001off uh with approval of the superintendence report. So at this time we are now going to open up the meeting for the reception of visitors. And at this time the public may address agenda items only. Uh if you have any items to address from the agenda, we ask that you come to the podium and please state your name and address and please keep your comments to a 10-minute time limit. And I'm going to ask if our attorney would be so kind as to move the chair away from the center. Each of you I'll hold the chair so you don't Yeah, my chair will leave too. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on to somebody. hold on to his chair or take that one back with you. Thank you, Mr. Parton. Okay. Is there any member of the public
002wishing to uh address the board for agenda items only? On first call, on second call, and on third call. Seeing none, this public session is closed. There will be a public session later on in the meeting to address any items of concern for the board of education. At this time, we're going to go through our committee reports starting with athletics and extracurricular. Mr. Budson agenda at this point. Okay. Thank you. Buildings and grounds. Vice President Nielsen. Nothing on the agenda tonight. Madam President, thank you for finance. Mrs. Well, I'd like to read a brief summary before um presenting the motion. So, the agenda includes approvals for a variety of contracts and grants for the 2526 school year such as a safety grant, food service renewal, multiple mental health evaluation and special education services provider. It
003also covers professional development services, construction projects, technology upgrades and equipment purchases including chair mats. Additional approvals involve tax requisition, senior award donations, -ate wiring projects, substitute services, and professional development for expanding AP course access to our students. Having said that, um the finance committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the items 8.1 through 8.18 with additional items 8.19 through 830 on the agenda as listed. Thank you. Our instruction committee, Mrs. Bush. Sure. Couple things before I read our statement. Um Dr. had our staff very very busy this month. Uh SEAL was the topic for professional development back in April. Um scheduling is off and running. Um probably nearing completion. We have some mock schedules and some preliminary teaching assignments. Um yes, we have
004a new and I'm going to skip all ways around AP Spanish. We now have a partnership with Middle Sex County College for dual enrollment credit. And we already talked Dr. mentioned earlier AP psychology has a new course for the future for next year. Uh she also mentioned something Dr. Travisano mentioned is that K5 literacy program um that we've been establishing and taking a look at have a committee that selected that program um and testing right the New Jersey student learning assessments in ELA math and science um underway that's all I have for his report I do I would like to say that the instruction committee after a review of all the items on this month's agenda and upon the recommendation of The superintendent recommends approval of items 9.1 through 9.6. No additional items on the
005agenda as listed, including routine items. That's all I have. Thank you, Mrs. Bush. Uh the next committee under negotiations. There are no items on the agenda this evening. However, we do have a meeting scheduled for May 19th. So perhaps we'll have a uh committee report next month. Policy and legislation. Mrs. Bush. The policy and legislation committee after review of all the items on the monthly agenda and upon the recommendation of the superintendent recommends the approval of item 11.1 with no additional items on the agenda as listed including those items. Thank you for our human resources. Mr. Bezac. Thank you, Madam President. The human resources committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the items 12.1 through 12.20 with additional items 12.21 through 12.23 on
006the agenda as listed including routine items. Thank you. Uh Mrs. Saddowski, safety and risk management, please. Thank you, Mrs. Urbanic. The safety and risk management committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of item 13.1 with additional items 13.2 through 13.3 on the agenda as listed including routine items. Thank you. Thank you. Uh at this time we are going to have a motion for a consent resolution. Ready, Mr. Rosa? Ready. Okay. So the South River Board of Education by means of a consent resolution adopt various resolutions of routine and non-controversial nature at one time and whereas the below listed resolutions are hereby adopted by the said board of education in whole as if the same were individually acted upon and those are under president of
007the board 2.3 to 2.5 under board secretary 3.3 under superintendent of schools 4.2 2 under um finance 8.1 through 8.3 under instruction 9.1 through 9.6 under policy and legislation 11.1 under human resources 12.1 through 12.23 and under safety safety and risk management 13.1 through 13.3. Thank you. Do we have a motion for that resolution? Neielson move the consent resolution. We have a motion by Vice President Neielson. Is there a second? Second. By Mrs. Law. Pick somebody. All in favor? I. Thank you. Motion carries. We have a committee report from our school board. Burough council lia is on committee. Vice President Nielsen. nothing to report, but he's in the audience tonight, and he did show up at the baseball game at the Trenton Thunder, which was nice to see the support coming all the way down
008here. We really appreciate that, Mr. DSantis. Uh, and again, he does bring things out at council meetings. So, we are getting the word out from the good things at the uh school district on both ends. That's all I have. Nice to see you, Mr. Dannis. Thank you. Uh, for our PTA liaison, Mrs. Saddowski. Thank you. I do have a couple updates for the primary. ELC uh PTA bookf fair is going on at primary this week. Um they are also hosting a Somerset Patriots fundraiser that is on Saturday, May 17th. The link to purchase tickets is located in the ream as well as on Dr. Leeman's uh weekly email that she sends out. Um your books are also on sale. Um, teacher appreciation week is next week and the PTA is looking for donations to stock
009the teachers lounge. Um, all that information can be either found on Facebook or I do believe there's also a link in Dr. uh Liberman's email that she sent out on Friday. Um, elementary school PTA, they are selling RAMs blankets. Uh, yearbooks are also ongoing and they are collecting fifth grade uh, baby photos for the yearbook until April 30th. and they are looking for volunteers to help at the fifth grade fun night on Friday, June 13th. That's all I have. Thank you. That's a lot. Thank you. Our residency committee, Mrs. Young. Hi. Uh just a reminder to all of our fifth grade students or the parents or guardians of them that we are conducting a residency reverification and the documents are the residency proofs are due soon. So, you should get those in. That's all. Thank
010you. And is our our student board representative? She's here. She's here. Do you have a report for us? Yes. Um on Thursday, April 24th, the language courses hosted a cultural night where students performed Spanish dances and songs as well as French songs while the ASL students interpreted and the French for honors class and AP government went to a went to a went on a trip to the United Nations. Thank you. And is there any old or new business to come before the library? I don't I know because Mr. Rashard mentioned it that Miss B. Yes, I did. South River Public Library liaison is on. Okay. On uh Thursday mornings, the library has a walking club that they do at nine o'clock. You start at the library. This Thursday, the adult book club will be discussing
011their book on on Wednesday. Pilates is for adults on Fridays at 3 p.m. Yoga is on Mondays at 400 pm. At May 6, Cinco de Mayo with Chef Nick at 6 PM and May 20th, adults craft, which fills up for you soon. So, if you want to do adults craft fire, go online and sign up. That's all I have. That's a lot. Also, thank you. Thanks for reminding me. Um, Mrs. Urban, can I also take the opportunity to review once again um some of the items on my superintendence report. Um, I know that the board already um passed the report, but I'd like to review those again. Of course. Um, we do have a a calendar change that we want parents to be aware of. May 16th is now a full day for all students
012and staff. And May 22nd is now an early release day for students and a full day for staff for professional development and for preparations for our annual curriculum fair. We also have a new chat bot on our district website and this chat p this chat bot sorry is for our community members and um family members to be able to access information on the desk on the district website easily. Um we encourage you to please use that chatbot. Um and here you can type a question and the chatbot will link you directly to that information from the website. So, please be on the lookout for that. Um, we also spoke about the new turf field. It is now in full use. We did use it in the fall for soccer. Now, we are um this spring
013using it for softball and baseball. And we're asking the community to please cooperate and keep that field clean and safe. Um, at this time, the field is only available through permit use only. Um, no pedestrians are permitted on any part of the field when they are in use by instruction and athletics. And that field is not only used for a afterchool recreational activities, but it's also used during the day by our students for PE classes for elementary and middle school as well as um recess for elementary students. So, that field is in full use throughout the day. and we really do ask for the community's support in keeping that field clean and and maintained. Um, we included a link to our school performance reports on our ERAM from last week and we're asking parents to
014please take a moment to take a look at the data in the school performance report. But to also consider that those school reports are based on state assessments um and not necessarily the whole picture of what our students do each and every day. But some highlights of the report are um that we have significant improvements in our SAT scores which exceed the state average. Graduation rates also exceed the state average. We're also exceeding the state average in terms of the number of students that we have with the seal of biiteracy dedication on their graduation diploma. Um and we continue to participate in the required state math assessments of course and meeting the annual proficiency rate for federal accountability there. Chronic absenteeism continues to be um a concern for us. Uh we have seen some improvement.
015However, we are really really um encouraging parents to work with us to make sure our students are attending school regularly and on time. Um, but please make sure to use the link that I've included in the report as well as our e-ramp to access our reports. And finally, our curriculum fair is um coming very soon, May 22nd from 5 to 7:00 p.m. This year, we're replacing the Star Lab with a petting zoo um which should be a lot of fun. We are also doing our annual art show over at the middle school. academic programs, clubs, activities are being represented at the high school and a wellness fair is going to be presented at the ELC. So, we encourage everyone to come out and join us on that day. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um, any
016old or new business to come before the board? I just wanted to say uh as an herbatic in the superintendent report, Dr. Zer mentioned that the South students excelled or exceeded state average SAT scores and a few other items. I just want to uh thank uh Dr. Zerard, administration of staff for their hard work and thank you. I think that's a big uh significant sign. We have amazing teachers um who work with our students and and are really diligent about making sure they're prepared. Madam President, yes sir. If you see U Miss Canard's dream, Principal Canard's uh report, monthly report that the American Sign Language had a field trip to New Jersey Devils game on March 24th. Um the teacher, Mr. Gariel, was asked to uh step out on the ice and to sign the
017national anthem. I I know a few of his students attended that game with her and they were thrilled to see their teacher out there on the ice signing uh the national anthem and to be uh I want to thank the Devils for inviting her to to do that and for uh supplying tickets for the students to attend. That's all I have. That's great. Thank you. And do we have any other old or new business at this time? Do we have a report from our attorney? Yes. For executive session. Okay. Thank you. Uh payment of bills. Mrs. L. Thank you. The finance committee recommends that all bills presented having been certified by the school business administrator board secretary be paid as listed and I so move. We have a motion by Mrs. L. Second. And a
018second by Vice President Nielsen. All in favor? I. Thank you. Motion passes. Uh, at this time the board is now going to again open up the meeting to the public and at this time you may address any concern or comment that you have for the board of education. If you do come to speak, please state your name and address and please keep your comments to a 10-minute time limit. on first call. My name is Sheri Garrettson. I live at 153 CAM Avenue. Just wanted to address the topic of artificial turf as you were talking earlier. I and I was passing by the other day. I could see that you've installed it next to the elementary school. I would like to urge you as a member of the environmental commission to strongly look into if you're
019thinking of putting any more artificial turf in. And I'm just going to read a little bit. It'll be much less than 10 minutes about the downsides of artificial turf. Artificial turf releases toxic chemicals when spread on a play surface or yard, especially when exposed to sun, rain, and other weather events. Continuous activity on the artificial grass like running also breaks down the grade blades into microplastics. These tiny pellets of plastics can be easily inhaled, ingested, and dermally absorbed. But these microplastics don't just stop there. The tiny pellets also migrate widely outside the fields and yards into our homes and storm water runoff. While natural grass absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen, artificial turf does the opposite by releasing CO2, methane, and a variety of chemicals. Chemical analysis of artificial turf conducted at Yale University found
02096 chemicals, 20% of them probable carcinogens. In addition, artificial turf contains highly toxic PFAs or forever chemicals linked to a lower childhood immunity, endocrine disruption, and cancer. Children are especially vulnerable to inhalation, ingestion, and dermal absorption as they are lowered to the ground and breathe more quickly. On top of the chemical makeup of artificial turf, it is also impermeable. Unlike natural grass, it requires harsh chemicals for cleaning sweat, mucus, spit, blood, bird droppings, etc. that remain on the surface. And while natural grass has a cooling effect, artificial turf absorbs heat and can become dangerously hot. Um, I want to read something by a former professional football player who was president of the NFLPA, is now their strategy something chief strategy officer. This is JC Treader. As a rookie learning the ins and outs of being
021a professional football player, I remember the collective groan that my older teammates made whenever it was announced that we'd be practicing indoors on artificial turf instead of usual outdoor grass field. I played almost exclusively on synthetic turf in college. Once I started experiencing both surfaces interchangeably, I began to understand exactly why my teammates disliked the practices on turf. Whenever I practiced on an artificial turf surface, my joints felt noticeably stiffer the next day. The unforgiving nature of art artificial turf compounds the grind on the body we already bear from playing a contact sport. First, a bit of physics. Professional football players put extremely high levels of force and rotation onto the playing surface. Grass will eventually give which often releases the cleat prior to reaching an injurious load. On synthetic surfaces, there is less give,
022meaning our feet, ankles, and knees knees absorb the force, which makes injury more likely to follow. The data supports the anecdotes you'll hear from me and other players. Artificial turf is significantly harder on the body than grass. Based on NFL injury data collected from 2012 to 2018, not only was the contact injury rate for lower extremities higher during practices and games held on artificial turf, NFL players consistently experienced a much higher rate of non-cont lower extremity injur extremity injuries on turf compared to natural surfaces. Specifically, players have a 28% higher rate of non-cont lower extremity injuries when playing on artificial turf. Of these non-cont injuries, players have a 32% higher rate of non-cont knee injuries on turf and a staggering 69% higher rate of non-cont foot and ankle injuries on turf compared to grass. Earlier
023this year, NFL and NFLPA tasked artificial turf manufacturers with developing a Whoops, sorry, it cut off there, but let me take it up lower down. Okay, the data is clear. So, everyone involved with our sport should be similarly motivated to make the switch. For players, we we can be stronger advocates for ourselves by continuing to to demand safer standards. For coaches and general managers, building a successful team is much easier with a healthy roster. For NFL owners, any decision shown to protect the most important investment, the player, should be a no-brainer. Climate and weather are not barriers to natural grass practice or game fields. Cold climate teams like the Packers, Steelers, and Browns successfully maintain natural grass fields. Indoor stadiums shouldn't be a barrier for grass fields either. The Cardinals and Raiders have figured out
024how to provide a natural grass playing surface indoors. Agonomically, natural grass field surfaces are possible everywhere. Okay. Um, our occupation is dangerous enough and the increased rate of lower extremity injuries linked to the field surface we are forced to play on is unacceptable. The NFLPA is advocating for teams to convert artificial practice in game fields to natural grass fields. And I think if you look in in communities around ours, the tendency is to go away from now from artificial turf back to natural grass. I believe East Orange is going that way. I I don't want to quote because it's been a while since I looked into it, but um I just urge you, we have an environmental commission. Um part of our mandate, part of the reason we exist is to advise our community on
025things that have to do with the environment. I mean, plastic grass is bad for the environment. That's a given. But when we're talking about the safety of our children, um let us help you. We'll we'll do the research. We'll bring you the the facts, but but please look into these things carefully before you do them. And I would strongly urge you not to put any more artificial turf into our community. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other member of the public wishing to speak on first call? on second call. Good evening. My name is Sue Walker. I live at 13 Can you speak into the microphone, please? Uh, good evening. My name is Sue Walker. I live at 134 Jackson Street. Um, thank you for letting me attend my first
026board meeting. I'm excited to be here. A little nervous, but um, I have two concerns. One of them being the parking space right outside the high school here at the intersection of Lexington and Montgomery. I have a son who is in L E L E L E L E L E L E L E L E L E L E Lc. And driving home after school, I have found on multiple occasions that it's a blind spot, that last parking space right in front of the pedestrian crossing. Um that it is a it could pose a safety hazard. Um, on more than one occasion, I've come up to that crossing and I am unable to see small children behind that car parked right at the pedestrian crossing. And I would hate for someone to be injured
027um, in the future. I hope this is the right uh, place to bring my concern. Excuse me, I'm very nervous. And um secondly, as a parent with a child who's been in preschool for two years, uh one thing that I have seen over the two years is um a little bit of a lack of uh communication. And in speaking to parents uh amongst his class, it seems like a very strong consensus uh when it comes to like days off or half days. um we feel like it could be uh communicated more effectively or more stronger. There are parents who like week of a day of with half days are completely clueless. Um and I'm as a whole I'm sure that comes with the teachers, the principal, it's not just the board of education, whoever is
028making these decisions. Um and as a parent, I don't know exactly who's making these decisions. I have brought my uh concern to Dr. Lieberman directly within the last I would say like 30 days, 30 to 60 days, but it is a consensus in speaking to other parents. Um I think uh a recommendation would be just either robot calls. I do go through my emails, which I try to get to it every week to make sure I don't miss anything, but I know a lot of parents are not as thorough or maybe busier. Um but uh I suggested to Dr. Lieberman that the half days or the days off or anything that's going to change outside of the norm be kind of um gone or run through or a bullet point email maybe at the top
029of the month so it's not so last minute. Um again my only suggestion at this time would be you know just really drilling it in. Like it's so hard these days with the kids and jobs and everything else that people have going on when there are last minute changes to like the snow days that are being taken back. Um, you know, luckily for myself, I can only speak for myself at the time, but I have a a support system so I can make quick arrangements, but I know that there's probably lots of families who don't have that or they don't have a system. and I my my family and I we are fairly new to South River. So we don't have a strong system in the community. So it's really you know us and whatever
030that's more personal but um I would like to encourage the board to maybe look into a more effective way of getting out the information to parents. And I do have one question for you. Um, this weekend I was looking for the school schedule for next year because my mother needs to request off like vacation time to cover days off and I was unable to find when the first day of school is or when the fall break is and where I would might I be able to find that information. So, the best place to always see our school calendar is our district website. If you go to the district website, there's a calendar on the front page and there's two ways to look at it. You can look at it by month. Um, and you can
031also look at the year as a whole. So, our new calendar is definitely there and you could be like a a good person to try be the first to try our chatbot and put in there, can I get the district calendar for 2526? It's going to take you right to that link and you can print out that calendar if you can and just I don't know. I was a mom. I kept it on the fridge. Um, but even on that yearly calendar, it shows you which are the days that would be potential snow days that we'll take back. Okay. Um, so that way you have your whole year planned ahead. Okay. But I would definitely the best source is a district website and the website also does have an app for your phone. Okay. So,
032you can see the information on the district website through a device or you can actually download the app which is the interlocking SR and you could have it right there on your phone too. Okay. So, I should be able to go to the website now and pull up connect the 2026. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to try it right now. Yes, you should. You want to be first? You're going to typing it in right now. I just want to see how it how it comes out. The latest news, Sylvia. Mhm. It's under latest news. Under latest news, type in where's the calendar over here. So, it is in the latest news um as well. So, if you look and and it gives you the link if you put it in the chat box, it
033will give you the link for the calendar for next year. Okay. So, let me make sure I'm on the right. I'm on senj.org. Yep. Okay. S riverenj.org. And I have to go to latest news. Yep. If you go to latest news, there's a link to the calendar there. And then also, if you go to the little South River emblem and that's where the chatbot is. You can ask that and it will find it for you. Okay. I'm trying to find the latest news. If you can imagine if I was trying to do this this week and it couldn't find it because I just kept going to calendar. Okay. So, and I would find the last calendar. I do not see latest news, but I see I think I see the chat box you're speaking up.
034Okay. And we can definitely take a little time and help you navigate. Absolutely. I don't want to take up more time. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you, Miss Walker. Is there anyone else from the public? Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Erlene Darus from and my address is 52 Kofax Street. I noticed that on the finance um portion, I wanted to know in terms of with the approval of the contracts, is there a particular website that you uh the South River School District uses in terms of like if a person is a contractor and would like to provide services um to the school district, is there a particular website? Which contracts are you refer um in terms of when I looked at the finances and it
035talked about the approvals um and it mentioned who got grants or particular business right contract correct will speak to that please um sure either Mr. Roser, I could speak to that. So, the contracts that you see on the agenda are contracts with different vendors and we do have to follow a statemandated process in order to be able to contract with specific vendors. Um, we can't just, for example, order something from Amazon, right? Um, like you do at home. So, we have to go through a very specific process. So, there is no website per se. Okay. Um but we do um get a lot of our vendors from the ESCJ commission. Okay. And if you go to the ESCJ commission that um you would see that they have a list of um vendors that have approved
036state contracts, for example. Got it. They may or may not be contracts that we participate with, but that would be an example of where you could seek that information. Awesome. You said E E S C N J. Okay. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public wishing to address the board at this time? Again, on first call, on second call, and on third call. This public portion now is closed. Uh at this time the board is going to go into executive session. So be it resolved that pursuant to sections seven and eight of the open public meetings act the following subjects be discussed at a session of the board of education closed to the public and those items are attorney client privilege and personnel. It is presently anticipated that
037the items to be discussed in close session can be disclosed to the public when resolved. Is there a motion to go by Vice President Nielsen? Is there a second? Second. Second by Mrs. Saddowski. Mr. Rosa, could you please call the role? Mr. Bez, yes. Mr. Budson, yes. Mrs. Bush, yes. Mrs. Lao, yes. Mr. Mr. Nielsen, yes. Mrs. Saddowski, yes. Mrs. Young Gao. Yes. Mrs. Urbanic. Yes. You know, may we ask that everyone please clear the uh auditorium? The board is going into a close session agenda. Hey, Matt.