [applause] thank you. Um, okay. Our schoolwide title one services at Franklin Smith and the middle school high school um began in 2324. The reason we transitioned to schoolwide is because before that we were only able to spend title money in the areas of ELA, so English language arts and mathematics. Being schoolwide allows us to use title funding, title one funding for all content areas. So we can look at social studies um materials, science materials, world language materials, whatever the case may be. Increasing student achievement in NJSLA testing was aligned to district goals and professional development
036plans for 2526. Um we have really dedicated this year to targeted professional development. We're going to talk about that in a little while. >> Intervention and referral services. our INRS teams. You wanna >> No. And then all the professional development. So that's also Mrs. Donis's department and she leads all the professional development in development initiatives with our staff. So you see the Google apps for education amplified PD. Every classroom now has an interactive display and there's also some professional development to be happening happening with that. These are the some other intervention strategies. So our English language learner fingertip files. What that does is it gives our teachers for all our ELLLs, our multilingual learners, what they're able to do, how they're able to perform academically and what they're not able to do. So if they've
037just entered the country, you should not be expecting them to write a five paragraph essay. You should be having more visuals with them. So it kind of just lays it out for the teachers. More PD science of reading goes along with our amplify program. So does MClass. Those are all data points that we have at the elementary level. We spoke about the SEAL and the link science benchmark is new this year. So we've had linkit for math and we've had linkit for ELA and this year we purchased link it for science. So that's why attending the link parent portal session for parent partnership partnership night would be very useful and this is the PD that Mrs. Stabonus worked on over the summer and she kind of outlined all of our professional development days and has
038created activities all each of these activities to be completed each of our PDDs with our staff. >> Anything you want to >> n >> and they are all in alignment with our district goals and everything that we have been sharing with you tonight. Okay. The rest of the presentation are all the numbers that as I said this will be posted on our website. Are there any that you wanted to highlight? >> No, I think we did. I mean, just again, the the data shows it all. There is growth in all areas and we are just so proud of the work that our teachers are doing and there's always room to improve, but we are definitely getting there. >> Yeah. So, the there's I think like 105 slides here because it's mandated by the state of
039the the department of education. So feel free to go through it and there's lots of subgroups information each grade level each subject area there's a whole lot for you to have fun with. So thank you Mrs. Dabonis for this presentation I appreciate it. [applause] Okay, at this time, moving right along, we are going to honor those students that had earned perfect scores on our state assessments assessments last school year. I don't know if I've ever spoken this much. Okay, so first, our one and only elementary student. We have Sienna Venturi, who achieved a perfect score of 850 points on the spring 2025 math assessment. >> [applause and cheering] >> Sienna. Is Sienna here? [applause] [applause] Okay, next we are moving on to our high school students. And we have several high school students that have
040achieved a perfect score of 850 points on the spring 2025 NJSLA ELA assessment. So when I call your name, if you're here, please come down. Sincere Jackson, [applause] I'm going to call them all at one time. Yolani Pez Morell. [applause] [applause] >> Oh, wait. Sar my apolog [applause] I did not see Anaka Eduardo Tuvar [applause and cheering] Natalia Jereki >> [applause] >> Okay, I'm going to take a picture and then after the final presentation, we'll break where everyone can take pictures. So, just give me a second. >> [applause] >> Next, I invite our SBF, Saddlebook Educational Foundation to come up here so they can present their awards. Good evening everybody. Tonight we're proud to honor six outstanding students. Our winners from the SPF welcome. These uh young falcons went above and beyond showing leadership, kindness,
041and community spirit. Thank you. Every step of the way they are, if they're here, please come up. Savannah Towns, [applause] Olivia Leonard, >> [applause] >> Gia Dara, [applause] Christian Pagano, [applause] Aubrey Liddika, [applause] and our spirit Spirit award goes to Shelby D Carlo. Please stay down here so we can take a group photo. [applause] >> Come back. >> Okay. If I can have all the winners stand in front and we will take a family photo. >> Is Christian here? Christian Pagano, is he here? So, I just want to say you walked, you helped, and you showed such big hearts. You are absolutely superstars. You made a difference for your school, your community, and we are so very proud of you. Everybody, please give them a round of applause. >> [applause] [applause] >> Great job. >>
042[applause] >> Thank you so much. >> Okay, we have two more presentations by Helen I Smith School. We are going to start with the Helen Smith School Student Council. If you may please come up. [applause] starting. >> Why don't you stand? You want to stand in front? >> Yeah. Stand in the front that way. >> Perfect. Okay. [laughter] >> Sorry, we're preparing. Okay. Good evening, Saddle Brook community. My name is Sophie. We are here to tell you about the Smith student council. The student council at Smith School has about 30 students. We are safety patrol members. We run food drives, help with schoolwide events, do morning announcements, and help with PTO events. To maintain our membership on the student council, we have to maintain good grades, show responsibility, and upstanding behavior. Hello, my name is
043Lorenzo and I'm going to talk about our responsibilities for safety patrol. We help keep students safe in the morning hallways during morning lineup and also help with morning drop off. We monitor the cafeteria as well. >> Hello, my name is Gabriel. Home room representatives share more important school and district events and information with all the home rooms in the school. We also help our assigned home room during school events. >> Hello, my name is Mia. During Balloons Over Smith School, we read the book Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet and teach the younger grades about the history of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We also help our assigned home room create balloons and floats for our annual Balloons Over Smith School parade, which is done the day before Thanksgiving. Hello, my name is Nicole. Smith
044School hosts a Super Bowl around the end of January. We organize a food drive of just soup to donate to a local food bank. We try to motivate each grade to bring in as many cans of soup as possible. Hello, my name is Camila. We like to help kids celebrate their birthdays. We organize a special birthday in a box donation event. Students bring in different birthday items that we organize into special boxes to donate to a local woman's shelter. Some items donated are cake mixes with icing, candles, streamers, and balloons. Hello, my name is Sophia. We help with different PTO events such as the fall festival and the book fair. We help with the younger kids and assist the parents with whatever they need. We had a great time during our fall fest. We helped
045organize fun kids fun games for the kids to play. >> [applause] >> Okay, if you are in the audience and are on the Smith School Student Council, you may come up for a picture. We'll do a group photo. [laughter] No, that's not [laughter] perfect. Ready? >> [applause] >> Okay, next we invite the PR club from Smith School. You can move that one. Good evening, Mrs. Violet. Good evening, Mrs. Vileti, members of the board of education in the Saddlebrook community. Welcome to What's the Scoop. My name is Jia Marone. I'm Omihana Czech. >> And I'm Aaron Harris. >> And we're here to tell you all about the Smith School Public Relations Club. Our club has three important teams that work together to share the amazing things happening at Smith School. First, there are the anchors. That's
046us. Each month, we report on the exciting events and activities taking place in our school. >> Next, we have our photographers. Each photographer is assigned to a different classroom. Their job is to take pictures of special moments like projects, celebrations, and fun lessons so our school community can see what's happening. And we can't forget our content creators. They've been learning how to use Canva and they're starting to design the posts and content we share. Every week, our members come to meetings, practice using cameras, and learn new design skills on Canva. Then each month, we put together a new episode of What's the Scoop? Which is aired on our Instagram page for everyone to see. The anchors, photographers, and content creators put a lot of effort into everything we do. We love sharing all the events
047and accomplishments happening at Smith School. We are especially excited to show you our newest segment called The Smith Solution. In this segment, we'll be teaching parents and the community the new way we do math. We know it could be confusing at home and since math instruction is a big goal for the district, we thought this would be a fun and helpful way to show it. In tonight's launch, TA and Arya Jasnik will be teaching fourth grade multiplication methods. Tea will be teaching partial products using area model and Arya will be teaching multiplication using standard algorithm. We hope you enjoy our episode and please don't forget to follow @ smith_coop for all our important updates. >> And that's the scoop. [cheering] [applause] >> Welcome. My name is Arya Jasnik and I'm TA Jasnik. Today we're launching
048our new segment, The Smith Solution. What's that? The Smith Solution has students from grades fourth through six explaining our new math ways. Parents sometimes get confused and we want to show them how easy it is to do our new math. Oh, that's so smart. My parents learned math in such a different way than how we do it now. So, we're here today to teach you fourth grade math. What are we teaching them? Partial products. If you don't know what that is, fourth graders have begun learning to multiply using partial products. This breaks down multiplication into easier numbers. What about the normal way? >> At the end of fourth grade and the beginning of fifth, we do it the normal way called standard algorithm. I'll be teaching you how to multiply using partial products and I'll
049be teaching you how to do it the standard algorithm way. [music] >> I'm teaching partial products. >> Okay. >> First you're going to break apart your number. So here you would do 50 and seven there. And here's the 40 and the two. And when you're multiplying the you would do a bas your basic fact of five time four. Then add these two zeros at the end. Then you would multiply 50 * 2 which is 100. And you put it here. Then you multiply 40 * 7 which is 28 + the 0 there. And then 2 * 7. That's easy. It's 14. You put it there. >> So, what are all of those numbers called in the boxes? >> Partial products. >> And then what are you supposed to do with all of those numbers? >>
050You add them to get the final product. Pack your numbers from greatest to least and add them together. >> What happens if you don't line it up correctly? >> Then you might get the wrong answer. >> When using standard algorithm, your problem should be stacked up and down and you would multiply 2 * 7 which is 14. So you carry the one here. The two visits the five, >> you carry the one and then you do 2 * 5 which is 10 + 1 is 11. So you would 114. Then you go down and you add a zero and do 4 * 7 which is 28. So you put an eight here and you bring the two there and then the four visits the five. Then you do 4 * 5 which is 20. 20
051+ 2 is 22. Then you put the 22 and you add those together. 2394. >> Why did you put a zero under the four? >> Because you're multiplying the tens. And so the zero is considered a >> placeholder. >> Very naive. >> My name is TA. >> My name is Arya. >> And this is the Smithution. [applause] >> I was talking. I had pockets. Oh my god. >> Um like the So we'll start with >> Okay. Wonderful, wonderful job. If you're in the Smith School PR club, please come and join your peers. All right. Everybody All right, that was lovely. Thank you everybody for those presentations. Motion to take a break. >> Second. >> Okay, at this time we will take a fiveinut break. Thank you all. Why is my mic not coming forward now?
052There we go. >> Okay. >> I can't help it. Sorry, guys. >> Mr. C, you you did your full report, Miss. Okay. Mr. Kate, did you have anything you wanted to >> No, I have no report. Okay. Well, thank you. >> Wow. >> I wasn't expecting that. >> Is this a first? [laughter] >> He like threw me. I was like, "Okay, >> nobody wants to hear what you have to say. Come on. That's not true." >> Okay. >> Can I uh have a motion to open the meeting to the public for agenda items only? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Thank you. All in favor? I >> opposed. >> Would anybody like to speak on agenda items only? >> No. Can I have a motion to close the meeting to the public? >> Second. >> All
053in favor? >> I >> opposed. >> Okay, that was me. Sorry. >> Okay. Thought it was me. Uh, board action items. We have B2526.20 and B2526.21. Can I have a motion? >> Motion second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? >> Roll call, please. >> Miss Blli, >> yes. >> Mr. Archello, >> yes. >> Miss Ianello, >> yes. >> Mr. Lorentino, >> yes. >> Miss Roloff, >> yes. >> M. Traverso, >> yes. >> Maderelli, >> yes. >> Mr. Akamando, >> yes. and Miss Torbick. >> Yes. >> Okay. Uh, education and curriculum. >> At the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. E2526.29 through E2526.38. >> Second. >> Any questions? >> I reviewed these on Monday, but I'll just very quickly some of the field trips. We
054have the grade six field trip, the grade seven field trip to the outsiders that they started going to every year and the senior banquet and the high school senior trip this year is going to be at Six Flags Great Adventure. >> And then you'll see the ESY the extended school year dates are also item number 31. >> Thank you. >> Roll call, please. >> Miss Blli, >> yes. >> Mr. Oello, >> yes. >> Missel, >> yes. >> Mr. Florentino. >> Yes. But I'll abstain under uh E2526.29 number 63. >> Miss Roloff. >> Yes. >> Miss Traverso. >> Yes. >> Miss Adterelli. >> Yes. >> Mr. Akamando. >> Yes. >> Miss Torbick. >> Yes. >> Budget Finance. >> At the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. BF2526.37 through BF2526.4.
05549. >> Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> Roll call, please. >> Miss Belli? >> Yes. >> Mr. Oello? >> Yes. >> Miss Zionelo? >> Yes. All but in BF2526.37. I'm going to abstain from check number three. >> Three million. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. Three of them, right? 39. >> She has to do her husband. >> It's 37. The number >> for her husband's check. >> Oh, I'm sorry. It should be actually You're right, Mr. It's BF2526 38. I circled the wrong one. 39. >> Okay, I'm wrong again. [laughter] >> All right, restructure out. All right. BF2526.39 check number 5958 and 68016. Okay. And then in BF2526.40 item number 52. >> Yes to everything else. >> Okay. Thank you. Mr. Laurentino, >> I'm going to vote
056yes to all, but I'll abstain in BF2526.39 check 631-6391 and I'll abstain from BF2526.40 40 number 47 number 48 number 52 >> roll off >> yes to all but I'm going to abstain from item BF2526.39 check number 6807 and check number >> just don't Mr. Verso, >> yes to all, but I will abstain from BF2526.39, check number 68015. >> M Zarelli, >> yes to all except for BF2526.39, check number 68020. I'm abstaining, >> Mr. Akamando. Uh yes to all except for BF2526.39 checks number 66 67851 and check check number 67852. >> And Miss Torbeck >> yes to all but BF2526.39 check number 68022 I'm abstaining. >> Okay. Thanks. All items pass. >> Okay, that's it. Okay. So, finance uh I'm sorry, facilities and operations. >> At the at the recommendation of the superintendent, I make
057a motion to approve the following item F2526.5. >> Can I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any questions? Roll call, please. >> Miss Bari? >> Yes. >> Missello? >> Yes. >> Missel? >> Yes. >> Mr. Laurentino? >> Yes. >> Miss Roloff? >> Yes. >> Mr. Verso? Yes, >> yes, thanks for the link. >> What did you say? >> What was that? >> I said thank you for the link. >> Oh, >> you're welcome. Mr. Aamando. >> Yes, >> M. Tobert. >> Yes. >> Okay. We have no policy, no negotiation. So, personnel, >> at the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. PF26.23 through PF, I'm sorry, P2526.31. Second. >> Any questions? >> 23 is the resignation. High school world language teacher be um her last date will be the
058end of December. Then we have an extended leave of absence or it was on top of another one. Appointments I did. Um the number one was on the agenda Monday for a par professional. Number two I interviewed this morning. So we added her to the agenda as a substitute nurse. We have one study substitute nurse across the district. So, it' be nice to have another. She's retired. Um, she retired last year from Patterson public schools. 26 are the stipens. Number five, we did add an assistant boys basketball coach that I interviewed yesterday. And then we have the rest I did review on Monday with everybody. >> Any questions? >> Roll call, please. >> Miss Belli? >> Yes. >> Mr. Oello? >> Yes. >> Missel? >> Yes. All but MP2526.26. I'm going to abstain from item
059number four and five. >> Mr. Laurentino. >> Yes. >> Miss Roloff. >> Yes. >> M. Traverso. >> Yes. >> Miss Adterelli. >> Yes. >> Mr. Akamando. >> Yes. >> M. Torbick. >> Yes. got open to the public. Yeah. Do the committee meetings first, right? Um okay. Does anybody have any committee reports? >> Um just the schools. >> Okay. Any leazison reports? >> Yep. >> Go ahead, Mr. Traverso. He can start himself for long school. Give me a moment, please. Okay. Long school PTO just had their second meeting yesterday. Um with them they had a sixth grade committee there prior to the meeting. Their annual trunk or treat picture day and Halloween class parties were all a great success. They give a great big thanks to everybody who participated and volunteered. LMS PTO truly values each
060and every volunteer. Upcoming programs membership PTO membership forms are continuing to be collected. Dues are $15 per family. The LMS holiday shop will take place December 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. The LMS sixth grade committee is hosting a few fundraisers. The holiday photo shoot will take place on Monday, November 17th, and Thursday, November 20th. If interested, please sign up for a session. It is open to all. LMS annual breakfast with Santa will take place on December 21st at Applebees in Pamis. Snack sales will be held on December 2nd and December 4th. Please reach out to Melissa Traverso or Sher Dcasta with any sixth grade fundraiser questions. You can visit the LMS PTO website which can be found on the LMS homepage or www.tinyurl.comm. Weekly updates can be found on their website. Next meeting will be held
061on Tuesday, January 13th. Thank you. Anybody else have a school? I have two of them. I'll start with Franklin School. Franklin PTO had a very successful Halloween spect spook tuktacular event on October 28th where students played Halloween themed games and decorated pumpkins. They've been preparing for their tricky tray which is this Saturday from 11 to 3 at Elon. There are over 120 people registered to attend and their next meeting is Monday 11:17. Now for the high school middle school, the PTO will be hosting a photo popup on November 20th at the high school gym. You can sign up on the Signup Genius that's on our Facebook page. It's open to all for $10. And PS, Santa will be the one and only Mike. They put that in. >> Tell anybody listening. >> Anybody else watching
062this? >> Yes, I have. Uh, Smith School. Um, Smith School uh ran their annual readathon and hit their goal of $7,000. >> Wow. >> Uh, the sixth grade committee had their Halloween Halloween gram and every child received a treat. Uh they will be hosting their breakfast with Santa at Applebee's in Garfield on December 6th. Um they will have their holiday shop the week of December 1st and their next PTO meeting will be Wednesday, December 9th and I'll be Santa. No, >> thank you. >> Will you [laughter] sign? >> You don't have anything. Okay, that's it. >> Do we have any correspondence? >> Any old business? >> Old business. >> Sure. >> I just piggy back on what the superintendent said about the Hall of Fame committee. We did uh meet last night. Uh we are
063a we did want to have an induction in the spring, but we're aiming now. The first one's going to be in the fall. Uh working with the athletic director who's doing a great job. Uh waiting for the schedule to come out. We're hoping to do a Friday night game. uh you can't introduce people at halftime anymore. So, it'll be before the game. So, we're hoping for like a quick meet and uh greeting maybe in one of our cafeterias with some snacks or something for all the nominees to come in. Um have the banquet either the night before or the night after. But just want to get the word out so people start paying attention because a we're going to need a lot of donations. Money drives a lot of things. and really hoping with this
064amount of inductees to get a lot a lot of alumni to come back and we have inductees from the early 60s that we found. I spoke to multiple people from that era all the way up through the current era. So, we're really hoping to bring a lot of the old alumni back to the school. So, that is the plan. Start looking forward to the fall, late September, early October depending on what our athletic director lets us do. I >> just have a question. How come they can't talk during halftime anymore? because it appears that too many schools were having uh activities during halftimes and those halftimes were getting extremely long. So I don't know if the whoever the state stepped in and said no halftimes now are only 15 minutes you got to move them
065along. But I did ask him that same question. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> Okay. That was old business, right? Any other old business? >> Any new business? Here you go. >> The chair if I may. >> Sure. Um, I just want to thank Mrs. Violleti and Mrs. Bonus for acknowledging our teachers and the hard work that they do. I really find I commend them for doing that because I don't think teachers always get the recognition that they deserve and to have your leadership recognize you in a public setting >> is really it means something. So, thank you very much for acknowledging them and just highlighting their achievements 100%. Anybody else? >> Yeah. Um, I just wanted to bring back up with Zuzie. >> She does a a great job with that uh that app thing
066she's doing. [laughter] It's uh it pops up on my feed on on uh Instagram all the time. She's inter interviewing either the Falcon, a cheerleader, a uh soccer player, female, male, and it's pretty cool. So, uh keep up the good work. >> Very cool. There you go. Look, you have a you have your own like >> fan club out there. Anybody else? >> Okay. Can I have a motion to open the meeting to the public? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Maybe. >> Does anyone like to speak? >> Okay. I have to read a hold. [laughter] >> Residents are requested to state their names, addresses, and subject matter. In the event it appears the public comment portion of the meeting may exceed 45 minutes, the preciding officer may limit each statement
067made by a participant to five minutes duration. Issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board. All comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate. Board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking. Specifically, comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board. Students and employees has specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey. The board bears no responsibility, nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public. Members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or individuals in their comments and be aware that they are
068legally responsible and liable for their comments. >> Got it. >> All yours. >> Okay. I don't believe I need to say my address because it's on YouTube, right? >> I don't know. I don't think he doesn't think he has to say his address >> out in space. I'm a saddle resident, but I just don't rather not say my address. >> Okay. I have a student um three-y old >> and we do need your name, sir, though. >> Oh, I'm sorry. You do. Ra Ray Dwire and I am a Saddlebook resident. I have a a student in Washington. He's a three-year-old. Um I recently received a letter. He's been sick. So, I recently received a letter from the principal um basically concerned about the 10day absences, and I understand that. But some of this I think
069was a little bit above what was necessary. Um, part of the email reads, I'm I've realized that our nurse has connected with you over the past to determine the cause of uh absences, but the number of absences because of the number of absences, an action plan must now be created specific with specific interventions to support his uh return to regular attendance. Let me just back up a minute. Some of you I've met before. Um, you know, I was a board member and a board president in another district. So, I do have some background in some of this stuff. Further in the email, it said that any elementary student with who is absent 10% or more 18 days may be returned to grade level. He's three years old. All right. Washington school handbook. Um, in the
070handbook it says, "Our district is mandated to follow the New Jersey code. I don't you all know the numbers and board policy 5200. All right. Part of that also reads any elementary school student who is absent more than 10% or more school days may be retained at grade level. It also says once a student has acrewed 10 absences and is the responsibility of our staff to connect with the county truency officer and make a court referral. All right. Um I can read the code. I think you know it. All right. So first of all we know the code applies to six to 16 year olds not three year olds. All right. Um, also the the corrective action plan is for the school to develop when there's chronic absences of 10% or more. It's not for
071corrective action plans for individuals, especially three-year-olds. All right. So, my recommendation is this or my question is this. What's with some recommendations? All right. I don't think putting a letter out saying that a three-year-old is going to be held back or retained because he's out sick. Three-year-olds get sick. They spread germs on their sleeves. The schools are clean. This is nothing about the school. School is phenomenally clean. But they, you know, they wipe their germs on their sleeves. They wipe their germs on whatever toy they have in their hand. They pass it amongst themselves. It happens at the age. It's just a product of the age. Again, no criticism in school. Okay? But to say that he'd be retained, right? He's in prek. He's actually in special ed prek, but that's separate. He can't you
072can't retain him from attending kindergarten or advancing to the fourth four-year-old program next year because he was sick this year. Right? So I think in having that in the handbook for Washington school is incorrect considering Washington school is just three and four year olds the board 5200 policy for absences again applies to six and 16 year olds not three year olds and four year olds. All right. So I'd like to recommend or ask that that be taken out of the book. Secondly, out of the Hampton. Secondly, the threat of notifying the county, and I corrected this with the the u the principal because she wrote it or she referred to it, but then obviously she didn't report it because there's no requirement to report that. But to even have that in the handbook that a
073three-year-old would be referred to the county and end up with a court hearing, I think is also a little bit over the top. I don't think that belongs in the Washington school handbook. Again, three and four year olds. I know the policy. Like I said, I was a board member for seven years in our district, so I'm familiar with it. But some parent that may not be may read that and panic unnecessarily. Okay? So, I recommend that that come out. Also, I'd recommend that we don't send emails to parents saying that a child's going to be retained because he's been out sick 10 days at that age. First grade, second grade, third grade, high school. I get it. All right. I have older children. my older son, another district. My older son was right on
074the cusp of absences because CO hit him. He thought he was on vacation. Okay, so I get it at the older great he, you know, we got him in line and so on, but you know, CO was like a big vacation for this kid because he's at home. All right, but again, going back to the three-year-old, which is really why I'm here for for you tonight. Um, I just would like to see that Washington I it's I did some research on the website tonight and it looks like the Washington school attend attendance policy seems to have been a cut and paste from one of the elementary schools. That's probably where it came from. You know, I understand, but I just think it needs to be cleaned up. All right. Um, also maybe review the whole
075document because it again showing that it was a cut and paste. It came from another district. I'm sorry. It came from another school within the district that has an 8:45 start time. Washington school starts at 9:00. The handbook says it starts at 8:45. Okay. Um and and like the biggest thing is please I I have a meeting with the principal on Friday, you know, with my wife and and I have no problem having a meeting. The kid's been sick um even from I mean he was never sick till he got to school. All right. And now he's he started last February and three years old. He's had co COVID. He's had all kinds of sicknesses because again, all his little friends just, you know, right? >> It's what happens with three-year-olds. He does it at
076home, you know, all the time. Don't do it on the carpet. Use a tissue. But whatever. [laughter] Just, you know, I'm trying to make light of it, but you I think you know where I'm going. >> All right. So again, I just ask that the the attendance policy, if there is an attendance policy on prek, I don't think there really would be, but if there is, please just make sure the handbook reads what's appropriate um and what's true and and don't send out emails that saying he's going to be retained because, you know, my wife saw that and and right away she was like, "What is this all about?" I knew it wouldn't apply. I did ask the principal of our for clarification and she did clarify. Obviously, you can't hold him back um at
077three years old or you can't hold him from not attending kindergarten because he didn't come to prek. Um so that's it. I don't want to prolong it, but I appreciate your time. Appreciate all what you do. Like I say, I sat another district, but I sat in those seats for seven years, so I get it. Um so I appreciate everything. All right. >> I'll be here if you want to talk afterwards or something like that, but otherwise, thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Let's wait. >> Is there anybody else speaking tonight? >> Can I have a motion to close the meeting to the public? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? All you. Thank you for the public comment. I will look further into all of
078that information. Um, I will say that we've been on a corrective action plan for chronic absenteeism as well as a district improvement plan. So that is why the district has been coming down really hard on our students. Washington school is definitely a separate entity. Um so I understand that and we will look into those processes specifically for Washington school. There was a letter that I did send home in July 2025 and it is on our website um if you did not receive it by any chance and it does outline what we're asking the principles to do this year when students are absent and it kind of just a playbyplay step by step what the expectation is and that guidance actually did come from the county. The county actually did tell us that any student that
079is absent 10 times we are required to report to truency as specifics to preschool. That's another story. But um we have been receiving guidance from the county because the chronic absenteeism is an issue across Bergen County, probably across the state. I did not look into that, but I would imagine so. Um so we are currently looking into those, but that's the reasoning behind it and I will connect with the Washington school um staff as well. >> Thank you. >> Okay. No. >> Yes, >> we are. >> Oh, okay. I didn't realize. Okay. I didn't realize we were going into closed. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Um, so whereas the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting and whereas these subjects are within the exceptions to the open public
080meetings act and are permitted to be discussed in close session pursuant to NJSA10 4-12B. And whereas the board of education tends to discuss hibs. Um whereas the length of the closed session is estimated to be 15 minutes after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken. Uh, now therefore, be it resolved that the board of education will recess into close session for only the afore subject, and be it further resolved that the board of education hereby declares that its discussion of the afor subject will be made public at a time when the public's interest in disclosure is greater than any privacy or governmental interest being protected from disclosure in accordance with the open public meetings act. Do we have to to go? Yeah. Right. A motion to go
081into close. Sec. All in favor? >> Okay. Close. You threw me with the clothes.