Sayreville Board of Education Meeting - 03/03/2026

001Call to order the March 3rd, 2026 Sarable Board of Education meeting. In accordance with chapter 231 public law 1975, this public meeting of the Sarable Board of Education has been established by sending a copy of the public notice to the Home News and Tribune and to the Star Ledger. In accordance, copies of the announcement of this meeting have been sent to the burough clerk and a copy of the notice of the meeting has also been posted at the bulletin board outside the office of the secretary of the board. Please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Mr. Pashad, can you do a roll call? >> Mrs. Bloom here. >> Mr. Callahan >> here. >>

002Mrs. here. >> Mrs. Hernandez >> here. >> Mrs. Maldonado >> here. >> Mrs. Nepal >> here. >> Mrs. Pabone >> here. >> Mr. Smith >> here. >> Mr. Fernandez >> here. >> Mr. Potato, can you summarize executive session? >> Executive session was held this evening to discuss personnel, student matters, and negotiations with the CA. >> Thank you. >> Any correspondence of note? >> No correspondence. >> Thank you, Mr. Sha. This time I entertain a motion for the approval of the board minutes of both the regular and executive session of the February 17th, 2026 meeting. >> So moved. >> Second, >> Mr. Smith and seconded by Miss Pabone. >> And now for the absolute best part of the evening, our student council representatives. >> We need a vote on that. >> Oh, roll call. >> Sorry.

003>> Yeah. [laughter] I haven't had enough coffee yet. >> Mrs. Bloom, >> I will abstain since I was not in attendance. >> Okay, Mrs. Mr. Callahan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Strekowski, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fernandez, >> yes. >> Mrs. Maldonado, >> yes. >> Mrs. Nolano, >> yes. >> Mrs. Pabone, >> yes. >> Mr. Smith, >> yes. >> Mr. Fernandez, >> yes. >> Sorry, I was so excited for the best part of the evening. [laughter] Miss Coun. >> Good evening, Board of Education members and administrators. My name is Morgan Coun, SWMHs Student Council Board of Education Representative. I would like to begin with clubs and activities. The high school counseling office has been busy. The career speaker series is in full swing. Both last week and this week, the sophomores and juniors have been attending career

004sessions. The students have been introduced to a wide range of professions and skilled trades. Throughout the series, professionals from fields such as healthc care, business, education, technology, construction, electrical work, and other trades shared their career journeys, training experiences, and real world insights. The counselors have been conducting their scheduling meetings with the students in 9th and 10th grade, and just began grade 11. Students are choosing their courses andmies and making plans for their 2026 2027 school year. Yesterday, the counselors conducted the college and career planning presentations to all juniors. They outlined key timelines, graduation requirements, post-secary options, the college search process, and the information the students need to jumpstart their future planning. Last night, the counselors and Mrs. Sakola conducted a similar presentation to the parents and guardians of the juniors. It was a well- attended

005program. On Friday, Mrs. Sakola and Mr. Gluhusky presented the top 10 students in the class of 2026 with their official rank and a celebratory breakfast recognizing their hard work, leadership, and academic excellence. Family, staff, and peers gathered to applaud their achievements and share in a proud moment as these students prepare for their next steps. Moving on to sports, the wrestling team defeated Planefield High School to improve their season record to 13-10. The girls basketball team beat Kingsburg High School to improve their record to 19-7. The boys basketball team defeated South Brunswick High School in the first round of the New Jersey Intercolastic Athletic Association Group Four Tournament to improve their record to 1711. Swimmer Michael Wizenko performed exceptionally in the NJSIA swimming meet of champions. He broke both of his existing school records in the

006200 individual medley and 100 backstroke. He also advanced to the finals of the 200 individual medley with a time of 15477 and finished eighth in the state in that event and ninth overall in the 100 backstroke with a time of 5237. Thank you for your time and support. [applause] >> I have questions. >> Um did you go to any of the career presentations? Yes, I went to the dietetics and nutrition one. >> Whoa, nice. >> I was surprised that they had that. I was like checking through list. I was like, "Let me see if they have it." I was like, "Wow, they actually have that career." >> And is that a potential aspiration of yours? >> Yes, that's what I want to major in in college. >> Oh, that's amazing. That's I think you'll be

007perfect at. So, did you gain a lot from the presentation about that particular career? >> Yes, she gave me a lot of papers that she got in college because she attended Penn State. So, she was showing me all like her scheduling and stuff like that and like how it's like um it's she said it's a lot. That's what she was basically trying to tell me. So, she was showing me everything that she had to do, but she was like it's worth it. >> Does it require a master's degree or can you just have a bachelor's degree? >> Masters or bachelor's? >> Masters or bachelor. Wow. Now, my next question is you attended junior night with your with your parents, correct? >> I did not. >> Oh, you didn't? It was It was virtual. It was

008virtual and my mom was going to attend but she had to teach yoga. >> Oh, that I can see [laughter] why mom sitting there. >> No, but that that still leads me into my next question about colleges. So, um you I think it's wonderful that you you know what you want to do potentially? Any colleges of interest right now in your mind? >> Yes. My number one school is New Haven and then Marramac and Liu Long Island University. >> You Marramac in Massachusetts? >> Yes. >> It's about 45 miles from where I used to live. >> Really? >> In fact, I grew up in a town called Marramac, but it's not the same Marramac. >> It's really nice. >> The college is called Mar. It's beautiful because it's right on the Marramac River. >> Oh,

009that's wonderful. >> And I visited all the schools. >> Nice. Which one was the had the great the best campus? New Haven >> really, >> but I also visited a lot of other schools like University of Maine was definitely the best, but it's just really far. >> And wasn't that whole experience fun? >> Yes. >> I remember with my boys I with my my particularly my son Brandon. It was so much fun >> on the road >> traveling to all these schools. Good for you, hun. That's great. Awesome. And one last question. Isn't Michael amazing? Was Enko? >> He's not real. >> It's just to fathom this and this is speaks volumes about swimmers. Um he [snorts] broke his own records which he's broken numerous times since he's been here. >> Um and placed eighth

010or ninth in the state. And people might say, "Well, Ethan, that's incredible to place eighth or ninth in the He's the eighth best swimmer in the entire state of New Jersey." Yep. >> Which is just incredible. >> Crazy. >> Pretty cool. >> He swims like twice a day every day. So I'm not surprised. >> Really good. He's very dedicated and his parents are lovely, too. So, >> thank you. >> Great job, Mark. >> Any other board members have any questions? >> Miss Callahan. >> Good evening, Board of Education members and administrators. My name is Samantha Callahan, Serville Middle School student council board of education representative. Going into the seventh month of the 2025 to 2026 school year, we have many events going on throughout Serville Middle School. The PTO hosted a family fun day on

011Friday, February 27th. All those that attended enjoyed pizza and prizes with family and friends. Thank you to the student council members for helping out. The student council will hold a meeting on Thursday disc to discuss upcoming events. The community service club will be hosting Chipotle and Dave and Busters fundraisers in March. SMS FBA is currently collecting pet items to donate to Sami's Hope as part of their community service initiative. They also donated over a 100 kindness cards to the guidance ESS department for students who may be having a rough day. The students are preparing for their competitive events on March 18th at King University for the state leadership conference. Now on to the Serville Middle School athletics. The Serville Middle School boys blue basketball team was recognized last week at the varsity boys basketball game

012for their undefeated season. We are proud of your hard work and determination. The boys volleyball team will have its inaugural season beginning next week. The middle school all music team will be having will be at the NJCAA state championship on Saturday, March 7th at Monroe High School. The the competition was postponed due to the snow two weeks ago. Good luck, Bombers. The game day team will be will be performed at the unified basketball game next week to cheer on our athletes. Baseball triyouts started this week and will be held indoors. Starting up in the spring is a new girls lacrosse team. Triyouts will take place on March 10th and 11th. The SMS softball team is looking forward to their season starting in early March. They're looking forward to getting new uniforms and new helmets. Additionally,

013they are doing a fundraiser with baggo boys. is a $30 delivery on Sunday, February 22nd. Each order includes windows and bagels and more. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the students at Serville Middle School. >> Yay. [applause] >> Great job, Sam. Okay, questions for you, too. How was the cheer showcase? I missed it. >> It was really nice. >> I heard you had a big crowd there and everything. >> Yeah, I got recognized. All the eighth graders did. >> Oh, that's fantastic. Welld deserved, too. >> Thank you. >> And you're are you going to be cheering at the unified sports uh the unified basketball game? >> Sadly, I have lacrosse triyouts that day, so I won't be able to make it. >> You're trying out for lacrosse. That's fant.

014Now, did you play lacrosse in recreation? >> Uh, yeah, last year. >> So, this will be your second year playing lacrosse. >> Yeah. >> Oh, fantastic. Well, you actually answered my last question, which is what you're going to do in the spring. Yeah, I'm g be doing lacrosse and then now because there's no like sevil recck team, me and my friend are going to join like the East Brunswick team to get some more practice. >> Fantastic. Wow. Well, I can't wait to hear more about this. >> Thank you. >> Excellent. Great job, honey. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Any other board members have questions? >> No. Well, I know you guys want to want to stick around for the rest of the night, right? This is riveting stuff. >> Yeah, just kind of >> Yeah,

015Jeff, it's okay. We're going to wait while you finish your private conversation. No, go ahead. [laughter] Please, please. We're No rush. >> We're having a discussion about athletics in middle school. >> Listen, it's not it's not like we have anything going on here. It's not like there's a meeting or anything going on. So, please, >> Mr. Fernand, put your hat [laughter] on and run the meeting. Good night [snorts] ladies. Thank you very much. >> Wow. >> Now we move on to board president comments. I want to begin by recognizing the incredible energy surrounding the Bombers Beyond Cafe. Recently, the cafe hosted a karaoke night where we were treated some truly impressive performances from our brew crew and others. The turnout was fantastic and once again it proved that the Bombers Beyond Cafe is Sarable's hub.

016The South Ambro Rotary Club also donated a PS4 along with a VR setup and various games to the Bombers Beyond Cafe. and Marie and Bob Church generously donated a TV. And I hear that there's going to be a gaming night coming up soon. So, let's all let's all be ready for it. I'll I'll I'll let you know when when it's here. Looking ahead, the Bombers Beyond Cafe will be hosting a transition fair on April 14th, providing families with important information and resources as they plan for the future. I also want to recognize the more than 120 second and third grade students at Orle School who participated in a heartfelt writing campaign to the recruits at the US Coast Guard Training Academy in Cape May. Their thoughtful messages of appreciations are beautiful examples of how we

017teach service, gratitude, and civic pride at an early age. I also want to thank their parents for reinforcing these values at home. The character we see in our students begins with their guidance, encouragement, and support that they receive from their families. We also want to commend the brave members of the Saveville PBA Local 98. That was Eric at home [laughter] who participated in the polar bear plunge at Seaside Height to raise funds for the Special Olympics. Their commitment to supporting our athletes with intellectual disabilities is truly admirable. As was said earlier, Sarah War Memorial High School proudly recognized the top 10 students of the class of 2026 for their academic excellence. Congratulations to their students and for their extraordinary hard work and to their parents whose support, sacrifice, and steady encouragement helped make those accomplishments

018possible. We also want to congratulate Zion Jones for being named tapped into Raran Bay's athlete of the week for his outstanding performance in the Greater Middle Sex County Conference Battle. We recognized [snorts] Conference basketball says success on the court is never achieved alone. And we recognize the family who dedicated countless hours to supporting their children athletics pursuit as well as the coaches, teammates, and friends who support these students in their athletic success both in athletic fields and in the classroom. Finally, 26 seniors earned the prestigious seal of biiteracy from the New Jersey Department of Education. An exceptional achievement. Special congratulations to Brenda Ferrari who achieved proficiency in two additional languages. This level of accomplishment reflects not only a student's dedication, but the families who value education, culture, and perseverance. These achievements, academic, athletic, artistic, and

019civic, are the result of strong schools, dedicated staff, supportive parents, and a community that believes in our children. And now to a much more exciting presentation, Madam Vice President. >> All right. Well, you took some of my items, so that'll make it more condensed for me. But um I want to say congratulations and best of luck to the Sarville War Memorial High School Odyssey of the Mind teams who recently um who will be on their way to the state finals tournament will take place on Saturday, March 28th at Princeton High School. And then I want to give a little plug here for the Saveville War Memorial High School Theater Society as they're excited to present its spring musical Mean Girls based on the iconic 2000's team movie on March 13th and 14th at the John

020Bonjobi Performing Arts Center. Our students have been working incredibly hard learning vocals and choreography, memorizing lines, designing and building sets, creating costumes and makeup, managing lighting and sound, and promoting the production. Their dedication and talent promise an outstanding show for our community. Performance will take place on Friday, March 13th at 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 14th at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets may be purchased on cure8.com. That's cur the number8.com by clicking by tickets and searching serville or by scanning the QR codes on the Mean Girls posters located inside the cafeteria and in the hallway just outside of it at the high school. Um, please note that while families are welcome to attend, the show is rated PG-13, so use your judgment. We hope you will come out and support our incre incredibly talented

021students for what promises to be a fantastic and entertaining performance. That's all for me. >> Thank you, Mad Vice President. Say, I'm personally looking forward to that play. That's our theater theater group always puts on an amazing performance. Both the stage production and the performances themselves are absolutely amazing. So, I'm sure this is going to be another absolutely amazing performance. And me and my family are looking forward to it. >> We'll be there. >> You're going too? Well, all right then. We're starting a trend. We We can be [laughter] >> I always go. >> All right. Also want to make one more comment before we move on. I want to give a very special congratulations to a very special young lady on her birthday. We missed her last last meeting. It is you. >> I

022like the young lady part. From your mouth to God's ears, but I'm just not getting any younger. >> Well, happy birthday. >> Thank you. >> I'm okay. You guys want to sing? >> All right, let's let's do it. >> Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you, [singing] Mrs. Broom. >> Happy birthday, Mrs. Happy birthday to you. >> Absolutely. Thank you very much. >> Amazing job, Mr. Bone. >> I think I actually heard Eric singing, too. [laughter] [snorts] >> You know, I got to tell you, Miss Bone, you gave an incredible presentation there for my for my birthday. You threw a bag of rocks at me. I'm just saying. [laughter] >> And presentations now. I think. Oh, is it presentations next or committee reports? We do. Okay. Uh, we have two pretty important presentations to

023make. They are the final budget preparation presentations for you. Uh, these will be the final ones. We're expecting to get our state aid figures, I believe, next Thursday, which would be March 12th. So, we're highly anticipating that, although we are not getting good vibes from the Department of Education in terms of state aid. So, hold on tight. Um, but the governor's financial address will be on the 10th and sometime on the 11th or 12th, we'll get our state a figures. So, but in the meantime, we have two great presentations that we will end our present uh presentation calendar with. That would be our technology and security budget presentation and our personnel services and professional development presentation. Now, as I told board members earlier, unfortunately, Mr. Glock Malloy is under the weather. He's unable to be

024here in in person. Um, but through the magic of technology, much of which he controls, he is able to be here with us and to And there he is. Like there's little Eric right there on the screen. He's able to be with us virtually, which is almost close to uh being in person. Um, I actually kind of enjoy little Eric more than I do uh Big Eric, but um he's here because he is um doing this virtually. I figured it would be best to begin with him. So, Mr. Glock Malloy, uh, you you can hear us, correct? >> I can I can make me bigger if you want. Take a full with me. >> I think we all prefer you that size. Um, but without any further delay, um, I I give you the mic

025and uh, we're looking forward to hearing your presentation, sir. >> Thank you. Um, I do want to thank our supervisor [clears throat] of technology, Chris Manley, who did most of the setup internally today to get us virtual. Um, also Dr. Mike, who is joining me virtually tonight, also under the weather. I think there may be something going around the technology office. Um, of course Jeff on our security side, all our engineers, technicians, campus monitors, and our support staff that make everything we do behind the scenes work on a daily basis. Um taking a quick look first at what we have been working on and have completed this year 25 26 in technology. Um we have been and have consistently been able to over the last several years been able to maintain our device life cycles

026both for staff and student devices. We have been able to fund and continue to support all of our academic software. also been able to fund and continue to support all of our behind thescenes software, which most of at this point is handling our cyber security. One big achievement that we had this year was the roll out of our manage detection response software. Um, essentially just the short of it, this is something that that Mike has been working on for some time. Um, it takes a near realtime technology that runs across all of our systems. Um, constantly analyzing for threats to our school network and our school devices and now has partnered with a 247 365 response team that works with our internal team to basically detect and respond to threats as they happen. Um, just

027about as close to real time as we can get at this point. This has been a huge step forward in our cyber security response. Um, our physical security has been moving along. Um, we have been working on multi-year now for our IDF and MD IDF and MDF um, upgrades. Um, we are currently working over in Eisenhower, Truman and the middle school. We will be looking to expand this into next year as well. Um, Chris and his team have been deploying the interactive boards. Um, we are on a constant rotation just like with our Chromebooks and laptops. Um, making sure that boards are repaired, replaced, and upgraded when they wear out. The high school esports lab was completed. That is up and running and now in the hands of the high school team and the curriculum

028instruction team. Uh the new professional development management system uh with uh the professional development department has the most play in this one but technology we helped get the software up and running and some of the workflows going. It did fall into our budget so I included it here but much of that work uh really came from the team on the professional development department side. Um we have completed well that's the sil school public address system was completed uh last summer. We also had did an emergency completion of the middle school public address system this year, which wasn't planned, but we still got that in there. And we completed a systematic upgrade to our firewall technology this year. Over on our security side of things, again, much like technology, a big part of what we're doing

029now is maintaining the systems that we have in place, and we were able to do that um throughout the course of this year. um fix things that broke, maintain cameras, door access control, um radio systems, all of that has been achieved. When something does break, we were able to turn it around pretty quickly. Um we did have some holdups with all the construction that was going on over the summer where some parts weren't available or things were broken deep into the ceilings, slowed us down a little bit, but we are on top of those maintenance items. Um enhanced security communication systems. We've been constantly integrating and enhancing our systems mostly through a product called Singlewire, but trying to tie in all of our platform so that when we do have emergency communications that need to

030go out, they can go out seamlessly. Um Jeff Sprag has been working on building our emergency response and readiness supplies at each school. Uh he works in conjunction with the principles, the school nurses, uh Mr. Coleman'sburgger, anyone that is involved in our readiness teams at the schools to make sure that we have supplies on the ready, that they're updated, in good shape, and ready to go should we need them in the event of a school-based emergency. We were able to substantially increase our security coverage during the summer. Um, two summers ago, Dr. Lavy had actually asked us to look into how we could place security at pretty much any event where we were going to have students or staff in the building. And this past summer um with a few minor exceptions due to construction

031where we had put one campus monitor and building and they were now divided by construction and couldn't get to one side or the other of the building. Um we were able to cover almost every single event this summer and with no construction planned at the larger buildings this summer um that would impact security um we are intending that we'll be able to cover every event this summer. We did look um in last year's budget at two enhanced weapons detection systems. One of them, our softwarebased system, which we've talked about on some uh board meetings previously, which runs on our existing camera architecture, is now fully up and running and functional in all of our school buildings. Um, we also were looking at a hardwarebased system to enhance our check-in procedures with more efficient bag checks

032um through digital technology at our check-in stations. We did not pursue that this year as we were still vetting different companies and hardwares, but we do believe that we found a product. Um, and we'll talk about that a little bit in our 2627 budget proposal. So, with that in mind, moving on to our 2627 budget. On the technology side, um, two big items that if we do receive any state aid fund, I I would seriously ask the board and the administration to consider funding. For the first time in many years, we've only been able to partially fund our device life cycle and our one-to-one student programs for staff, students, um, pretty much our devices that go out to humans in the buildings. We will be able to fund it and supply those devices regardless. Um,

033but we're currently looking at about 50% of the funds that we need to to run that entire program for next year. That is one of the most expensive items in the technology budget, but it does essentially provide devices to everyone in the district. We were able to fully fund in the budget proposal all of our academic and non-instructional licensing software, all the things that run behind the scenes or upfront in the curriculum and instruction programs. Um, we do have a plan for continuing to increase our physical network security next year with continuing to secure our closets. Um, we did reduce this in our budget process by about $10,000, which is an absorbable amount. Um, and Aaron through her work with finances was able to fund the rest potentially through security reserves. We do not currently

034have any funding in this next budget for any more interactive displays. Obviously, they do break. they do wear out. So, this is another area. Um, we typically fund this at about $100,000. Each board runs about $1,800 to $2,000. Um, while we do not need to fully fund this line, uh, we do have money available to to replenish this line item at some level, it is a a big part of our life cycle program to continue to replace these boards yeartoear so we don't fall behind. We do have a mandatory server upgrade in next year's budget. Um, fortunately, there's no way around that. Um, we do have onprem servers still, although we've moved much of our technology to cloud-based systems. We do have some systems that need to run on site and their server hardware is

035due for a mandatory replacement next year. We are looking to replace our digital alert system next year. Um we currently use a product that works with our building based administration, our teachers, our technology department, our guidance department um both to manage what students are doing on their Chromebooks in class through a teacher component but also monitor web activity um for potential harm or violence or bullying behavior throughout the day. Mr. Nast, Miss Sakola, Dr. Abby, many of our team run this nearly 36 24/7 365 responding to these alerts. Um, we did find another product that we vetted earlier this year which should significantly help us in refining what is an actual alert and what is a false positive. It otherwise meets or exceeds what we currently have in place and it's coming in at a

036lower dollar amount. So, this was a win-win all around to to look at this system for next year. And one item that we did cut, um, Parent Square, our current communications application, um, did launch an attendance manager program this year, which is designed through parent communication, through visual reports for our administrative staff to target chronic absenteeism. Um the state of New Jersey through the Department of Ed does mandate that we have corrective action plans in place for chronic absenteeism. Um this software would significantly help our administrative teams um work through that process and be able to monitor and tracks as well as make it easier for our parents to report absences. Um that's not currently funded. Um I would say that that would be an important piece to the puzzle chronic absenteeism. um but it

037is not a product that we currently have in place. So it's not something we're losing that we currently have. It's something that we would like to do going forward um in the future. And then lastly looking at our security budget goals for next year. Um again we are looking to maintain our systems which we've been able to fully fund in the budget proposal. Um we have been able to maintain our campus monitor coverage, our SRO coverage and our police and school coverage. um continue to increase our supplies for each schools. As I mentioned before, we are looking seriously again um with Aaron's help through some of our reserves at looking at enhanced weapon protection hardware that will significantly um improve our practice at the check-in stations. Uh not in a way that we are not

038currently doing, but in speed and efficiency. Um much like airports use technology to scan bags um to see what's in them, to analyze them, to look for items of harm. Um we don't have technology like that at the moment. We currently use our security forces for that. And they are great at what they do, but giving them that additional technology will only increase the efficiency and speed in which we can um scan and analyze bags as they come into the buildings. And not that I'll focus on these much because Patrick spoke about these in his presentation for transportation. Um school buses typically if the school buses are not funded, we don't put in the funding for school bus cameras. So if school bus funding is restored, um typically restore the cameras for the new buses.

039And then Patrick spoke at length about his uh school bus AI cameras which are not currently funded in this budget. But with that, I will open it up to any questions or comments. >> Board members, just make sure your microphones are on or Mr. Glock Mall will not be able to hear you. >> Thank you. Great presentation, uh, Eric. And first of all, let me say we all wish you a speedy recovery and we miss you not being here. Let me >> let me ask you a quick question. There's obviously there's some items that aren't funded pending state funding. Are there one or two items that you feel are more important or musthaves if if we do get the funding? >> I would say that the most critical items there are the devices that go

040out to our staff and students. That's fundamental to our programs. Um the interactive boards would be second to that. Um anything else that we don't currently have funded in either budget, you know, we we can survive and we can budget for another year. They're all important pieces. um but not having the full device supplies to go out to staff and students. We will make it work one way or another, but it will require devices going beyond their life cycle. Um students and staff will have devices that are older, slower, not in as good a shape. Um we will make the system work, but that is one of the most critical pieces to keeping things running on the technology side. Um as far as devices in hand. >> Okay, great. Yeah, I have no doubt that

041you'll find a way to keep us running. You always have and we thank you for that. >> Eric, quick question for you. With the enhanced weapons detection hardware that you're looking at, I know our security officers do a f monitors do a great job right now hand searching every bag coming into the school and it slows down the lines especially at the high school and middle school a little bit. Um, the weapons detection hardware, I'm guessing, would speed that up. But what is it going to do for one of the biggest things that our security monitors find like vapes and substances that should not be in school? Is that still going to need to involve a hand search despite >> So, it depends if those things are coming in on a human or in a

042bag. Um, while there is a human scanning counterpart to the system, we're currently looking at the bag side of things. Um, it is an AI platform behind the scenes that will be managed by our security staff. We can refine the algorithm to be as sensitive or as insensitive as we need it to be. So, if we need it to detect vapes, that can be loaded into the algorithm and it will detect them. Obviously, if lots of vapes are coming in, that will slow down the detection rate. It's designed to look for weapons of mass harm. That is its purpose. Um, but as with any programming software, it can be reprogrammed to meet needs based on the individual district. >> Oh, great. So, this is not just like a metal detector kind of system that's looking

043for for weapons. This is an AI based can search for whatever we tell it to search for system. >> Correct. I'm saying hardware since the scanning technology is hardware, but it is connected to a a digital platform. Okay, great. Thank you. Any anybody else? >> Yeah, Eric. Um, regarding the enhanced student attendance manager through parent square. So, currently I know we can view um attendance records via encourse. So, you mentioned that this um ability or what you're looking for in parent square would be more enhanced so that parents are able to report it and view it via parent square. And if that's the case, then is the idea to decommission encourse? So, Encourse is our student information system which does much more than just the Encourse portal. Um, and truly the Encourse portal for parents

044doesn't get fully utilized until they get into the middle school and the high school where you can see the real-time grading. Um, parents do see attendance through Encourse. Where Parents Square will um has the capability to truly benefit parents is in the capability of reporting absences. So, right now, if you're trying to report an absence, you know, your my child's got sick today or will be out sick or has a doctor's appointment or whatever else, it's still largely a send an email, send a note, make a phone call. Um this system will work much like our staff system does where you now have a digital platform where a parent through a controlled account can log in and say that you know my child will be out my child will be you know in out you

045know out for this reason whatever may be and they can basically book that for an entire span of time. Um, that will also eliminate the need for follow-up calls from systems for parents that have already called and said, "My child's out." And then they get the call 20 minutes later, you know, just letting you know your child is out. It'll be more integrated on the parent side. On the administrator side, it provides a wealth of tracking and alert systems to try to identify trends and behaviors that may result in chronic absenteeism and try to get ahead of them. um so that administrative teams can work with the parents ahead of schedule to say oh look you're approaching this percentage you've had this many of this type of days all things that we can do with

046data and encourse right now um but it is a matter of pulling it out running reports um this provides it in a single pane of glass dashboard >> thanks for the clarification appreciate it >> anyone else I just want to say that I'm impressed that even though you're not feeling well, you put on a suit and a tie. You could have bought one of those tuxedo t-shirts and it would have been fine. >> Hope you feel better. >> Well, and and it's important it's important that >> it all worked, Eric. So, we might be prone to approving your technology budget. >> Well, see, that was Chris's job today. If it didn't work, then we were going to reduce his position, but it worked, [laughter] so he's safe. >> Thank you, Eric. Great job. Now go

047get some rest. >> Thank you. [applause] >> And our next presentation will begin with who's Dr. Agile. It's Miss Bird. Okay. Miss Bert is going to present on professional development in tandem with Dr. Agile who will go after that with personnel services. Miss Bird. >> Okay. Good evening Dr. Labby, Board of Education members, central office administration and Serville community. First, I'd like to speak with you regarding the 2526 professional development goals. As you can see, um on our first goal to continue to encourage staff input via surveys, meetings, and discussions, uh we have met our goal. And one way that we are successive successful and effective in our professional development is that we do survey uh through our Serville University after each professional development session. Uh whether it be a staff development day uh new

048teacher workshops um every form of professional development receives a survey so that way we can receive feedback from all of our staff. In the second goal, we want to we continue to focus on providing innovative and meaningful professional development and that is done through local and grant funds. Uh we have our local budget obviously which is approved and then we do uh any grant that does allow us to add professional development we do um add that so that way we can minimize the local budget as well as um under ESCA under uh titles two title two is specific to professional development um title three is for our multilingual learners um but we are that is an allowable use under uh professional development is an allowable use under title three as well. And title four, we

049also included under uh we have different sections of the grant for technology that we can include professional development um for that section of title 4 as well. Um so all of those uh assist us in budgeting our professional development for the school year. Next, to continue to expand our Seville University virtual professional learning library, we've met that goal. We use a platform called Wakelet um which you'll see a few slides uh later on. It's basically like a storage library where we can categorize if we have pictures from staff development day or we have um we collect a lot of our presenters from out of district and our um district presenters their presentations. We create colle collections and libraries and we share that Wakelet library with all of our staff so they have it to access

050throughout the school year. Um in connection to that one of our libraries within the Wakelet is our uh frontline professional growth system which Mr. Glock Malloy referenced earlier. Uh that is our new system that we put into place this year and uh you know the professional development department is very um it's collaborative. We collaborate with everyone throughout the district. Um, and the success of that this school year was really due to Mr. Glock Malloy and his um, department in technology, Mr. uh, I'm sorry, Dr. Aguileles in human resources and his team um, and all of our leadership because it really um, in order to have it be a successful implementation, everybody really needed to be on board. Um, but that is one of our specific libraries that we have stored um, in our Wakelet. So,

051we created videos for our staff for the opening days on how to perform specific tasks within the frontline professional growth system. So, when they weren't attending trainings through the year, they could go to that library and watch those videos um to have that access. Okay. And uh the last one is to continue to grow our Seville University workshops. Uh so we really have expanded um you know our offerings this year during 2526. We will continue to do so in 2627 and I have some um examples of that on later slides. Okay. due to time um and be respectful of everybody's time um I'm not going to go through each individual um bullet on our 2526 professional development highlights but I did try to break it up through different points throughout the school year but one

052really you know uh one thing that's important to note is that um you know I'm going for my doctorate right now and a lot of the discussion around um professional development in my classes is the the importance of professional development and um not being like a a one-time, you know, opportunity and for it to really be job embedded. Um and really relate to the different things that you're seeing within your district as far as uh your data analysis and as far as your district goals to make sure that everything's really in alignment to ensure that it's really meaningful professional development. And um as you look through um the chart that you see here um and I would like to um note one specific item, our district instructional um coach who's here tonight. So I want

053to thank Miss Rose Griggs for being here. Um she is s so important to all of the professional development that happens within the district. Um being in the classroom, uh she supports all of our teachers. um she's always willing to, you know, lend a hand to anyone. Um but she really uh you know gets to know our our newer teachers um specifically uh so that way they feel um supported and you're going to see that in some of the feedback that um you see throughout the presentation. but her assistance in the classrooms and her support in the classrooms as well as everything she does for our staff development days and our PLC's and our new teacher workshops. I could go on and on, but um you know she is she is such an asset and

054and wonderful um person to work with and I really do appreciate her um more than she knows. Okay. So, just a few things that I also want to point out is throughout the district funded under title two, we have our mentor induction coordinator support and you will see them in each of these blocks um because they um we have uh one at most of our schools, but our bigger schools like our middle school and high school have two mentor induction uh coordinators, but they support our mentors in the building. um they support our mentees um and they support the um you know new teachers and really getting acclimated into the district and support any questions that our mentors have uh and they are a critical support. So, I really want to thank them tonight because

055uh you know there's so much research out there on you know um teachers leaving the field especially like once COVID hit um you know and um leaving the workforce of teach the teaching profession alto together and that support in the first three years is really really really critical and that you know in large part comes from um you know Miss Griggs and our mentor induction coordinators and our wonderful mentors we have throughout the whole district. Um so I want to really um you know recognize them as well. Um some other things that we're going to look at is you know our professional development you'll see in each of the months is very continuous. Um you know we work some with some amazing consultants um that are in our classrooms know our staff have built a

056rapport with them. Um one example Dr. Coons who works with us for literacy um in our pre-K and our elementary. Um he worked with us and and you know we had our new literacy mandate this year um for the screener. Uh he did an additional support for our teachers and with um you know our dibbles being implemented. He'll be doing sessions on the staff development day. So for that being, you know, new to us and in addition to all the support Miss Gman and and um Dr. Burns um provide in our supervisor team, uh he's another layer of support um which is really important um to our staff um and supports our literacy goal throughout the school district. Um, and I'm not going to open it now, but there is an hyperlink to our Seville

057University Wakelet, which I mentioned is that professional learning library. So, if anybody wanted to peruse that, um, please feel free to do so. Uh, we also offer, um, CPI training um, you know, uh, and you'll see some upcoming, um, topics at the bottom. Classroom management, Vonic, Bora training, all of these in a nutshell. um all of these opportunities come from our district goals aligning with our district goals. Um data analysis and what we see um where we can help support our teachers and students in the classroom and new programming and mandates are things that um you know come about such as our literacy screener and providing that professional development that was new this year. Um so that is something we wanted to ensure everybody was supported with um to be successful and um I'd be

058remiss if I did not mention and I was going to mention them a little bit later our district professional development committee. So they you know our committee Dr. Labby forms that with our principles and myself but they are me members from every school building that help us and support us on our staff development days. um we meet um I want to say it's five times a year, but they give us such great input and they're with you know their school families all year long. So um we take their input very critically into everything that we do for professional development um because they are the ones with their boots on the ground, you know, in the buildings hearing, you know, what everybody needs. And we want to make sure that doesn't matter what our role is

059in the district, all of us can grow. when we really want to make sure that meaning prof professional development is provided. Okay. And again here this is uh as I mentioned in the beginning each of our um professional development opportunities um has the and is administrator uh I'm sorry administered the survey. Uh so I give a few examples up here of new staff orientation, staff development day and new teacher workshops. And our new staff orientation um you know typically happens in the end of August. Uh and you know you can read through the comments but there's a lot reflecting um our mentors and our school buildings providing the support um under new staff orientation that they feel supported and knowing who to go to for support um because that's really going to help us sustain

060our staff um in the district and make them uh and help them be successful. our staff development day. Um, one of the comments that I I chose to just point out is I thoroughly enjoyed both of the sessions I attended today. I learned a lot in the Dibbles training that will help me manage my classroom data. Dr. Labby was fabulous as always and had had us engage the entire time. uh you know and then we also have our new teacher workshop survey data and it talks a lot about um you know the importance of the new teachers having that time through our Serville University being able to come together during the school day being with um all other novice teachers and learning from the experts that are within our own district. Um we and you

061know if I showed you all of the survey data that um Miss Griggs and I read through um there is such a large emphasis on how well planned our district presenters are uh when they come and they present at either new teacher workshops um or a new staff orientation. everything is really meaningfully crafted um in order to provide our new teachers the best support. And I'm I'm super proud of our um induction program um that we have here in the district. And and I just want to mention as well, I know Miss Dr. Aguilles will mention it, but we have the human resources team here. And we couldn't do professional development without them either. uh because we work together on, you know, mentors being assigned um you know, for all of the new teachers. Um

062Miss Flanigan, you know, once we put the new teacher um staff orientation together, you know, she's helping and advertising our new staff orientation during the summer. Um and uh that is a large credit to human resources as well. Okay. So for coming up on our June staff development day, June 2nd, uh we are heavily um engrossed in the planning for it now. Um we will have three sessions and uh we are very excited that um two people and sitting in front in front of me actually three um Dr. Labby and Miss Bloom and Dr. Agileies will all be presenters at staff development day because they're very popular and favorites. Um we will have uh three sessions that day. Um and uh the the the afternoon session will focus more on like an SEAL component which

063we're really excited about. And um new this year we will have a spark gallery and culminating digital resource. So um if you were with us last year uh there was a lot of work put in for 4 days the PLC committee came together and formed a whole new framework um they are they were um from all over our district different roles um you know uh and they really did an amazing job at putting that framework together. So, um, our district professional development committee came together, um, very recently for our last meeting and we decided that all of the PLC, all the hard work that the teachers are doing on those half half day early dismissal days, what's the best way to share that information? Uh, so it was a collaborative effort. We came here, we

064met in the boardroom, all the district PD committee members came together, they got into groups um and they decided that it would be helpful to have a spark gallery at staff development day. So that's going to be um basically a one-page submitted by each of the PLC teams in the district highlighting their research that they did throughout the school year as well as a culminating digital resource and that was through collab collaboration with Miss Gman uh was talking about what's you know what's the best way to do that and um she said oh let's put something on the website let's get a resource together so um we shared that idea during the district PD committee and and um a lot of our team members really liked it. Um so that is new and innovative for

065our staff development day. And then our summer learning workshops are coming up. They are tenative dates because we are waiting for commitments and of course board approval um for the all the consultants that we will be working with. Um but the tenative dates are listed there. And along the same lines, they help prepare our teachers for the following school year. um due to different data that we see in the district align with Dr. Labby's goals for the district um and really just set our teachers up for success for the 2627 school year. So even though we did meet our goals for um they really are critical to continue um so a lot of them we are continuing which you'll see on this slide um and we will continue to work towards we uh implemented the

066frontline professional growth system in so many um effective ways this year um but it does have a lot of great tools and resources such as a survey feature. So, we do, as I mentioned, we do a lot of surveying, but we do it through um Google Forms. So, we're looking at bringing that survey piece over into Frontline um because that was our goal, everything being cohesive and in one place. So, we're experimenting with the survey feature now. Um and then in regards to our budget, uh you know, that always includes uh nothing different there. our out of district presenters, our in district staff presenters, um funding for our staff to be able to go out to workshops and the travel that's associated with that. Um prof minimal professional development supplies and reimbursement for um professional

067memberships. Uh the only thing that was not um uh kept in the budget that we would like to see come back, which I'm sure Dr. Agile will speak about as well is the partnership that we have with Ed connective um and that's that uh professional development uh virtual coaching um so if there is the funding we would like to bring that back okay I am finished with my part of the presentation happy to take questions if anyone has any >> so first of all I just want to thank you for pursuing your your PhD and congratulate Miss Burns on completing her PhD D. Um, >> Dr. Burns, [applause] both of you show an incredible commitment to not only continuing your education, but adding value to our district. Your hard work not only adds value to

068our district and to our community, but more importantly to our to our children. So, I want to thank both of you and commend you for for an incredible job that you do. Thank you for that. >> Thank you so much. >> I I have a question. Um, I did hear some rumbling on Facebook about uh something homework help or one of the tutoring things was cancelled due to not to not enough funding. Is that true? >> We haven't had anything. >> That's not related to this presentation. But no, that's untrue. So, if you're talking about the um tutoring on demand, >> maybe. Yeah, >> it wasn't. >> It's definitely something to do with tutoring. >> You just approved it. >> Okay. >> Two meetings ago, you approved it. So, um, you know, that's >> funded.

069>> It's it's in this budget for the 2627 school year. What's not in the budget that Miss Bert mentioned right now is the coaching for the teachers. >> Okay. >> The online coaching for the teachers. As Miss Bert said previously, um Miss Griggs provides coaching for all of our first year teachers. And then we use the online coaching which has been incredibly successful for our um non-tenure teachers in grades I mean in years two through four that at the moment has been is not budgeted because of the cuts we had to make. But the ondemand tutoring is in the budget for next year and you just approved it for this year. >> All right. Thank you. Okay. I saw that too and I believe it was again an anonymous poster who said a program that

070my child is in uh after school for after school help is being cancelled because of lack of funds. So you know I always love the anonymous post. >> So and if so if it's for after school help I'm I'm not sure what it is that that person whether it was a program. >> We have our literacymies and our mathmies. Most of them are in the morning. Um, we have you guys approved tier three tutoring all the time on our budget. I mean, in on in our uh business meeting agendas. So, I'm I'm not sure what that person is referencing, but unfortunately, things like that get posted on Facebook all the time. >> Yeah, it was it was incredibly vague and it was anonymous and >> it mentioned the school. >> It didn't even have many

071many comments under it. So, I don't know how >> it did mention the school though. >> No, it didn't mention school. >> It didn't mention a school. Can I saw something else with a different? >> So I'd like to ask you one other question. Um, >> absolutely. >> Regarding professional development and future workshops, do you envision is there anything coming up or do you envision a time where we have professional development or workshops relating to LLMs or AI for our teachers? >> Yes, actually that is um part as of right now. I work very closely obviously with Mr. Glock Malloy on um because we have all heard I'm sure all the benefits and uh dangers of AI. So um we have some uh proposals that were submitted for our summer learning program um you know

072regarding AI uh which we're currently reviewing. Um and yeah, we're we are open to it and we you know we know it's it's something that um you know is is important moving forward. We just are careful in the way that we um we make decisions about what gets shared and what doesn't. >> Right. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else have any questions? >> Just a question regarding um the ed connective you mentioned. So is there anything right now that's used in lie of um that virtual coaching since ed connective isn't available for two to four years? Oh, well, we do have the ed uh ed connective contract currently. Um, and that will go through the end of the school year. Um, this would be for, you know, uh for next school

073year for 2627 moving forward. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you, Miss Bert. >> Thank you. >> And Dr. Drag a [applause] I'd love to go but Jet took all my time. Thank you everyone. Uh behind me are the people that really make everything work. Uh and two out of the three of them are se seated there. Uh Jillian Flanigan is the person that our staff goes to uh on their happiest times when uh they're talking about adoption or child birth and on some of their saddest times when they're talking about um the passing of a of a loved one or an illness. Um she deals with our FML, our leaves of absence. Um she's incredible and she's the first person to to really stay on the phone with

074people and help them out. She also has become the uh kind of the pitbull for uh our substitutes. And I mean that in a great way. She she's like a a dog with a bone when something's not going right with our certification for our teachers. Uh she's on the phone and writing emails and uh she gets to the bottom of it and because of that we get uh all the certifications that we need emergency uh emerging or not. Um Karen Havens uh who who is not here tonight uh is integral in our position control data entry. Um we're able to put somebody in a classroom as quickly as we can due to the work that um that she and Jillian do together and getting everybody up on board. And our newest member, Maen, uh she

075is uh she keeps Jillian and me in line. I'm not going to lie. uh she controls the calendars. She controls the um big job. She controls the calendars, but she also controls um setting up interviews for us so that Jillian can do as many interviews as possible. And then um she again because of the way our team works. Uh Mida is the one who follows up on paperwork, making certain that people are getting our paperwork to us as quickly as possible, so our subs can be in the classroom as quickly as possible and our uh teachers can be in the classroom as quickly as possible. Because of their work, uh we are at a all-time high since uh since 2019. We are covering more classes. We're at 65 to 75 percentile coverage on a daily

076basis. Uh we also have as far as certificated staff, as uh Mr. Callahan alluded to last um at the last meeting, we're down to five certificated staff uh positions that need to be filled. Three of those folks will be returning uh now in March. So it's the best year we've had and that has a lot to do has everything to do with the people seated over there and real very little to do with me. They they they really deserve the credit. Um, a couple of our goals for 24-25, we created a diverse coalition of teachers to collaboratively develop an action plan to help us increase our diverse hiring because of some of the suggestions they made as well as uh them helping with um promoting our job fairs and promoting positions that are open. Uh

077we've gotten a lot of recommendations from folks that have turned into positions. So, we're grateful to them and we're looking to to partner with them again. Uh, we're also looking or we um we have this ongoing although we didn't meet it, we'll continue to work with it, expand the leadership capacity within the next five years to create a district and building leadership succession plan. It's extremely important. I I believe that the future of the district uh really is in the hand of those teachers who are in the classroom now who have aspirations to be administrators and administrators at the building level who have aspirations to be at central office. Uh as those of us in central office have aspirations of retiring. [laughter] Uh, one of the things that you may have noticed if you visit

078our schools is that uh, a number of our vice principles are now filling in at the elementary schools for the principles when they're out on short-term leaves. Uh, we also have supervisors who are doing the same thing, filling the same capacity. What that means is that we have people in district, leaders in district who are learning to uh take on those building responsibilities and at the same time are people who already understand our security protocols, our safety protocols. Uh which makes it much easier uh for us to to ensure that the safety of our students by having uh administrators who are already familiar with the district and our protocols covering. Um they alluded to this when the principles spoke, but one of the things that we did uh was create a student advisory committee at

079this level at the four five. Uh their first year was last year. We did a uh we focused on actually attendance with the fourth and fifth grade because the work we've done with the middle school and the high school uh trying to to reduce absenteeism. we're seeing more and more that they talk about when they were younger not coming to school. So, it was one of the pushes that we did in the fourth and fifth grade was to discuss why students choose to stay home. Uh why they're not why they're not coming in. Uh a big part of what we learned from our fourth and fifth graders is that they have their cell phones in their bedrooms which prevent them from getting the good night's sleep that they usually will get because they're getting text

080messages um you know 11 12:00. Uh so we we do challenges like can you keep your phone out of your bedroom for a week. Uh unfortunately most of them fail. Uh but we're trying hard and we're getting the information out to parents as well. It was so successful in the fourth and fifth grade that we actually this year implemented it uh student achievement committee uh a student advisory committee at the elementaryaries specifically targeting third graders. and because of what we'd learned, we did the same thing with them, talking about attendance and the importance of coming to the building. So, those are the goals for 2425. Some of the highlights for 2526, even though we're still in it, uh we have continued a partnership with a connective and they provide teachers in the district with personalized

081coaching. That's one-to-one coaching and mentoring uh to improve classroom best practices. And we have seen it from uh we have seen it when we go into observations. Teachers that we might have had some questions about h have huge turnarounds. They they go from you know maybe having classroom management issues to fixing those issues and then we target things like questioning and higher order thinking. um and to the principal they they sing the praises of those folks that are getting that coaching and and it's really making a difference as far as teacher retention as far as excellence in the classroom, best practices in the classroom. Uh, one of the reasons I believe that we've been so successful is uh, with Ed Connect is that through their partnership, we've also been able to provide our new administrators

082with one-to-one coaching uh, as well as administrators uh, who are more veteran and haven't maybe been in a class in a while. They took advantage of coaching opportunities. So, we've had, including myself, we've had um, six administrators get that coaching as well. And it has made a difference. I can tell you has made a difference with us because we're all speaking the same language so that when we're speaking to our teachers, especially our novice teachers, um we understand what they're going through with the coaching and we're taking advantage of that and moving our building and our districts forward. Uh we successfully ran two career fairs. Again, couldn't do it without the team uh I have there. Uh we ran one in April where we were able to hire a number of folks for September and

083we just ran one now in January where we were able to hire a number of uh substitutes as well as a couple of custodial folks and uh some leads in uh for our cafeteria. Um I already talked about the substitutes. I'm not going to talk about that. And uh our two goals for culture and climate for 2526 um as I talked about with our student advisory committees, we're trying to leverage attendance and student discipline teams at all schools for the purposes of decreasing chronic student absenteeism uh and overall behavioral infractions, particularly those in the violent uh nature. I got it. And um we want to enhance the management of staff professional learning and training by coordinating the full effects of the implementation of the frontline professional learning management software which Mrs. Bert uh discussed. And

084what you really want to hear is our staffing needs for next year. Uh I split it into two uh into two spots uh needing to be replaced. We already have an idea of what teachers are going to be out next year. Uh and you see that on the left hand side. And then as you heard through all the budget presentations uh at the beginning of uh January, these are the new staff requests that are currently cut from the budget. And hopefully we'll be able to uh put them back in once we know what our state aid is. And not quite three minutes, Mr. Smith, but I gave it a good old college try. Thank you, Dr. Agile for great presentation and more importantly, thank you to your entire team for the excellent work you've done.

085>> Yeah, like I said, they really do deserve all the credit. They're a phenomenal team and and we work very well together. >> All All of you done an incredible job, not only filling these positions, but filling them with high quality individuals that are representative of our community. So, I want to thank you for that and and your entire team. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any questions from anyone? >> I do have a question. So, um, the Ed Connect was brought up in two different presentations. What is the cost associated with that? I know that it was cut from the budget and it expires this year. >> Uh, it it was >> about $160,000 just under. >> And that's for the teacher portion as well as the administrative correct portion. >> Um, and the

086other question, the other question I had is could you elaborate just a little bit? You say that human resources goals for 2526 to leverage attendance and student discipline teams at all schools for the purpose of decreasing. Can you just elaborate a little bit? >> Yeah, that's our culture and climate part, not really the HR, but uh along the same lines uh what we've been doing over the last four years starting with the high school was we wanted to hear from the students what they thought was working, what they thought wasn't working, and what they'd like to see different. Uh and from there it led to the middle school, uh the UEES last year, and now the the third graders this year. Uh what we're trying to do is get kids into school and we're trying

087to figure out why it is that some students choose not to come into school. And [snorts] having been an elementary school principal in three out of uh three out of the the seven buildings, uh what I've noticed is that there are patterns that get established early, kindergarten, first grade, because it looks like, well, it's kindergarten. You know, Miss Burns, uh Dr. Burns could talk to you about u can talk to you about the fact that uh preschool has the same thing that that preschool probably has uh one of the more difficult attendants and and it's difficult to get them there. So we're trying to find out what's preventing students from showing up whether it's issues on the bus which you know uh Patrick and his team have done a great job and Eric uh and

088our and our principles have done a great job of of preventing issues on the bus. Um, but the digital platform, you know, for for a $10 alarm clock would replace a lot of the issues that our students are having because when I ask students to keep their cell phones out of their out of their bedrooms that say, "Well, that's my alarm clock, you know, in the elementary." So, we're trying to get the message out to parents. Buy them a $10 alarm clock and keep those electronics out of their bedrooms in, you know, in the kitchen or even in their even in their own uh spots because a lot of things are happening at night. Our students don't want to go to don't want to miss, you know, that text and that alert. Uh and some

089of them that do want to miss it are afraid that they're going to, you know, be ostracized if they don't answer. So, it it's a problem because they come to school tired, they're falling asleep, uh or they just decide they don't want to come in uh come into school. So, we're targeting uh absenteeism from as many different vantage points as possible to make certain that our students are coming, you know, are coming in and feeling better about coming in. I can tell you that using utilizing uh student advisory committees has changed school culture and climate substantially. Uh Mr. Glowusky talked about it uh a couple of weeks ago, but um school spirit at the high school has changed dramatically in just four years. Four years ago, uh you know, when we talked about school spirit,

090they were kind of like, eh, now they have ideas of what they want to do with school spirit. There's much more attendance at at the sporting events, uh and other events, uh you know, the the the shows and so forth. And that all came from suggestions and ideas that they brought up to us that we were able to implement and that we keep studying. So, uh it's it's in unison with all those teams. It's not a one it's not a one person or one building um solution. It's a team approach on multiple different uh facets and and that's what these teams are doing. >> Thank you so much. Thanks for explaining. >> Anything else? All right. >> How do you communicate with the parents? I have a question. You mentioned the the >> you communicate

091with the parents of the kids that are not coming or you communicate with all um >> the communication. >> Yes. The communication with parents of students who are not showing up uh usually is either the vice principles or the principles. That that wouldn't come from me. Those are letters that they document. and also phone calls that they make. Guidance helps with those situations as well or child study team if they happen to be uh um student receiving services. Our goal is to just try and figure out why you know we're looking at um Mr. Little Eric was talking about uh he was talking about how encourse is underutilized in certain in certain aspects. One of the things we are utilizing is the analytics of encourse that allows us in real time to see our students

092who are absent uh and to check trends and patterns through through encourse. So, uh like I said, it's multifaceted and we're using every every um resource we have to combat that because we know it's a it's a huge problem and and we're trying to uh reduce it as quickly as possible. >> All right. So, take one last comment before I let you go. If you find the secret recipe to getting kids to give up their devices, can you share it, please? >> Uh, I don't think uh I'm going to find it in [laughter] my tenure. Um, I think the secret is no secret. It's parents >> parents, >> you know, if parents would just make certain that those devices don't go into the bedrooms and stay in the kitchen or stay in in their own

093bedrooms. um students, you know, the I I said that we challenged students. The students that did fulfill that that one week without the cell phone in their bedroom, they said they slept better. Um they they were less anxious when they came to school. They were better prepared. So the the secret is is parents and making certain that they're keeping those devices out of the bedrooms when, you know, when it's time to go to sleep. >> Great. Thank you, Dr. Agalise, and thank you to your team. Thank you. [applause] Now on to board discussions. Mr. Npalitano. >> Okay. So the governance committee met last Tuesday and we discussed an update on the district-wide installation of the AI weapons detection system in all schools. We we reviewed information from the New Jersey Principles and Supervisor Association regarding

094the new internet enabled devices in school law and summarized new guidance from the NJDOE office of the school preparedness preparedness and emergency planning. The committee also review se reviewed several newly introduced bills in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly related to the public education, including a proposed cursive writing bill that would supersede the cursive writing legislation recently signed into law by um Governor Murphy. >> That's it. >> Thank you, Mr. Palitano. >> Welcome. >> Any questions on governance? >> Now we move on student achievement. Miss Bloom. >> Okay. Good evening. Um the first thing that we discussed in student achievement was uh the change to the curriculum 11th grade PE which was an update to meet the standards and this is the last uh one at the high school that needs to be updated. The

095next was co-curricular where we approved a bad mitten uh which is a new team and we want to thank Mr. Mahoney and Mr. Coleman for volunteering to coach that group. Uh the next was assessments and dibbles which is what has been spoken about but um the universal literacy screener update K through three midyear assessment is done and we performed better than the standard. Coming up in March is the NJ GPA and in April and May is the NJSLA/ NJS l high school [laughter] and that just rolled right off my tongue. High school, middle school, elementary. Uh this is the high stakes testing. The next item was for the summer um WebEx sessions at night for parents. Um but there will be offered the AP boot camp credit recovery which is 6th through 12th grades who

096need it. uh learning acceleration and camp XL which will run from July 6 through August 6 and that is funded by title one three and four. The next item was professional development and I think Miss Burke covered all of that. Um all of the inclusion with the staff and partnering with presentations and finally grants the FY26 EA grant. Uh we are now getting access to the carryover funds from last year. Um, also climate change grant, we're looking into that and the students are going to be involved uh in a summit at Rutgers. And then learning acceleration high impact tutoring grant we submitted and we're hoping to receive that. And finally, again, the bilingual students, we had 26 this year. um one triilingual and for the 27 school year we have 33 students already that are

097bilingual and that's it for student achievement. >> Thank you Miss Bloom and to not change topics. >> Oh me again. [laughter] Okay. Uh Middle Sex County School Board Association update. Dr. Labby and I and um Sharon Miller who is the president of the Middle Sex County School Boards have been working diligently to get our unsung heroes banquet up and running. This year it will be held at our own Sville War Memorial High School on Thursday, March 26 and we are coming down to the wire on finalizing all of the details. So we're excited to be having that here to honor the students from Middle Sex County. >> Thank you, Miss Bloom. Now I'll open up to the public for any questions on agenda items only. Seeing none, we move on to our superintendent. Okay, if

098I can bring your attention now to finance, uh, beginning on page two. Number one, we're asking you, as we always do, and we're so thankful for the DuPont Corporation for giving us this scholarship, but we're asking you once again to approve a scholarship um provided by them of $2,000 for two of our teachers who are listed there to participate in the National Science um teachers association convention. Um, this year it's April 15th to April 18th and it's in Anaheim, California. And they pay for all expenses. So again, we can't thank our our our neighbor Dupont enough for for doing this for us every year. And on top of that, they also provide us with donations for supplies and so forth. So they're very very gracious to us and we're we're very appreciative of it. Number

099three, which can be found on page two, we're asking you to approve the daily rate. Uh, it's a new substitute position. It's a substitute bus mechanic position. Um and the daily rate would be $225 and we'd like that be to be effective March 4th which would be tomorrow. Next one is number four which can be found on page two. We're wrapping up things with regard to the referendum and we do have a change order to ask you to approve. It's for Venorv Electric. And that was for the uh cost associated with JCPNL uh hooking up uh new transformers at the Eisenhower School, Truman School, and the Upper Elementary School. And the amount there for that change order is $11,788 19. And of course, that's from the bond referendum. Any questions on those items or anything

100else from finance and infrastructure? Um Dr. Labby for finance and infrastructure on page five where it references the Liberty Science Center field trips. I remember we um had approved back in October [snorts] um the field trips. Was there a change? It wasn't clear to me like what was the change? >> I don't I don't believe there was a change, but Miss Gman, you want to uh add on to that? >> If there was a change, it would have been in bold. >> I'm sorry. Can you just clarify the question for me again? >> For um on page five, so um items 7E and 7F, they're referring for approval for um for field trips to the Liberty Science Center, but I thought we had approved that in October. >> So when we use the um the

101Liberty Science Center uh trips are being paid for through a grant. So it's actually a two-step process, and I know it's very confusing, but we have to collect all the evidence when it's related to a grant. So because these are being paid for by a climate change, the first time you guys approve them, it's the use of the funding. The second time you see it, it's the transportation um is the approval. So it lists it twice, but it's the same. It's all part of the climate change grant. Got it. >> We also do that if a trip is related to like title three or title four, title one monies. It's just the way that they make us document things when it's title grant funding. Did I get it right? >> Yeah. Okay, good. You caught

102me answering Dr. Burns's question. I apologize. >> Sorry if I have a follow-up question to that. Um here I see that's only two, one on April 8th and one in April 9th, but the one in October was three days including the 10th as well. So >> it is three days. I think that the um if I'm not mistaken, it's either on the addendum or it's going to be on the 17th, but there are three days. Um one of the trips, I believe it's the ETH is going to be the trip that the nurses attend. So, we are doing all three days, but they had to work out the transportation. >> Got you. Thank you. >> Yep. >> It's the entire grade level is going. >> Wonderful. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Okay. So,

103let's move on to student achievement. Beginning on page five. Number one, unfortunately, we're asking you to approve the long-term suspension um of several students. Number two, which can be found on page six, we're asking you to approve a calendar change in the marking period for grades 6 through 12 due to the hazardous weather days um that we had to use um and close schools [snorts] back in February. And hopefully, God willing, we won't have to close school anymore because we are out of snow days. So, number three, which can be found on page six, as mentioned previously, u by Mrs. Mrs. Bloom, we're asking you to approve the uh revisions to the 11th grade physical education curriculum guide. And of course, as Mrs. Bloom also said on number four on page six, we're act asking

104you to approve that bad mitten club. Any questions on those or anything else on student achievement? But I think that's pretty much everything on student achievement. Okay, moving on to governance. Um, we talk about our bittersweet moments and this is another bittersweet moment we have here for a board member. Um, and we'll we'll take more time um to to thank her on March 17th, but um I'm really sad to ask you to approve and accept the resignation of Mrs. Chakowski as a board member effective April 1st. And like I said, uh we'll we'll take some time on March 17th. Many pages, many many pages. Oh boy. Um, >> I'm voting now. >> Moving along to personnel. Um, we do have a more bittersweet moment, but I'm going to I'm going to move on past them

105and come back to them. So, let's jump to number eight on the agenda and number 26 on the addendum. Number eight can be found on pages 101. And of course, as we do all the time, we're asking you to hire new um non-certificated, in this case, employees for the 2025 2026 school year. And numbers 9 through 11, we're asking you to prove the transfer of both certificated and non-sertificated staff for the school year. You can find that on pages 11 and 12. And finally, as I referenced earlier in finance, we had you approve the new substitute position daily rate. And number 12, we're asking you to approve our very first substitute bus mechanic uh for this school year. And of course, you can find that on number on uh page 12. And that is number

10612. So, moving back to our bittersweet moments, we are asking you to graciously accept the retirement of two very beloved staff members. So, let's begin with um Hugo Alkalia. He is our one of our most beloved Spanish teachers at the high school. But love beloved by our students, our staff, and and by myself. Uh after more than 20 years of dedicated service to Sarville War Memorial High School, Hugo Alkalia will retire this June, leaving behind a legacy that has touched the lives of hundreds of students. An amazing man and an even more amazing educator. Seenor Elcalia poured his heart into the world languages department. In fact, his AP Spanish classroom and his work as an adviser of the Spanish honor society um will will be treasured um for many many years to come. He has

107took tremendous pride in his instructional craft and in guiding his students not only academically but in their lives. Senor became beloved for his annual tradition of bringing a marry achie band to the Spanish honor society induction ceremony. A moment that students and families look forward to each year. Superintendants looked forward to it each year. Uh a mentor to many including me and an inspiration to all especially me. He will be deeply missed. We wish Senor Elcalia the very best in his welldeserved retirement. Uh, and Feliciades. Uh, we we wish him feliciades. So, um, but did I say that right? >> Close. >> You had a Portuguese accent. >> Portuguese is Feliciadis. Anyways, um, but on a personal level, um, I got to know Hugo pretty soon after I came into the district and, um, he

108is just first and foremost, he's an extraordinary person. And he's a person that I would have loved all of my children to have had the privilege of being in his class and getting to know him and um being, you know, in in the in the position where in which they can learn and become better human beings because of it. Because that's what he does. He doesn't just teach children another language. um he helps these children mature and grow into upstanding and responsible young people and that's probably what I admire most about him and he does it in the gentlest and the warmest way. So his style um just was so fresh um so appreciated um and the outcomes that he produced were just extraordinary. So, uh, he's going to be deeply missed by everybody. So,

109we wish him all the very best in his well-deserved retirement. Um, and I am one that wished that you could vote no on this and that he would stay. But unfortunately, um, he can't. So, um, on behalf of the faculty, staff, and of course the board of education, we wish Hugo the absolute very best in the next chapter of his life. >> Dr. Lavy, may I? >> Sure. Um, I had the privilege of working with Yugo when I was at the high school and as Dr. Labby said, he is the nicest, the sweetest, perfect gentleman. Always very supportive. Um, always had a smile on his face. Um, just the nicest person to work with. So, I'm glad I had the privilege to work with him and I wish him all the best in his retirement.

110But I am voting no. >> Yeah, I don't blame you. Next. This one hurts too. Margaret Ritter um who is uh the principal secretary over at the middle school. Margaret Ritter has devoted the last 23 years to the students and staff at Sville Middle School. In this time, Margaret has made an absolute profound impact on the climate and the culture there and on all the staff and students. Her warmth, compassion, and attention to detail has left a lasting impression on that staff that she so tirelessly supports each and every day. Her kindness and empathy resonate with everyone she comes in contact with. Through her leadership, the middle school office is a place where students and staff find support throughout their day. The pride Margaret takes in her work and in our schools is as evident

111today as it was when she started back in the in the district back in September 2003. The impact Margaret has had in the Savville community will be felt for many years to come. She will be sorely missed and not easily replaced. Um, I had the opportunity to really get to know Margaret when I served as the interimm principal over at the middle school several years ago and I will always be forever in her debt for the warm nurturing manner in which she took me into that school. um you know being superintendent and coming into the school and working in that capacity um was a little challenging and I um she immediately took me in made me feel welcome there and I immediately got to see that um she's an extraordinary administrative assistant but she's a

112a leader in that building um and someone who is deeply respected by all the staff and the students and someone that again immediately um not only earned my respect but my reverence and I will always be grateful to her uh for that. I think the only flaw is that she is a new New York Jets fan but I think we can all live with that. Um seriously no I think I owe her a couple of copy coffees too because I think when I was there the Jets did beat the Patriots. Um if Jimmy was here, he would correct me on that probably, but uh um she's a magnificent employee and an even better person and by the way has a wonderful family, two of the members of which are incredible employees in our school district

113as well. Um so we can't thank her enough for the impeccable service that she has provided our school district. Um, and most importantly to our students and our staff and we we wish her the absolute very best in the next chapter of her life. And Mr. Fernandez, that does wrap up my report. >> Thank you, Mr. Lobby, for wrapping it up. We appreciate it. No, excellent presentation. Um, we'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. >> So move second. >> Miss Pabone and Miss >> Npalitano Npalitano. Roll call. M. Shut up. >> Mrs. Bloom. >> Uh, yes. But I have to abstain on page 12, number 12, and also on page 16, number 22, the professional days. I have to abstain on the first teacher listed. >> Mr. Callahan. >> Yes. Mrs. Chkowski. >> Yes.

114>> Mrs. Hernandez. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Maldonado. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Npalitano. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Pabone. >> Yes. >> Mr. Smith. >> Yes. >> Mr. Fernandez. >> Yes. >> Now I open up to public for questions on any items. >> Not everybody rushing at once. Okay. We're closing uh public then. Any comments from our board? >> Uh, yes. At this time, I would like to propose that the board create a policy banning all open flame candles at all districts, events, and ceremonies. >> I'll second. >> Okay. >> Bloom and Mr. Smith. So before we vote on proposal, I just want to explain to you my concern about this. Um if anyone has attended the National Honor Society induction, it is a beautiful ceremony. We take nothing away from that. Those students are magnificent. Their

115adviserss are magnificent. However, the fact that we have to get a waiver from the fire chief in order to have the open flame candles should be a red flag. The fire chief has to be present with a fire extinguisher and a fire blanket. And again, if you have attended, you know that our students march in from the back of the auditorium carrying the lit candles, walking one behind the other. God forbid anybody trips and lights the kid in front of them on fire. Uh I believe Mr. Smith can attest to this. Polyester gowns don't burn. They melt and they stick to the skin. This would be horrendous. Also, the fact that at the end of the ceremony, the students relight their candles. So, they have the lit candle in one hand. They're then handed a

116pin and a flower in the other hand. And now they have to climb up onto the risers and they stand one behind the other with the lit candle on the risers. If you have ever stood on a riser, you know how close you are to the person in front of you. And last year, one of the young men who was going all the way up to the top stumbled and pitched a little bit forward as he was facing the back of the stage where the curtains are. And I I gasped, but he was okay. So my rationale here is that if we are here to preserve the safety of the students, to me this is an accident waiting to happen. I would not want to be responsible for anyone getting burned or getting injured. And

117I also believe that Woodbridge has a policy where they have also banned open flame candles. >> Mr. Fernandez, I'd like to make a rebuttal comment if you don't mind before you go and vote. Um, this topic has come up before and the board then didn't agree with it changing the policy. When Mrs. Bloom brought this to my attention several years ago. Uh we went ahead and we asked Mr. Glusky to talk to the National Honor Society adviserss to talk to the students to see if you know what their feelings would be with regard to discontinuing it with those those fake candles. and they all unanimously felt that it would really hurt the tradition that has been set forth for decades without issue. There have been no problems. And what they have to do is they

118have to file for a permit. It's not a waiver. It's a permit. A permit to have the candles. At no point has our two fire in three fire inspectors provided me with any any feedback at all as to that being a problem a problem for them or for anybody. Um and they freely come every year to ensure obviously if we're doing that that nobody gets harmed. You can see them there. They have never articulated having a problem with that. nor have they ever articulated to me or anyone that this is something that we should be discontinuing because it's unsafe. So, I just wanted to make sure that I expressed that to everyone just so you have that information too before you vote. >> Mr. Fernandez, can I just comment on that? >> Can I just

119jump on again? >> Okay, go ahead. Jeff, >> so I don't disagree with you, Dr. Labby, but I'm agreeing with a ban going forward. And it's not just calling out the National Honor Society. It's opened flames at any school event. We can look in the past and say we've done a lot of things that have never caused a problem, but had the potential to cause one. Thankfully, they didn't. But we've improved. We have technology to improve. We have safety devices to improve. We have lots of things to improve. It's great that we have one of the fire marshals at the school, but I do believe in past events, if there's a fire call in the town, they do leave. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um, but even a couple years ago, I I think the technology

120has advanced to the point that Broadway shows use artificial candles. The opening closing ceremonies of the Olympics used artificial candles. If we can use a technology that could prevent something from happening in the future, I don't see how we could not vote for it. If we can possibly prevent something from happening in the future, god forbid a kid burned themselves, they set the curtain on fire, any number of things, and we didn't embrace a change because, well, it's always been that way. I think we'd be remiss. Can I can I say >> yeah? >> I I see both sides and I'm just trying to maybe suggest a reasonable compromise. Can we keep one traditional candle lit at the front where no students would go and then the students have an LED candle? Then it would

121still have the >> They're all on stage, Chris. They all walk past. >> I don't I don't want to create a policy that seems like it's singling out the National Honor Society because I don't want it to single out. >> But that's what you would be. But that's who open candles. >> Nobody no open flames or in anything else. >> No. >> But >> I I'd like to say I would like to add that I believe the students um who are attending the National Honor Society se celebrations. It's not like everybody's running into the gym with their lit flame and flinging around and you know it's very controlled. It's very slow moving. It's not fast. Um, and I think they are very careful. Um, I think with the way the candle is, it has the

122little um, wax catcher. Okay. This tradition has been going on for a long time. This board, I believe, um, you may have already voted. I'm not sure about you, but I already voted against changing the policy. And I believe most of us have, except for maybe you guys, because you are new, like you didn't vote for it yet. So, but everybody else on this board that's sitting here did vote against it, changing the policy. Um, so you know, I think that Lucy's been on the board for how many years? 12 years. And she's only brought this up twice as a vote. And it's only been recent. So if it was such a danger and people could get burned and our kids could get harmed, then it should have been um something that was considered >>

12312 years ago. >> So, you know, if it's that important that >> and they're not >> why would why would it be the vote be delayed and not even considered for all these years? I can see Lucy's points and your point, but I no it's this one is hard for me. It's it's a tradition. I understand that. But so what else we can do to prevent that this happened? We have the fire department and everything, but what else in that stage we can do? For example, given more space between the kids, seating the roads because I I know they go in the stands in a row. Maybe a little bit more space between the rows. You know what else we can do? So we can >> we can consider that but we've taken all the

124recommendations provided to us by the fire inspectors. They they basically have told us that the ceremony that we are doing is safe. Otherwise they wouldn't issue the permit to us. But we could certainly consider spacing people a little bit further if we needed to. >> That I would agree with because you know spacing will help. >> But they're also not 5-year-olds. They're 17 and 18 year old kids. They know how to handle a candle. >> Correct. Many of them are adults are about to become adults and and our best >> 18-year-old makes a bad decision. >> Well, they're they're also our best behaved. But more but more importantly, our I have tremendous respect for our fire marshal and his insight in in this area. This this is what he does for for a living, 40

125hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and it's his area of expertise and he's deemed it safe. So, I'm not going to supersede his determination on it. And and I understand about well, there's a pos possibility of of something happening, but we have to look at what that probability is because we can say that about everything. We we can say, well, we shouldn't have cars in the parking lot because people can get run over. That's far more dangerous than than than carrying a candle, but we have cars in the parking lot, right? Um, so each of each each item that we look at, we have to yes consider the risk, but also the probability of that. And I think this one is so minute that the benefits far far outweigh the the risks that that

126we're having. >> Like you're saying about the parking lot, my child almost gets hit almost every day in that parking lot. We drop off. >> Yeah. Overwhelmingly, we we have a much much higher probability by orders of magnitude of someone getting get hurt in our parking lot from a car than we do from someone getting getting hurt from the candle. So, if we're going to ban the candles, maybe maybe we should also consider banning cars in the parking lot >> and football because somebody could get hurt. They could break a leg, become a quadripedric. Let's but ban softball. Let's do everything to protect the kids so nobody ever gets hurt. >> I mean, listen at all. >> If I may interject, I don't think that that this issue can be dismissed so flippantly. I think

127that there is a safety concern here. We are talking about open flames and not just one but I don't I have not attended an honor society uh celebration uh but how many children how many children are we talking about on average that are allo holding an open flame >> you more >> so this is a valid concern and and a fire marshal can give every assurance in the world based on his experience based on the probability that still is not to say that an accident cannot happen it there is a possibility that that someone's clothing could ignite or their hair could ignite because they get a little too close to one another. I don't know if they're standing on risers. Risers are not three feet behind the row in front of you. You are directly

128behind the person in front of you. So if they are using standard risers on a stage then that flame you know you you know unless you're going to space out those children like we did for COVID you know you're not going to separate them far enough where there so I just wanted to say that I don't believe that the possibility of an accident happening can be dismissed so summarily I think that there is uh you know a chance of it happening and if there's a chance that we can prevent that probability um you know I I'm for banning it because I think with like Jeff said you know there are uh you know in many areas where candles would normally be used where there are artificial candles being used and I was sharing uh you

129know uh earlier before our meeting um you know with Katya and lady that you know I use them in my home I don't use flame candles in my home uh you know I use them and my family had to ask whether they were real or not they looked so real so there you can purchase and then budget wise it would be something that you would just use each time. It wouldn't be new candles being purchased every time. So, I think that there's pros and cons. I'm personally for um if we can if we can prevent an accident, you know, from happening, especially with fire, I'm I'm for going the safer route. >> Is there a possibility that we can talk to space and more? >> Yeah, absolutely. I as as I said earlier, we can

130I can talk to Mr. key to talk to the adviserss, see if we can spread them out a little bit more. Yes. >> Well, I think to Lucy's point regarding number one, I think people walking in with the candles already pre-lit. I think she mentioned that. Um, is that a possibility to have them light it when they're on stage? Maybe that'll reduce that concern. Another thing is the risers. Uh, she mentioned the kids stumbling. Maybe, you know, not use the risers. Is that a possibility? Well, the tradition is having the candles for the ceremony. So, we're not talking about having no candles at all, having an artificial candle where the flame looks real. They're still having their candle ceremony, you know. So, I understand that there's a part of the ceremony where they're relighting their

131candle or such a modification can be made to accommodate having an artificial candle. >> That's that's the the tradition is that they're lighting the candle. They're going up to the big candle and lighting their candle. >> Um, that's the tradition. I believe they don't. So they what they do is they light their candle from the big candle. >> No, they walk in with the candles lit and then when they sit down, they put them out. Then as each child is called up, they relight it from the candalabra in the front. But I've also spoken to people where they do the in districts where they use the artificial and they have said to me that there is a remote where you can have that candalabra and the adviser can click on that candle and then the

132student can you know turn on their own candle because each candle has an on and off button. Um but when we discussed this the last time and you know Dr. Labby said that the adviserss were fine with staying with tradition and I pointed out to him that god forbid anything happens. It's not going to be the advisers that are going to be called to explain. It's going to be us. It's going to be this board of education who had an opportunity to forstall something serious and did not take it. >> And and just a correction, it wasn't the advisers were fine with it. the adviserss were advocating not to change it. It's not the advisors were like, "Oh, we're fine with doing it where we're doing it." No, we went to the adviserss to see

133if they would be okay with potentially changing it and the students and they were very much against it because it would have taken away from the tradition and the spirit of the ceremony. >> And these kids worked very hard to to to get to this point. Um, as a father of a daughter who who who went through this, I asked her. She was one of the ones that well at the time had hair. I know Miss Bloom and others will remember her her her hair was long to us say the least. Um, she doesn't want us to change this. Neither do any of her friends. And they all feel that they that their ceremony would be greatly reduced and diminish their their their accomplishments if we change this. >> Yeah. I have to do a

134roll call vote. Okay. >> Okay. Mrs. Bloom. >> Yes. >> On this issue. >> So, you're you're you're Mrs. Bloom made a motion >> and Mr. Smith >> to have a policy that there are no um open flames in the building. So, if you're voting yes, you're voting yes to this new policy of no open flames. Okay. Is that going to also affect other organizations that rent the building like the Hindus that do the festival of lights? Like is this going to I know that we do rent throughout the whole building. >> So nobody then even though it's a religious ceremony would be able to have lights either. >> Correct. >> And and would this also affect any of our science classes or art classes? Um they use >> if you make a stained glass

135do they use flames? We >> so we should end those classes proposal was added >> policy set events and ceremonies >> is that what >> supervised classroom use of a Bunson burner does not fall under that category. >> Well, see that that I find mindboggling because a Bunson burner is going to be far more uh >> and you're not talking 50 kids. You're talking a group with a teacher who was right there in front of that flame taking care of it. >> So just for clarification purposes, Mrs. Bloom, it's for events >> anymore. What >> do we even use buns and burners anymore? >> They're there are open burners. Yes. Do we So this is just for what did you say? It's for events, >> ceremonies and events. >> For ceremonies, events. So again, this

136is what you're voting on a policy banning opening open flames for events and ceremonies. >> So Mr. Smith, let me ask you a question. If we're if we're so concerned about any possibility of of someone getting hurt with this, why wouldn't we then apply this to our art classes, our science classes, and everything else, which a Bunson burner burns ex infinitely hotter than they can? >> I think like Miss Bloom said, there's it's a different environment in a classroom when you have a fewer, smaller group with direct supervision. I think the distinction also needs to be made that we're not talking about children aren't walking around the room carrying burner around and they're not each holding a Bunson burner and standing in an organized group on risers. So let's just make that distinction that we

137are talking about two different things here >> and let's let's also keep in mind that Bunson burner >> are we talking about open flame because open flame is open flame no matter what type of projection is given the open flame. So to me, kids in a class, okay, that could be goofing around, joking around, one teacher, okay, they could absolutely get burnt by any kind of flame in that classroom. So I think that, you know, we can't just say, "Oh, it's only for honor society or it's only for ceremony." When open, if you guys are seriously saying that our students could be burned and harmed and that we could be sued, then that applies to any open flame. >> I would agree. We should burn ban it in our classes. So for the sake of

138time so for the sake of time if that if that's the way you feel then your your your vote will represent that. So just for the sake of time the motion that was out there I'm just going to repeat it again and um Mr. Bashad you correct me if I'm wrong. I think Lucy's motion was a motion to ban all open flames in the building for events and ceremonies. This is what you're voting on right now. Okay. It's a yes if you agree with that motion if with that policy to ban open flames during events and ceremonies or if you don't agree with that policy it's a no. Everybody understands how their vote is going to come in. >> Okay. So I think we started off you we started off with Mrs. Bloom. Yes. >>

139Okay. Mr. Callahan. >> Yes. >> Jeffy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Hernandez. No >> pelotano. >> No, >> Mrs. Pabone. >> No, >> you forgot >> Mr. Smith. >> Forgot. >> Miss Maldonado. >> Oh, I forgot. Um, Mrs. Maldonado. >> No. >> Okay. Mr. Smith. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Fernandez? >> No. >> Okay. One, two, three, four yeses and five nos. Motion fails. >> No. >> Any other comments from any of our other board members on any matters? >> I'd like to make a comment. Um, just I mean I know has mentioned it before, but I just want to formally introduce to you Dr. Audrey Burns. [applause] >> Unanimous nine. That is awesome. >> Yeah, that is 9. Can Can we let the record show that >> on achieving her doctorate in educational leadership? >>

140We are so very proud of you, Audrey. And um she happened to actually send me over her dissertation and just scanning over it, I felt embarrassed with my own dissertation because it is amazing. Um, and it's just an example of her extraordinary work and why she should be very, very proud of herself because we all are very proud of her. >> Congratulations. [applause] I do want to say though um you are very good at what you do and you have made I mean I remember when you first came on board I'm always skeptical when everybody comes on board and they say oh yeah I'm going to do this dude then Dr. the lab. He talks about them like they just came out of heaven. And uh I'm always sitting here like this. So you really

141you have made a great impression upon me and you did everything you said even more. So thank you so much for worrying about our youngest students that really matter and given them a great foundation. >> What Eileen said, >> no seriously. >> [laughter] >> and the food. >> All right. Any other comments? >> Uh, yes. I just want to say I hope we're all looking forward to reading this week for our students. Anybody who's >> I'm so excited to be going to Arlith on Friday. >> And I just told Audrey I found a box that my sister had given to me. She was the director of a nursery school where I have story books with the stuffed animals that go with them. So I'm gonna leave them with her for her her little ones. >>

142So our next meetings is Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 and Tuesday, April 14th. >> For St. 26 volunteers. We should know >> we can get a pint after. >> All right, sir. Can I get a motion to close? I'll >> move. Second. Uh, >> all in favor? I >> I The eyes have it.