001Can we all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, please? >> Yes, of course. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Melissa, can call the roll, please. Mr. Andre? Here. Mr. Paul is absent. Mr. Giovanni is absent. Miss Hollingsworth? Here. Miss Calderon? Here. Mr. Share? Here. Mr. Sanfilippo? Here. Mr. Toth? Here. Miss Wajdowicz? Here. Notice of the April 13th, 2026 meeting of the Board of Education was emailed to the clerks of the boroughs of Essex Fells, North Caldwell, and Roseland, and to the Township of Fairfield, and the editor of the Progress on January 8th, 2026 and the Star-Ledger on the same day. I don't really have much to report. I just want
002to welcome everyone back. I hope everyone had a nice spring break, and we're on our last leg of the school year. Um, and I hope everyone and enjoyed their time. Oh, that's a good point. The middle school play is this weekend. And uh we also have academic uh achievement day this coming Wednesday, which I'm sure Miss Westervelt will uh speak about. I'll cover some of that in my report, too. Yeah, okay. All right, good evening everyone. Um I'm pleased I'm also pleased to welcome everyone back. Um I hope that all of our students, staff, and families had a enjoyable spring break. We were excited to welcome our students and staff back today as we begin this next stretch of the school year together. Um just some highlights. Um our spring athletic season is officially underway,
003and it's always energizing to see our student athletes back in action. I encourage family members and community members to support our teams by attending athletic events and reviewing athletic schedules available through our district website. Um week of April 13th, we have a number of important events going on this week. Um on Tuesday, April 14th, uh our we have our National Honor Society induction at 7:00 p.m. in the high school auditorium. On Wednesday, April 15th, it's Academic Achievement Day. That's pretty much an all-day event in the high school. Um and we extend our congratulations in advance to these students and our appreciation to their families and educators as we look forward to honoring their accomplishments and the positive contributions they continue to make. On April 17th and April 18th at 7:00 p.m. in the high school
004auditorium, West Essex Middle School will proudly present its spring musical, High School Musical Jr. Our students and staff have dedicated weeks of hard work and preparation and we look forward to an exciting and memorable performance. We also are looking forward to Take Your Child to Work Day on Thursday, April 23rd, where we have a fun-filled day of hands-on activities planned. Our staff has developed engaging experiences for students, including science experiments, physical education activities, art projects, and interactivity interactive activities in the library. With regard to the referendum, uh we continue to make steady progress in our referendum planning and community outreach efforts. The Communication Committee has officially begun its outreach with 30 participants responding to date, helping to ensure transparency and community involvement. A referendum presentation is uh currently scheduled for our Board of Ed meeting
005uh for May 11th. Uh presentations this evening, we're welcome we're excited to welcome several presenters. Uh Dr. Michael Federman, our interim science supervisor, who will provide an overview of the science department. Mrs. Laura Drago, supervisor of world languages and social studies, who will share highlights from her departments. And West Essex High School grade 12 student Ryder Sable, who will present his independent study in child and developmental psychology completed under under the supervision of high school teacher Mrs. Caroline Blanchard. We look forward to hearing from our presenters and highlighting the important work taking place across our school district. That's all I have for this audience. Let's start with uh Dr. Federman. When you come up with your presentation, sure. Good evening, Madam President, Superintendent Machozi, Assistant Superintendent DeLiberto, Mrs. Administrator Board Secretary, Miss Kitta, board members,
006fellow administrators and guests. I'd like to present to you the my overview of the science department. And I'm here to tell you that Oops, that's not where I'm supposed to be. What happened here? I'm here to tell you that the state of the union is strong in the science department. And just as a side note, not not that it means a whole lot necessarily, but I'd say that the state of the union here in general is strong. We have an amazing group of teachers here. The administrative team at the both the high school and the middle school are on top of things. And it's it's a great place to work, so I think you should be proud of of the work that you're doing as a board to guide along Machozi this district, so congratulations
007on that. So, as I said, let's talk about the science department for just a few minutes. You know, I got here early tonight and I figured, you know, as any good public speaker would do, I'm going to go down to my office and grab I have notes and my my portfolio duffel bag, and and I go in there and I I I'm trying to get into the school. I can't get in. I don't have those permissions anymore. So, you know, I can't remember the last time I didn't have access to a district school that I was working in, but in any case, well over a decade. In any case, that's that's the story. I am a civilian once again, and I thought I would share that with you. So, with that in mind, I'll do
008the best I can to keep it short, and the notes that I wrote down, well, I'll do the best I can convey those to you. So, what I'd like to do first is introduce, or reintroduce, as the case may be, the science department, the folks that are in it. Then I'll talk briefly about Um oh, I'll show you pictures of who they are. Then I'll talk very briefly about the district goals, and and through my lens, from there, how both the high school and the middle school students and staff are meeting those goals. Then I'll talk briefly about what the staff, the science department staff, have been up to in terms of professional development under the the guidance of Assistant Superintendent De Alberto. And then I'll end with uh two two student two graduates that
009uh I was put in contact with, and um I'll talk a bit about where they are today. All right? So, let's let's do this. Whoops, here we go. Okay, so here's the team. There are a lot of new names here. Um I'm not surprised if some of them are not familiar to you, but uh there they are. We have a total of eight non-tenured science teachers. And the special services folks that we work with, three of them are non-tenured as well. So, there's a lot of mentoring going on. Um I want you to know that some of those non-tenured teachers have decades of experience. And so, to have them brought in, and to have them assist with their neighbors across the hall, has been great. And they've done just that, so uh the work is
010being done, uh and we're all proud of that. So, here are the team members. Uh I won't mention them by name because I might not know some of them. No, I'm kidding. I know all their names. Um some of them weren't present for the photo, but it's a great group of people and I'm really happy to be working with them. So, here are the district goals as I mentioned. You're probably very well aware of them as they're always on the top of Superintendent Michaud's mind and in his uh reports, I'm sure. But, career readiness and real-world learning and positive and inclusive culture. So, again, what you'll see next is through my lens how the students are reaching those goals. So, here's some high school student work and this particular goal is the career readiness and
011real-world learning goal. And it wasn't hard to capture activities where, you know, kids are working with techniques and data analysis, they're gaining hands-on experience, and they're collaborating to solve problems. These are career ready and real-world learning goals. There's more to it. I'm sorry, this clicker is a little sensitive for me. Let's see. There you go. So, here's more high school students um reaching those same goals as well. Um the precision that science laboratory experiments require, the designing of those original experiments, uh and and the collaboration that goes along with lab science is is really a perfect match for what we do in the science department and your district's goals. And it's great to see them engaging. Almost every day you see something going on that touches these goals. That's school culture and climate, the second
012goal. Here are some high school students uh again, the the fun that they have in a in the healthy learning environment created by our staff is amazing. I mean, there's collaboration, there's teamwork, they're engaged. And while not every day is, you know, a hands-on lab, there is a lot of that going on with school culture and climate in mind. Here's some more. There's some physics students across a couple of different teachers. Uh they work together, they collaborate, they innovate. Uh the teamwork and the peer support is noticeable every day. And I give a lot of credit to our staff for that. Let's talk about the seventh grade for just a little while. Career readiness goal and real-world learning for them is met in a variety of ways as well. Some examples. Here we have students
013doing some geological sample study. We have some of those students drawing detailed illustrations through observation of the material they're working on in class and the use of scientific tools. All of these contribute to career readiness and real-world learning. There's more. How about culture and climate at the middle school? Of course, it's the middle school. This is one of our primary objectives, right? Establishing a positive school culture and climate. Well, they're doing this every day in our science department. In all of our departments, as a matter of fact. They're creating sidewalk messages with chalk. They're collaborating together. They're doing hands-on food web activities. It's wonderful stuff. It's great to see them cooperate, sometimes compete, and it's working very well. How about the eighth graders? We've got them simulating crime scene investigations, again using data analysis and
014forensic techniques. These are real-world skills that some of our kids will be employed in someday. And how about the culture and climate again of our eighth graders now? Uh on the left is a picture of it's actually our first uh fishing club meeting uh conducted by one of our new teachers there in Colfax, and uh it was standing room only. Uh apparently these kids love to fish. I didn't know that. I'm not sure if you did either, but we have a lot of kids who want to go fishing, and we're going to make that happen. And the hands-on investigation inquiry is ubiquitous. Let's talk a little bit about what our science teachers have been working on at the professional level. Again, under the auspices of the assistant superintendent. How are we empowering these science teachers
015to be the best and brightest? Let's talk a little bit about that. So, one of the things that is a district-wide initiative, and I'm sure you're aware of it, is the Atlas curriculum mapping system. Safari took over. It's no longer considered Atlas or called Atlas, but we all know it, those of us that have been in the game a while, as Atlas. And so, here's just a very rough overview of what it is they're engaging in using the Faria curriculum system. It's hard work. So, we're doing this work either during a staff meeting or during within PLCs or within time set aside in the district calendar uh with late openings and days that are closed. I'm sure the board and the superintendent had to negotiate and pick and choose which days to give for professional
016development. So, this is an amazing system. I've used this over over many years. And it's going to sharpen curriculum, it's going to enhance pedagogy and ultimately student success. And that's why this system is great. And we have a long way to go, but we are certainly aligning now or more closely. I don't want to say now, they've been doing that all along, but more closely curriculum to lesson plans to assessment. And again, that equals student achievement. Couple more things here. Just talking about how supportive the department's been. I mentioned there are eight non-tenure teachers uh overall along with a number of them in special services. We all work together. Yes, we're funding and get Look, we they share I mean, it's it's a it's a great group of of professionals. Um they take their work
017seriously, but not too seriously. They love working with the kids. And you know, my presence is you know, they're not threatened by it. We work collaboratively and it's all about growth and learning together. A specific initiative that's going to take place this summer, assuming board approval, is the rewrite of the seventh grade curriculum. And here's a very brief overview of what that looks like. Um we have all of our seventh grade team working on it. And hopefully they'll be approved to write summer. We're going to make some changes. As you know, that the New Jersey science learning student assessment test is not where we want it to be. It's one of the reasons why we're realigning and developing the new seventh grade curriculum. It's also about, again, aligning lesson plans to assessments and and making
018our curriculum relevant. More relevant, I should say. And so, we're off to a great start. We've started sort of dabbling in this using the Faria system. And I look forward to seeing their finished product at the end of the summer. Now, let's talk about snapshots of success. So, I didn't know where to start with this because, you know, I'm not a member of the community and have, you know, I don't know where to go for graduates. Well, Lisa Holst was great. She right away gave me a bunch of names. And I reached out to This is the first one I reached out to, Julia Parzecki. She was wonderful. Wonderful young lady. She's, as you see there, she's a chemist at Merck, doing research and development. She's a Rutgers grad and she has a BS in
019chemical engineering. I reached out to her, asked permission, first of all, for us to talk about her in this forum. And I also asked her to provide a brief summary of what her time at West Essex meant to her. And here's what she said. Uh I don't usually read slides, but this one I'm going to read. You may maybe want to read along with me. It's not that long. So, Julia wrote to me. The encouragement I received from my math and science teachers at West Essex was instrumental in shaping my career. They inspired my curiosity, challenged me to think critically, and held me to high standards, encouraging me to push through difficult problems rather than shy away from them. She continued, "That rigor made my accomplishments even more meaningful and instilled a strong sense of
020confidence in my abilities. They reinforced the belief that I could achieve anything I set my mind to, even in a traditionally male-dominated fields like chemical engineering." The foundation continues to guide me in my work today as a scientist at Merck. So, again, a wonderful young lady. Uh the foundation was built here in within this learning community, and she's she's excelling uh as you see there. And I have one more snapshot that I was able to reach out to. Juliana Hemmowan, not sure if you know her or not, but she too is a very successful young lady. Um she got her degree at the University of San Diego, uh University of California at San Diego, rather. Uh and she's working with the cognitive and behavioral neuro science. As you know, there's there's not enough of that
021that we need today to help help both our adults and our youngsters um navigate the world today. Here's what she said. "West Essex Regional School District played an important role in shaping my academic curiosity and work ethic. Taking many of the AP science courses offered at West Essex gave me a strong academic foundation that allowed me to thrive at the University of California, San Diego, where I studied cognitive and behavioral neuro science and minored in general biology. Teachers such as Mrs. Barros, Dr. DeMayo, consistently encouraged me to challenge myself and fostered my curiosity through both their coursework and involvement in the pre-medical club and Science national honor society. Organizations I later had the opportunity to lead as president. Amazing. Mrs. Baruch's encouragement, especially her reminder to just keep swimming, I love that, just keep swimming,
022has stayed with me over the years and helped motivate me through studying for the MCAT, pursuing research opportunities, and working as a medical assistant. She followed, "Today I work as a clinical research coordinator at the positive emotion and anxiety research lab, also known as Pearl, at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, where I help coordinate a clinical study investigating a novel treatment for anxiety and depression. Bring it on, we need that. The curiosity, discipline, and foundation for the path that led my current work in clinical research and my goal of pursuing a career in medicine. I hope I read that correctly. So, So, again, the state of the union in science is strong. You produce wonderful graduates. They're they're going on doing wonderful things, representing you and this community very well. So,
023thanks for your time and uh have a good evening. Thank you. Well, any questions or comments? Anyone? Thank you. Okay. Um before we go on to Mrs. Drago, sorry, we're going to go on to the independent study writer, Ryder Sable. Um good evening, everyone. My name is Ryder Sable. Um I'm going to be presenting about my independent study that I took, child and developmental psychology, under my advisor, Ms. Blanchard. Um So, just a little background about kind of why I decided to take this course. So, I'm a senior at West Essex High School. Um I'm currently enrolled in our school's AP Psychology course. And I will be majoring in psychology at Fairfield University. And some of my career goals that kind of drove me to this study is that I want to, again, pursue psychology
024in college, and then I want to work towards a master's degree in in child and developmental psychology, eventually working towards my PhD in clinical psychology, and become a child therapist with a specialization with kids with with special needs. And one kind of main event in my life that kind of pushed me towards this goal was working as a camp counselor. I worked with a kindergartner who had autism spectrum disorder. And working with him and working with his mom, I was the only counselor that she entrusted to look after her son. And working with the child's evaluator for that kind of made me feel that there's more I can learn and more that I can do to help kids in these kinds of situations. So, in this independent study, I started out delving deeper into the
025units of the AP Psychology curriculum, where I discussed important psychological figures, like Jean Piaget, with the stages in cognitive development, Erik Erikson, John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and B.F. Skinner. Um Each of these psychologists contributed to different areas such as cognitive development, social and emotional development, um different styles of attachment, and behavior and reinforcement. And from this marking period one project that I did, I was able to I was able to understand and grasp that there are lots of different angles to come at developmental and child psychology at that there's really no one way to look at it, and there's many, many different places and theories and different points of research to look at when we're looking at this topic. So, then I moved into marking period two where I took some of these concepts and
026I applied them to a specific disorder. I discussed the different cognitive, behavioral, and developmental um theories and how they connected to one specific mental health condition known as PANDAS, which stands for pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections. That is certainly a mouthful. That's why we have a nice acronym for it. Um but I took those different psychologists' theories and ideas and applied them and to help grasp the idea of the condition better so we could focus on students' behavior. So, and then that brings us into marking period three of my independent study where I did a project on this condition. So, after I did all those days, I did lots of research, spent about two months prepping a presentation that I ended up giving to the class aides in the high school. I
027was able to inform them on different ways this condition might appear and how exactly to look for it and identify it and how we can implement support systems to help these students so they can have a safe and stress-free environment in the school when they're going through such a condition. And again, those how to implement those into the classroom and give them the same opportunities as other students who are not maybe struggling from this condition or maybe are struggling with different conditions. And from this I was able to learn the true importance of implementing mental health support strategies within the school and kind of how they're a necessity for all sorts of different diagnoses that we're seeing a lot more of today. And so my kind of main takeaway from this independent study on child
028and developmental psychology was that it's con- developmental psychology is constantly changing. There are constantly new theories and new research that are coming out that may completely change how we view this concept and how we need to constantly be prepared for changes in studies and how we can help children and through their development and going through different stages of their lives or going through different conditions. And after this, again, I plan to go into psychology and eventually work my way up to being a child therapist. And so why this course was different from the AP psychology curriculum because I know it may seem very similar, but kind of taking that one singular unit that is within the curriculum and being able to expand it and kind of look really into the finer details of it is
029very important for students like me who want to pursue this specific kind of psychology in their future careers. And it helps with more real-world application and looking at different like disorders that can occur within students and being able to apply all these concepts and being able to help them further. Um Yeah, that's it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ryder. We Oh. She listened to a lot of presentations. I think this is the first time I've ever heard anyone talk about practically applying their research and actually sharing it with AIDS in the school. So, huge kudos to whoever put that in. It was really amazing that you did that. I think that's incredibly impressive. Thank you. Thank you so much. I was just going to add, we know it's intimidating coming before the board,
030but we always love the presentations given by the students. It blows us away every time the research you've done and just to come up in front of us and share your information is, you know, we really enjoy it. You did a great job. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just wanted to actually add on to that because Ryder is very modest. Um and the presentation he gave to the CSD team, it was AIDS from I think both the middle school and the high school as well as one member of the CSD team and um two other faculty members um Um, it like a half an hour presentation, and really like explained to them like when Ryder first wanted to do pandas, um, I have a copy of the DSM-4 in my room,
031and it wasn't in the DSM-4. It didn't even exist as a diagnosable condition. We had to go to, um, the the more, uh, I forget the exact, but it's like all the stuff that's been added since the last time they published the, uh, uh, the DSM-4. It's a diagnostic and something manual. Um, because it's so new. And so, Ryder explained to them like so well how you have a, like the this, um, streptococcal infection that leads to then the psychological and then the behavioral, and, um, loop and kind of informed them, but then also gave them strategies for what does this look like in the classroom, how do you address it, and just the multifaceted nature of it. I mean, they were asking him questions, and he was fielding them. And, I mean, he had
032people staying after cuz they only had to stay until 2:45. I think we had people in the room until like 3:15. Um, and he's, you know, knowledgeably answering. He had a handout for them. I, like, it was it was wonderful PD. I at least one faculty member said like, "This is one of the most helpful PDs we've ever had." So, I just wanted to say that. He he was very modest. That would be pretty awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Ryder. Okay, good evening, everybody. My name is Laura Drago. I'm the instructional supervisor of the social studies and world language department. This is my 18th year in the district. Um, and I am still extremely excited and proud to share with you all the variety of activities that go on in
033the world language and social studies classrooms. Um, every year when I kind of start to prepare my presentation, I like to give an overview but also try to touch on some new aspects. And I think one of the key things really that came to me this year is in the last 5 to 6 years, the teachers have been extremely dynamic in moving away from pre-COVID instructional strategies to post-COVID instructional strategies where it was a lot of online, digital, new technologies, and now seeing them come back to the value of blending technology, instructional practices, instructional tools with as we'll see with our career, I mean, with our district goals, the career ready and the inclusive environments. I'm extremely proud of how they themselves continue to reach the students where they're at and bring them to the
034highest level possible. Um so, just a quick intro. We have two new teachers in the social studies and world language department. We actually don't have any new social studies teach- any new social studies teachers. We have two new Spanish teachers. So, at the high school, we have um Mr. Michael Sheahan and he comes to us uh as a second career. He lived in Latin American country and learned the language and culture uh really in a different way than somebody who obviously is a heritage speaker. He is engaging the level one students and learning the variety of activities that you need to engage freshmen in in Spanish one. So, we're excited to have him uh and proud of Mr. Sheahan. We also have in the middle school, we have a heritage uh Spanish speaker, uh Yovana
035Barahona. She came to us after just 1 year working in the Passaic School District and I have to say that when you're able to place a teacher in their right, uh, age-appropriate environment, it's amazing to see how they can flourish. The The engagement that she brings to that middle year student is exciting to watch and it's, um, probably the happiest seventh grade Spanish group of students, uh, I've seen in quite a bit of time. So, uh, we are excited to have both of them and, um, invite them back for the next next year. As, um, as we know, our district goals are to cultivate career readiness and real-world learning experiences and ensure a positive, inclusive, uh, school culture and climate. I am going to touch on these mostly throughout the presentation. I really wanted to
036bring in a few new ideas for those of you who have seen me year after year for a couple of years now. Um, and, um, for our new Board of Ed members, I hope you are excited with what you come to see. Okay. So, how do we achieve these goals in the social studies and world language classrooms? And I think to myself, what what do Board of Ed members know and what don't don't they know, so to speak? I think it's important for you to know and feel extremely proud of our our culmination of our program, seventh through 12th grade. The culmination of all of our studies, whether it's social studies or world languages, is to try to prepare students for the highest level of those courses, right? A social studies student, you want them
037to be able to reach the highest level. And just kind of to the right for a minute, you know, we have the AP Capstone program, which is AP research taught by Ms. Caroline Blanchard. We have nine students in that AP research this year, which will be our highest number so far. And I think we will probably have a very strong group of students who reach the AP Capstone this coming June, which we don't fully know yet because it's based on how they score on AP exams. Anyway, a new course, second year AP Psychology. Rider Sable is a student in that class. We are now up to 124 students. We've actually had to turn away some students. What's exciting about this is that AP Psychology may be or could be or tends to be an an
038an an entry-level AP course. So, it has AP rigor, but you'll have students who will want to take this course because they feel like it's more interesting or something that might be more accessible to them. So, this bringing this AP Psychology course in, I'm sure we have included probably 40% of those students would have never taken an AP course otherwise because of they may not have met criteria to take an AP US 2 course or certainly an AP Euro class, as which is one of our highest level courses for criteria. AP Human Geography, we've had this course for quite a few years. Again, the variety of content in the social studies AP classes varies from whether it's psychology or geography or history. You can see the the variety here also with AP Human Geography. This
039year we have 95 students. AP American Government Politics tends to consistently be a strong number of students who are very interested in law or politics or the American government. AP European History, we have our numbers back up in this course, which we're pretty excited about. Um as we went through like COVID and post-COVID years, um 13, it's being taught by Mr. Jason Frieda for the last couple of years, so we're excited to see that. That's a very rigorous AP course, and colleges definitely look at that as one of the hardest and most rigorous courses. Open only to seniors uh for a couple of reasons. One being the rigor, two, we want them to have the couple of years of US 1 and US 2 uh under their belt. Okay. And then finally, between AP US
0401 and AP US 2, we have 167 kids. So, some of these may be overlapping, but if you look at again, the culmination of a social studies education at West Essex is to prepare them uh for these courses, and I'm sure when Mr. Dilberto gives his assessment report, you can see that for the most part, we have students that are passing these exams. On the left side, we still have the four AP language courses, which we're excited to still be able to offer them. AP Spanish, these are generally consistent numbers. Uh 12 students, AP French, six students, AP Italian, 10 students, and AP Chinese, this year we have four students, which is exciting. So, what happens here? Why does it look like the language courses tend to have a little bit of a lower number?
041Well, if you were to look at the students that are in AP world languages, they're probably in five other AP courses as well. And quite frankly, what happens in their junior and senior year, well, senior year for these students, is they just don't have room in their schedule to take the math, the science AP courses, the social studies, uh and so on. And we work with that every year. We hear students say, "I want to take this, but I can't take this and that at the same time." So, we're still excited to see that we have a good number of students uh in both social studies and world language that finish their uh academic studies in so many AP courses. Okay. Uh, in the middle school we continue in well, both the high school and
042the middle school, but this year in the middle school we continued in the social studies classes to participate in our no no place for hate program. Uh, the middle school students did a fun lesson on perception versus reality, which is very appropriate for uh, middle school and the ideas of combating stereotypes, which I felt that this year, um, Miss Holst and the other administrators involved in the program were were excellent in creating and and having uh, the students engage in something that really they could relate to because it makes those types of lessons more meaningful. So, that's been um, an exciting program for us here at West Essex. Uh, an example of balancing technology with real good reading and literacy skills, the world language and social studies teachers are using what's called chatbots. I don't
043know if you've ever heard of those or not, but we now have them pretty much integrated throughout the world language and social studies courses. Um, this one example was in world history where the teachers were creating a scenario that the students would have to research a person in history and put that into the chatbot and then the chatbot would engage in a conversation with them and they would have to answer questions and ask questions. And it was during um, uh, the Middle Ages where they would, you know, rather than just give a regular presentation on like a person in history, whether it was Joan of Arc or Charlemagne, they would be engaging with the chat um, and demonstrating their understanding of uh, people in history. So, that's a example of technology. This was one of
044my favorite activities this year from Ms. Blanchard that the students were engaged in an activity where they were building an essay. Right? We've all sat down in our years of having to write an essay and you've probably heard, you know, five paragraphs and thesis and so on and so forth. Well, these students, Ms. Blanchard engages her AP students in actually building the essay. So, it's color-coded whether it's the thesis or the topic sentence, I'm sorry, or the points, the argumentative pieces to it. So, the the concept here is for them to actually see the evolution of the essay that they then put together and it can be applied to pretty much any topic that they're learning. So, this was very, again, hands-on, tactile, you know, no technology really in this piece of it, but very
045memorable for the students so that they could provide, you know, credible evidence in their their essays and then finish it, wrap it up, and connect their pieces of evidence to finish their essay. This is another example of a blend of technology, but also using the idea of building or creating something. The US 1 classes put Andrew Jackson on trial and the students created a Socratic seminar, which is, again, developing an argument and providing a perspective. And in many cases, the students had to argue something that wasn't necessarily their point of view or their personal decision, but arguing the other point of view was important in this as well. And students were creating political cartoons, propaganda posters in preparation for their culmination with the trial of Andrew Jackson. So trying to again seeing those teachers coming
046back to blending technology with real world application. Okay, so right or right or left but Mr. Glenn, I have to give Mr. Glenn a shout out. If you don't know Mr. Glenn, Mr. Glenn has been a teacher at West Essex for 34 years. I think he's probably right the the longest. Yes, he's been here the most. Still going strong in the social studies department and he teaches AP Psychology. This is his second year teaching AP Psychology and I'm like I almost cry when I walk by his classroom because it has revitalized him in a way. He's taught in the middle school, he's taught in the high school and he's teaching five sections of AP Psychology. I was a little concerned when we first gave it to him. I will be honest with you. I thought
047to myself, okay, let's see how this goes, right? And he crushed it. He spent all summer preparing for it. He's so engaged in it. Of course, the kids walk by Mr. Glenn's class and they love Mr. Glenn, right? And he I I I think he said never. Has never taken students on a field trip. So he planned a field trip for his AP Psychology students. We went to a cool museum in New York called the Museum of Illusions and that's him in the red jacket there in the background. And and he really also like he planned an activity for them. They like he researched the museum and gave them stations to go to and an activity for them but I just wanted to highlight that the kids when they see teachers in like a real
048world environment, they get so excited. And he's honest with them. Like he'll tell them like I you know, I haven't planned a field trip in forever and you guys better behave, you know, it it's just it's it it creates a good environment for the students. Okay. Um the middle school Italian students went on a field trip which they haven't done in a very very long time. They actually read Pinocchio in seventh grade. And there happened to be a play in Wayne, New Jersey, uh Pinocchio play, and um Ms. uh Angela D'Onofrio, she planned a field trip for the middle school students to get out and go and engage with this Pinocchio play, and she said they were actually very good, which was wonderful to hear that the seventh graders were able to come in. As
049you know, our seventh graders, this is like their first year together coming from all different sending districts, so it's a it's a fun uh activity for them to be able to get to go on a field trip. The Spanish program, the upper-level Spanish students, three, four, and AP, the upper-level Spanish students, Frida Kahlo is a major character, person, personality in Spanish language and culture. And the Montclair um at the Claridge, is it the Claridge? The Claridge Theater in Montclair, there's a Montclair Film Company now, and they had a presentation on Frida Kahlo, a documentary, and then a Q&A a Q&A, and the upper-level Spanish students went on a field trip uh related to learning more about this important person in Spanish culture, Frida Kahlo. Just a few more examples. This is exciting. I hope you
050can see the number of students that we have in this course. Uh we have a world language exploration course here at West Essex once every four years, which provides students with special needs their one year of required uh language for high school graduation, taught by Ms. Kelly Brophy who is amazing. So, it's hard for some teachers to really be able to vary the level of students in the instruction that they teach. Ms. Brophy also teaches Spanish 3 honors. She's really enjoying these students. When I went in in December, they were learning about like holidays around the world and she had them reading about Santa Claus on the beach because it was about Australia and you know how different places in the world have different holidays and different seasons and so on and so forth, but
051the the excitement again to see these students reaching this milestone of um experiencing a world language class that they need for high school graduation. This unique world language exploration class is amazing that West Essex provides to these students rather than just putting them in, you know, Spanish 1 or Italian 1 or whatever it might be. Okay. Um Ms. Blancher, sorry, just happened to be. So, there are a few uh amazing dynamic clubs. Just wanted to highlight a a few new things this year. This Women Empowerment Club collaborated with the STEM Club and they were building boxes of uh feminine products for women in shelters and they engaged in this activity in the media center this year. So, that was exciting to see um this Women Empowerment Group uh working together with the STEM Club. We
052also every year, twice actually a year, we do enroll students or we offer students voter registration. The League of Women Voters has a woman in North Caldwell. Uh she and a few other women come to us in the fall and then once again in the spring cuz we try to capture the 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds. So, throughout the course of the year, many students that are 16 turn 17 and 17, turn 18. So, we do a voter registration drive here at West Essex uh for the you know, I don't know how many how many years it's been, but um we're going to have another one coming up in the spring, and then we'll we'll connect with the seniors in the fall before they go out for lunch during the lunch period. Uh we've for the last
0532 years now engaged with a group called uh Second Generation New Jersey and we had in remembrance of um our Holocaust Remembrance Day, we had a few women, Fran Levin and Sandy Rosen, come in to the middle school and high school. So, literally every student at West Essex has experienced Holocaust education every year. Uh I think this year we did ninth and 11th grade at the high school, and we had seventh grade at the middle school. We always capture the seventh graders as they're coming in uh to West Essex. Amazing stories. Uh the I I have to say I remember at the end I actually said to the students, they were incredible with their behavior, respectful, you couldn't hear a pin drop. And it was I think the last block of the day, we were
054a little nervous about that, but they were they were fantastic. So, kudos to all the parents at West Essex. Uh this is our sixth year. You've probably seen this couple times, but March Madness. So, the upper levels of Spanish engage in a March Madness activity which has grown nationwide to so many schools where different performers from different Hispanic actually Latin American countries, different performers from different Latin American countries, they'll uh have a song, and the teachers will teach about the country or the culture based on the song, and they they do a bracket, and at the final day it's like which which song wins the March Madness competition and something that, you know, the students look forward to. We start them usually in uh Spanish three and move them up to four Spanish four and
055five. This year we also had another new program at West Essex which was exciting. There is an Italian cultural group called the Italia and J and they came to West Essex. They used our uh high school auditorium for their performance and we had quite a few West Essex students. Um some were Italian-Americans, some were just performers perform in the cultural event that uh took place in November and it was um something that I think they really just enjoyed authentic music, dance, food and this was a new program that came to West Essex this past fall. Okay. Exciting news. We are in year two of our heritage Spanish program. We went from 18 students at the high school to now 25 heritage Spanish students. So we do an AB year. Uh so they can come in
056at, you know, at any year. So we're on B this year and the students that are in their second year of heritage Spanish, they will take a new AP course next year um called Spanish literature and culture which again is also very exciting because some students are even ESL, a few of them are ELLs. So for them to be able to accelerate and excel in a course that is a heritage course for them is extremely exciting. So I will be reporting to you next year on that new AP Spanish literature uh course that we're bringing in September for I think it'll probably be about 18 of them. We'll see what the full numbers come out to be. Okay, you know of our AP Capstone program, of course. I wanted to highlight to you, as you
057know, um our AP Capstone, a specific student. I'm not sure if you know of uh our senior Justin Kim. Justin Kim was accepted to West Point. He's going to the United States Military Academy. He had quite a few excellent options, I'm sure you can imagine. Um he's taken 10 AP courses at West Essex over, you know, the course of his four years here. And I'm kind of just blending this idea that what he did for his AP Capstone, or his AP research, was something I don't know if you're familiar with what K-pop is, but it's like Korean pop culture. So, he did an authentic research program on how K-pop culture has been influencing Korean food places uh in New Jersey, and I've been meeting with him in AP Human Geography class, and he's been like
058waiting to hear um from West Point. He actually goes tomorrow for his orientation. He also said Mr. Linsalato, the phys ed teacher, worked with him and helped him prepare for his physical exam that he had to go there and take. Um and he just says that he says if it wasn't for, you know, the support that he's had uh at West Essex, from his teachers at West Essex, he doesn't know if he could have been fully prepared. He just felt like he had a really well-rounded experience to prepare him for West Point. That's our AP Capstone highlighted student. Okay, and another student I want to highlight, um even though they're still here, they're seniors, is Carly Levitt. You may or may not know her. She's super excited that she's going to her dream school, which
059is the University of Michigan. But, the reason why I'm highlighting Carly Levitt is because three years ago we had Mr. Anthony Campese from Fairfield, who is one of our Essex County election executives, and he also sent his students to West Essex. He reached out to us about 3 years ago and said that the Essex County Clerk's office was looking to bring in students into working the elections that run in our local communities, and from the beginning Carly Levitt was in. Carly Levitt has worked seven elections in the last 3 years. So, primary, presidential, special election primary, and she has also talked quite a bit about this experience being one that really has given her amazing insight to our whole election process and, you know, the importance obviously of of voting, and uh I wanted to
060just highlight she is an NHS student and a Rho Kappa inductee as well, who same thing, continues to talk about her experiences that she's had in her West Essex AP classes and social studies classes overall. Wednesday, we have the induction day, which is probably what, 3 or 4 years old now? It's amazing. I think we're going to have a huge turnout on Wednesday. So, obviously every year we induct our world language honor society students and our social studies honor society students Our social studies honor society is called Rho Kappa, so it has a unique name to it that sometimes people forget that it's related to social studies, but we'll be inducting our students uh this coming Wednesday. If you haven't been to the performances, they are amazing. The social studies honor society usually has a
061student who will talk about their passion and how um they have a passion for social studies because of their time at West Essex, or they'll speak about what they've learned about events in the world, and our world language um inductees, there's quite a few that are just amazingly talented students that you'll see if you come. Seal of Biliteracy, I again, I think we're um 5 years into this. I I have to go back and check my exact dates, but excited to see how this program has grown. 36 students at West Essex will will receive a special um emblem on their diploma that they are graduates as biliterate students. And to see the talent that these students have, and the languages that we're testing these students in. It is a little bit of um you know,
062a labor-intensive process in January and February when we're pulling these students out, and who's testing in um Russian, and it's a different test than maybe uh some of the other languages, but you can see a list here of students between Arabic. It's, you know, French, Italian, as you would think, but Arabic, Korean, um Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, uh again, Russian, and then a a slew of Spanish, as well as we have some Turkish students, as well. So, it's exciting that this continues to grow. And we even now have like students come to us in ninth and 10th grade saying, "I want to test. I want to test." We say, "You can only test when you're a junior." But, um they can test when they're a junior, and then if they don't fully pass it, they can
063test again when they're a senior, and they can also do like one or two one or two retests. So, they test them in obviously speaking, listening, reading, and and writing. Okay. So, this is an alum who, believe it or not, I have like a few of them that have been kind of waiting their turn, but I didn't want to get like into too many, cuz it takes forever, but Daniel Martire is uh an alum who is going to speak to you about his experiences at West Essex, as well. Hello. My name is David Martire and I am a senior biomedical engineering major at the College of New Jersey. Currently, I have visited over 20 different countries and can speak English, Italian, and Spanish fluently. In fact, I've used each of these languages in a professional
064context abroad as a tourist, a volunteer, and even as an intern this past summer. I owe all of these grants and my accomplishments to my world language beginnings at West Essex. After spending five years learning about Italian, I developed a true love of languages. When I got to college doing a strictly STEM-focused major, I missed my passion and I added a certification in Spanish for counseling and human services. It is an extra responsibility, but it has been so worth it for my college experience. In general, truly, I do not know where I would be or who I would be today without the influence of international and world language exposure. Uh but the one thing that I can promise is that now that I am here, that passion will be mine for the rest of my
065life. Okay. So again, I appreciate the opportunity to share with you the excitement that I have for the world languages and social studies department. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Thank you. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. Okay. All right. Okay, do we have any comments from board members? Any comments? No. Uh do we have any board committee reports? No? Okay. Um all right, at this time we'll open up the floor for uh public comments on agenda items. Are there any public comments? No? Okay. Then we will move on to our agenda. Um John, can you take finance, please? Sure. Uh, the following finance motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Anything placed on this agenda, items 1 through 7, will be voted upon in one
066motion, and I so move. Second. Any questions or comments? Mr. Andre? Yes. Ms. Halmstad? Yes. Ms. Calderon? Yes. Mr. Share? Yes. Mr. Sampone? >> Yes. Mr. Cote? Yes. Ms. Wadsworth? Yes. Uh, Philip, will you take buildings and grounds, please? The following building and grounds motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Anything placed on this agenda, item one, will be voted upon in one motion, and I so move. Second. Any questions or comments? Mr. Andre? Yes. Ms. Halmstad? Yes. Ms. Calderon? Yes. Mr. Share? Yes. Mr. Sampone? >> Yes. Mr. Cote? Yes. Ms. Wadsworth? Yes. Debbie Halmstad, do you want to take personnel, please? Sure. The following personnel motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Anything placed on this agenda, items 1 through 6, will be voted upon in
067one motion, and I so move. Second. Any questions or comments? Mr. Andre? Yes. Ms. Halmstad? Yes. Ms. Calderon? Yes. Mr. Share? Yes. Mr. Sampone? >> Yes. Mr. Cote? Yes. Ms. Wadsworth? Yes. Uh, Jonathan, do you want to take curriculum, please? Following curriculum and special education motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Anything placed on this Anything placed on this agenda, excuse me, items 1 through 5, will be voted upon in one motion, and I so move. Second. Any questions or comments? Mr. Andre? Yes. Ms. Halstead? Yes. Ms. Calderon? Yes. Mr. Chair? Yes. Mr. Sampogna? >> Yes. Mr. Toth? >> Yes. Ms. Wojewodzki? Yes. Um Deb Calderon, granted miscellaneous please. >> The following miscellaneous motions are made at the recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools. And if there are any questions on
068this agenda item number one before we do voting on it So Second. Any questions or comments? Mr. Andre? Yes. Ms. Halstead? Yes. Ms. Calderon? Yes. Mr. Chair? Yes. Mr. Sampogna? Yes. Mr. Toth? Yes. Ms. Wojewodzki? Yes. Okay, at this time we'll open the floor for public comments on non-agenda items. Do we have any public comments? Ray, you want to read us out, please? Sure. Uh there being no further business before the Board of Education, be it resolved that this public meeting be adjourned at 8:33 p.m. Do I have a motion? Motion. Second. Hi. Thank you, everyone.