meeting. Adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the Open Public Meetings Act as follows. On January 9th, 2025, notice of the board of education meeting schedule was sent to the Star Ledger and the Courier News
and was also provided to all schools PTO presidents, the BHEA president and posted at the administration building. A copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the municipal municipal clerk. Um, Madame Secretary,
may we have roll call, please? >> Mrs. Mr. Zakiri, Miss Bradford >> here, >> Dr. Forger, Mrs. Terrarero >> here, >> Mr. Dylan, >> present.
>> Mrs. Jolly >> here, >> Mrs. Connor, Mrs. Stanley, >> present. >> Madam Secretary, do we have a quorum? >> We do. >> Okay, please rise for the flag salute. To the flag
of the stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Adjourn to executive session. Whereas the Berkeley Heights Board of Education seeks to adjourn to executive
session in full compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act, NJSA 10:4-6. And whereas the open public meetings act provides that a public body may exclude the public from that portion of the meeting at which it discusses matters related to those identified below.
Matters rendered confidential by federal law, state law or court ruled. Individual privacy, collective bargaining agreements, purchase or lease of real property if public interest could be adversely affected. Investment of public funds if public interest could be adversely affected. tactics or
techniques utilized in protecting public safety and property, pending or anticipated litigation, attorney client privilege, personnel, employment matters affecting specific prospective or current employees. Be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education
adjourns to executive session to discuss matters related to students, legal matters, and negotiations. And be it further resolved that the minutes of the discussion of any of these items will be disclosed to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is long no longer applicable. May I have
a motion, please, to enter into executive session. Thank you, Mrs. Stanley. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Mrs. Jolly. All in favor? I I >> Okay, the time is 602. We are going to go to executive
session. Thank you. motion to return to public session, please. >> You have >> motion. >> Thank you, Mr. Dylan. >> Second. I have a second. >> Second. >> Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Jolly. Voice vote. >> I
>> I >> I. Time returning to public session is 67:44. Report of the superintendent, Dr. Felry. Thank you, Madam President. Um, first up, the district and the board would like to recognize Claire Lee as a
2026 National Merit Scholarship Program semi- finalist. Approximately 16,000 students nationwide who achieve the highest scores in their respective states are designated as national merit semi-finalists. National merit semi-
finalists constitute the top 1% of students who undertake the PSAT. We are immensely proud of Claire and this esteemed recognition. We would like to present her with sorry this certificate, Madame
President, to acknowledge this accomplishment. And we want to thank her father for his service because he's an EMT and just got a call and had to leave. So, At this time, I invite the student representatives to present their report.
Good evening members of the board. Uh this is the second edition of Happenings on the Hill. So uh as I talked about last uh last month, senior sunrise was a hit and the club expo also saw strong participation from GL students and clubs alike. Uh the college fair on October
1st also had a great turnout with many students from GL and surrounding towns attending. although some schools unfortunately didn't make it. We've also had some a lot of bake sales popping up around the halls and uh tomorrow will be the interactive bake sale for breast cancer awareness month. Uh additionally, freshman student council elections
wrapped up last Friday. Uh happy to see freshmen participating at GL. Additionally, homecoming is next Friday. However, we are still on the hunt for a DJ. So, if anyone has a DJ, feel free to contact me. Um, additionally on October 9th, the GL class of 2027 student council yearbook and newspaper hosted a
successful chippery food truck fundraiser. I volunteered at the event and we also had members of the Berkeley Heights Police Department stopped by to share their support. Uh, today freshman, sophomores, and juniors took the PSAT NMSQT while seniors enjoyed their annual
senior breakfast outside on the field. Um and then we also had our first assembly of the year which was from the no hate tour which was a uh BMX themed uh assembly about anti-bullying. Additionally, last night GL hosted junior uh junior college night which was
a presentation about the admissions process from a former admissions officer and current college admissions officers have visited GL throughout the last month to speak with prospective students about their schools and the application process. >> Thank you. Hello everyone. As we move into the
October month, uh the fall sports season still continues with many fun events occurring at GL. Also, it is National Sports Day. So, that's a fun fact for the board tonight. Uh FNL happened on September 26th with a huge win for GL and the student section was filled and the school spirit was high. Uh Sierra
Espiranne was selected as the Valerico heating and cooling Highlander athlete of the week. uh for setting the GL marching band won third place at Piscataway with a score of 77.1 and at Madison placed first with a score of 81.6 with awards of best visuals, music,
and percussion. So, congratulations to them. Varsity girls soccer had their senior night on October 7th against Cranford. Spirits were high and the cheering was loud, so congrats to the seniors. And next was my own team, the varsity girls tennis. We celebrated our senior night with a 4-1 win against Dayton. Our season ended on October 10th
with a bang. Myself, Julia, and Annayiah made it to round three of individual states, and it was a first time for Annayia and I. And the team also made it to the semi-finals for states. So, it was a great season overall. Sad to come to an end, but it was a great time. The Powderpuff game was Friday, October 10th
with all proceeds going to the Brook Healey Foundation. The Brook Healey Foundation raises funds for DIPG, a kind of brain tumor, for research and supports families facing pediatric brain cancer, plus scholarships to civically engage students. On top of that, the varsity volleyball girls team celebrated
their senior night with a 200 win against New Providence. The team highlighted their seniors and Abby Kim, the first volleyball Highlander to go D1 at Lyola. So, congrats to her. And then moving away from sports for a moment, I've also been asked to share development in NHS that evolved from our last discussion at the previous meeting.
So, last meeting I suggested the utilization of NHS tutors to help out students for AP physics classes and other courses. And this was taken into consideration by Mr. Nixon and I'm assuming other people as well who co coordinated with Mrs. Shikino to create freshman seminars. So the goal of these
seminars is to create a presentation done by NHS members in order to get freshmen acclimated to the lifestyle at GL. This involves presentations on four different sessions. So the first one being emails including email etiquette, organizing emails into folders and sorting through them. The second being
note-taking, taking for different courses, skills, organizing binders or notebooks, and using Noodle to Noodle tools as work sited. There's also preparing for tests such as resources being used, communicating with teachers, and attending extra help sessions alongside time management. And the
fourth and final one is Google Suite Drive and other resources. So, how to organize Google Drive basics onto it and intro to Noodle Tools, which is another citation device that you can use. I will be involved in two of these seminars and report back on its success. I think this could be very useful for the first year students. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much. >> Question. >> Go ahead. Yeah. >> Um it sounded like we still needed a DJ for homecoming. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Can Can we potentially utilize the uh district social media platform to help help these guys out?
>> Right. >> Would that be helpful? >> Yes. Yeah. >> So, we RGL or I mean I know it's more more sports related, but we have enough of the accounts, right? Maybe somebody in the district would like to help out. >> Yep.
>> When is it? >> Next Friday. >> Oh, what's that date? The seven. >> What's next Friday's date? 20th. Thank you. Um, to whom should they reach out to?
You >> uh someone who's on the Eboard for uh student council or Mr. Bulier who is the uh person who runs student council. >> Say Mr. Buler. Thank you.
>> All right. At this time, I'd like to call up Mr. Moro and Miss Neas to give us the HIV violence and vandalism report. Good evening everyone. I'm John Moraso. I'm the principal at Mountain Park and I
oversee HIV with Miss NeAs. I focus mainly on K5. >> Hello, I'm Casey Nebus. I'm the student assistance counselor at Governor Livingston and I share buildings with
Colombia Middle. Um I do 6 through 12 what we're going to cover tonight. Um, we're going to talk a little bit about our HIV update from the last year, our self assessment that the counselors do within their school safety committees.
We'll talk a little bit about our programming and we'll talk some about trends, HIV within the district and law within the state. What's important to understand from this slide is that an HIV and a act of
bullying uh harassment or intimidation could be a single incident. Um historically people think often that it has to be a series of events that builds up and has a combined impact. If an H if an act fits the criteria, it has a
negative impact on a student's school day, their ability to access resources at school, it can happen once and be found as a positive HIP and HIV can be found that happens anywhere. Usually we focus mainly on school property, but when things are
brought to our attention that happen off school property at a sporting event, um at a party in town, sometimes we'll have things that take place at other gathering spots within the community where students interact negatively. It'll be brought to our attention. We'll
investigate and if it meets the criteria of a targeted incident that has a negative impact on a school day, then it can be found as a positive HIV. It's not just an event that happens on school property or at a school activity.
The people that are listed on this slide are the anti-bullying specialists from each building. We have representatives from the school counseling department and also the child study team. You'll also see myself and Miss NeAs. Miss Nebas is a school assistance
counselor, so she's part of the school counseling uh group. I'm obviously an an administrator. The only situation where I would do an investigation is if it was us between a staff and a student. Um none of the people that are listed up
there besides myself would be able to investigate that because they're part of the same association. I'm part of the administrator's association, so I would investigate that. Um to date I have not investigated any HIVs between students because the feeling is is that we need
to have someone that we can escalate it to if we need um further eyes on a situation. >> This year there's been a couple of unique situations where I've had to investigate HIVs between schools. So
between GL and other schools. So the way I do that is just to inform the other school abs's of what the situation is and then they will report back with their statements from their students and
we take it from there. So necessarily we won't have the names of the other students but we will have documentation of the situation um the outcome and we can have that all in documentation. When we um it comes to our attention
that children are having negative interactions um we can have resources available. We can take the guidance approach. We can take a disciplinary approach. we can um possibly do if we feel like it's the
children are on equal playing fields we can do a little peer mediation just so the children can be heard um from the opposite sides of the story and then obviously we have the ability to conduct an HIB um
all the traditional forms of punishment um change of schedule change of of seating change of transportation, all those things are available if we feel like that will help the situation and help
children have a more more positive experience. We we really try to focus on the opportunity to help the children's grow children grow and learn as opposed to just punishing them because all my experiences is if you take the approach
where you're you're punishing the behavior rather than teaching and remediating students just become more creative. They go underground and they often be become more more nasty in their behaviors.
this slide. Um, it's important to look at the dates. We have two reporting periods during the course of the year where Miss Neas and I take all our situations that are reported and investigated out of our our um archiving system which is called Hipster and we
report those to the state. You have HIVs, violence, vandalism, weapons and substance abuse. Um violence, vandalism, weapons and substance substance abuse. Those are reported by the principles um separately. HIV are things that get
documented in hipster and Miss NeAs and I report them. This slide is a comparison of reporting period to over the course of the last several years. This is still
January 1st to June 30th. You'll see a listing of year-over-year HIVs in this situation. And you'll see how from year to year the number of HIVs change. What I one of the thing that I noticed just tonight when I
was we're preparing for this if you look at 2122 Columbia middle school has 60 investigations. So if you go down to GLS, GLHs and over to 2425, during 2425, all those children
who are at Colombia in 21-22 are at GL and there were only 11. So I that just jumped out at me. I thought that was very interesting. Some of that is can be attributed to the fact that the middle school kids grew up and we know that historically middle school has the
largest number of investigations and the largest number of positive findings. But I also think it's a it's a a testament to our programs. We we make a a huge priority to help children develop positive relationships
um interact in situations where they can be successful and um and learn from each other and understand each other. And I think that shows up in that data point. something that we're noticing a great
deal is that um face to face we do much better than we do through social media, through email, through Instagram, through Snapchat, you name it. Um when we are able to get
our children in um interacting personally, cooperative learning situation, differentiated instruction situations, clubs, activities, band, chorus, orchestra, drama club, sports teams, um student council, trend. When we get our
children involved in those activities, they're they're much more likely to treat each other with respect um and much more likely to work things work their disagreements and their uh differences out in a civil manner as
opposed to um being pointed and negative and and targeting each other. And something that does not help the situation is is definitely social media. Prior to social media, you you could have time off, but now you could be at
home, you could be on vacation with your family, you could be at summer camp, and someone that you haven't seen in a long period of time has the ability to negatively impact your day just by making a comment on a picture you post or bringing up something from your past
that has a negative impact on what you're doing. Also just a point to take note of was that we were trending positively after the year of 2021 2022 and there was I
think it was 121 back in 2021 and then everything decreased numbers wise but then recently Last year there was a little bit of a jump and I think that could be also attributed to social media but also just
the consumption amount that our students are seeing the heightened climate of the world. It's a lot to consume and it's difficult for probably us to absorb and process all of it. So then when the
children are seeing that then it tends to come out in behaviors and it tends to come out in language and I think that that probably has a lot to do with the certain cases that we are seeing popping up as of last year and into this school
year. So at the end of every year we do a self assessment process for all the schools in the district. Um how that works is that we have to share that to the department of education in June. Um each
school safety school climate team they complete that themselves and then they share the results with Mr. Moro and myself. So then the results are due by the end of
October. So they should be pretty much done and scores are used to focus on how we can go forward in the following school year. And these that are listed are just the core elements that we rate ourselves on
in the schools across the district. Um, I believe there's eight. >> You want to take a quick view of that? >> Yeah. And something we make an attempt to do is every year focus on things slightly
differently so we're not just doing the same thing over and over again. And we've been able to make use of our our our board attorney. We've been able to use make use of Mars Union Joiner Commission. There's also a a anti-bullying coordinator group from Union County that we get together with
virtually throughout the course of the year and learn from each other and and we find that that's very helpful. We're we're signed up for a workshop the first week in November where we're we're going to have the opportunity to be in a room with with a a lawyer from the state, but
also colleagues that do this in other districts. And it's it's just a chance to see what's going on elsewhere and learn from each other and and and really stay as current as we possibly can regarding um the way we interview
children, the way we um support children if they're both sides of the situation, whether they're perceived offender or or a perceived victim. Um this is should be pretty self-explanatory. You
see across the top the scores um by the district. You see the scores by each building and then the the um the different categories down the left hand side and how how we we scored ourselves. and we really try
to be honest with each other when we're interacting with the people in our our buildings to make sure that we're seeing everyone's viewpoint and approaching HIV in a positive way and also in a proactive way. So, we're just not
accepting things as they are. We're trying to do whatever we can to educate, train, create programs that support children to make good choices and do better um you know in the next opportunity. So last slide was raw scores. This is
percentages. And these are some examples of specific trainings that we participate in. Some of them we've referenced already, but this this gives you a a pretty comprehensive list of things we participate in in an effort to create a
positive environment, help faculty members and adults recognize behaviors that might may be escalated to to to a bullying situation and also opportunities for investigators to do a better job talking to students and
investigating. Um, I'm pretty confident none of our our counselors or our child study team members went to college, got advanced degrees, worked really hard to become investigators, but this is something that we're asked to do. And I think it's a it's a really important
part of their job. So, we work on that to help people become more effective and and learn strategies to have conversations with children to really get to the bottom of the situation. So this is a robust list and not a
complete list of all the programs that go on in the district, but we have wonderful programs from the early elementary all the way up to the high school. Um we can start it off with feelgood Fridays and wellness
Wednesdays. That's something that I continue at the high school and the middle school level. So essentially what I do with them is I try to mirror an activity per month based off the precept
that we have picked for that month. So I've cut it down to once a month. This way I can fully effectively plan it and deliver it to the whole school. So, Feelgood Fridays takes place every third
Friday of the month. And same thing for the middle school. I do one event per month. Um, I also attend the Union County Consortium to network with the other districts around and try to take
notes of any good programming that we can bring here to Berkeley Heights. And then we are working on delivering parent wellness programs, um, drug and alcohol awareness programs, drug and alcohol trends, of course,
keeping up to date with that. And then some really important initiatives down at the the lower levels. So, bucket filling behavior, positive affirmations, growth mindset, um responding in peaceful and positive
ways, teaching that in an early age, having those healthy coping skills starting from when they are just starting out, when they're very young, and then week of respect activities, which we will get into in just a little bit.
So these are just a list of the precepts that we have developed and designed um as a counseling department for the district. So we started off the year with the themes of community and friendship and you can read through some
of them. Um next up would be gratitude and believe in yourself for November and December. And then if you take a look at the end of the year, we wrap it up with be kind to your mind and
see the good. I can't see it, but it says see the good. And now I have the pleasure to go through all of the great activities that have been going on in the district so far. We're only a month and a half in, but you will see that there are so many
great things going on. So, at the early childhood levels, we have continued um the tradition of monthly celebrations. This is where we get all the kids together and we celebrate the precept for the month and make it a big party
and have them really excited about what they are going to be learning for the month. Um, Bitmoji classrooms are really resourceful for not only the students but for parents as well. So, they will be also giving any sort of resources for
the month but also letting the community know what the precept is for the month. um they continue the win groups at the early childhood level and since the beginning of the school year the counselors have all gone into the
classrooms and they've seen all the kids met all the new students and from what I can read I believe it says I promise um but they were reading a LeBron James book and this was to start off the school year with a inspirational
yet educational book to all discuss. And those are some pictures too of the small wind groups with the kids on the floor. Um the week of respect that is a logo of their theme week and all the
different spirit days that come with that week. and then at the elementary school level. So again, um the counselor started off the year with going into all the classrooms, doing their introduction
lessons, meeting with every single student and seeing every single face in the school. Uh they were reiterating the zones of regulation and continuing that initiative.
and recently Week of Respect. Um I believe their week of respect spirit week is on the next slide so you can see what they were up to. But in the bottom left corner you'll see the coming spirit week for Red Ribbon Week. So that will
be the end of October and those are some of the spirit days and themes that will be going on then. And you could see Mr. Moro and Mr. Coughlin there participating in their spirit week which
is lovely. Good job. And this looks like it was the most recent spirit week initiative at the elementary level. They seem to have themes for every single day but also respect missions. So it gets
the kids engaged and thinking about how they are going to implement their respect for each and every day of the week. Columbia Middle School. So some of the things that they continue throughout the whole school year would
be student of the month advisory lessons and EP workshops. And the advisory lessons are really wonderful because the school counseling team, they really carefully developed the curriculum for that. So they took a lot of time and thought and effort to
deliver effective and meaningful lesson plans for those advisory days. I also did something new this year. I did introductory sack lessons. So I went into all the classrooms. I got facetime with every
single student, every single grade in the middle school, let them know my role, touched on HIV, how we can be kind and what we can do for others when we're in school, and then gave a a school climate survey, seeing how everyone was
feeling coming back to school. Then the bottom left corner is a suicide prevention week awareness table. It was me giving away a handful of resources for the students and we all painted our pinky nails teal and green in solidarity
for the cause and it was a really great hit and wellness Wednesdays like I had mentioned will take place there and then Governor Livingston High School. So, as I mentioned, we do the feel-good Fridays, which is monthly. And
then we also have um our school counselor, Jay Pimementel. He puts together the monthly awareness calendars, and he does a great job with that because he puts every sort of awareness day, event, school, school event going on. It goes on that calendar
and it goes out. So, everyone is in the know, in the loop for what is going on that that month. next week of respect. So, I don't know if you had a moment to check it out, but right outside the cafeteria, we have the gratitude graffiti wall, which was such
a hit and everyone in their English class had a chance to take a card and talk about what they were grateful for. And then we displayed it and it's a great work of art right outside of here. So, take a look at that. Um, and then Hispanic Heritage Celebration, that was
a few days ago and that was really great. Some treats and dancing lessons. So, that was great to have all the students involved. Um, upcoming November 10th is challenge day. So, that's an annual program that we
have here which is for the sophomores. It's a um empathy building, social connectedness type of all day workshop and I'm really looking forward to that. Red ribbon week is also coming up with
the fall wellness fair next Thursday and today it was mentioned in the student report but we had no hate tour and that was absolutely incredible. It was high energy. all grades were able to see and experience it and it was so
engaging and very rewarding to see the kids just having fun after a long day of testing. So we can see some photos of that on the next slide. Those are all the riders and the Marines who had sponsored that program. And in
the right picture, I just have to say it, Mr. Dunas was such a great volunteer and Mr. Nixon and the riders rode and flipped over them. So, it was very wild but very entertaining.
And then going forward for the school year, just making sure that we are using our data and establishing trends and using all of our data to say, okay, what do we need to bring it into the classroom? How do we design our lessons
properly? Um, what are we delivering to our students? Is it relevant? So, we're really looking at data this year to drive our motivation, what we give to the students. um making sure we stay up todate with
all of our programming. We're making sure that we're going to everything that we can and we're going to make sure that our ABS's go to everything that they can as well. >> Yeah. Thank you. Questions. Uh Pippa.
Oh, I don't know if I have to save this for later. It's less of a question, more of a comment. So, you can tell me if I should do it later. Um, but if not, then I'll just say it now because I was listening to a couple of things that you pointed out. I was writing down about the gratitude graffiti. I feel like that
was like a good way because I think it was simple and successful because like we were just handed out the cards and we all wrote something down and mine's up there. I found it. So, I think that was successful and people enjoyed writing things. They wrote some nice stuff like, "Oh, my friend complimented my outfit today." So, I feel like that was like a successful step, especially for people
in high school. Um, and on top of that, I did want to say that the No Hate tour was also very successful. People were talking about it for the rest of the day. I myself really enjoyed it. Um, I initially did not think I was going to, but I will say that it surpassed my expectations. I had a lot of fun. Um,
and also I did want to bring up um, in student ambassadors, I'm in a club and basically within the meetings like alongside our monthly meetings about club planning, we also have people come in and we do have um, drug alcohol awareness, bullying and also stress management. So, I don't know if that's
just um, an idea specific to student ambassadors that we've implemented into our club that Miss Morren does because I know she's oh, sorry that she's part of the counseling department. Um, but I do think that within other clubs it could be useful because when you have larger meetings then if you have them sit down
then people typically stick around to listen. >> Thank you. I saw hands from Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Terrer, but Mrs. Kana had her hand up. So, Mrs. Kana, >> thank you for the presentation. Um, I like that it was very detailed and you
sort of went into a lot of specifics. It was great to hear some of the programs that we don't ordinarily, you know, hear about. Um, can we go back to the slides? Is it possible to bring up the the slides with the um with the self
assessment scores for a minute? The one before this just with this course. Can you help me understand how should we be reading the scores here and what does it mean a high score versus a low score? I what I can see at the
bottom is everybody's sort of in the same range. If I correlate this to the data that that you presented before where it was clear that our middle school is you know working through the challenges of kind of just students
learning to work together how should we be interpreting this data >> so I don't I don't see this as a function of what is taking place with the children the children um because you said it you know there's evidence that
supports that we can do infinite number of things at the middle school level and middle school students are going to behave like middle school students. So that's why we really make an effort to provide extracurricular activities, um, clubs, arts, music,
sports, um, drama, um, coding, robotics, anything that's a hook, a positive experience that gives that child something to feel good about, to focus on, to to build positive relationships, but also to have an adult that they know
that they can go to when, you know, for lack of a better term, the heat is on, they're they're losing control. Um, and and that doesn't always is not necessarily going to show up on this slide. This slide is how are we handling
these certain questions and that they're very specific. We get the form from the state and to be honest with you, we do it in June. We look back on the whole year and it's the counselors that are involved. I sit on my school safety team, but I don't
sit in that meeting because I don't want to have an impact on their honesty. Um, I don't know if I'm answering your question, but that's, you know, it's almost like a standardized test. It's a snapshot regarding the questions that are being asked and the the the answers
that the teachers provide or the educators provide at that moment. Because to be honest, when I when I saw this, I was I was assuming that there will be something in the CMS column that will
indicate that when when the the district is objectively assessing themselves, there are things that we could do different that will at the end of the day, we want to make sure that there is enough support provided to
students who are, you know, feeling the impact, but also those who find themselves in a situation that's not ideal and in some ways that behavior is a cry for help like so I was I was trying to interpret this
data in that context. My other question is, do you see other districts doing something different that gives them maybe slightly better outcomes at the middle school level? Because it's clear our trend is showing.
Has somebody cracked the code in terms of making, you know, middle school students slightly better citizens? I know a lot >> question but I'm >> Yeah. No, I understand. I know a lot. I mean, I have a lot of experience in this
and I'm not going to say everything that I know in this forum. I'd love to have I'll have a conversation with you in the parking lot someday someday. And I'll be very honest with you. Um you you can have some very isolated individuals and some very specific
situations that can really impact our numbers. So we have a lot of children who behave really well and treat each other with a lot of respect. But we have other students who are struggling with the you know with their environment with their
themselves organically and that has a negative impact on everything. And we you a lot goes on to to support everyone to create a better environment, but some of it is is
internally driven. And like I said, we had 60 investigations with a population of children in the middle school and that same population was in the high school four years later and we had 11. So they work through it. Doesn't make it
easy at the time. I mean, I'm not trying to avoid your question, but I'm just trying to be honest with you. >> And I I appreciate that. >> And then the the last question, if you're seeing that kind of a trend in the middle school,
um is there an opportunity to provide support to new students who are coming in the district or those that are particularly feeling like I don't have enough friends here? Um, is there like anything that can be done? >> Well, yeah, a lot gets done. I I mean,
the district has made commitments over the course of my time in Berkeley Heights where we've increased the number of counselors. We've increased the number of academic specialists, people who really focus on certain skills. We've increased the number of um sports that we uh provide, extracurricular
activities. teachers can pilot a um an idea for a club if students are interested and then in the next budget year they can get paid for that club. So there there are things and I really that's something I really focus on is extracurricular activities and
opportunities for positive interaction. So when a you know oftentimes they'll families will come visit the schools um they're trying to decide where to move or what neighborhood to move into or new providence for Heights what have you and
if they have middle school children that come with them. I really focus on encouraging the parents to get the child signed up for activities. Um, you know, everybody's going to take math, science, social studies, and language arts, but not everybody's going to have the
opportunity to to participate, like I said before, in a robotics club or a coding club or what have you. And those are the things that I feel like really spur success. And the district's committed to that. We, like I mentioned before, we've increased the number of counselors. We used to share, we used to
have two counselors at the K5, now we have four. Years and years ago, we had two counselors at the middle school. Now we have three. So there's one per grade level. They stay with those children as they move up in the grade level. So there's no reintro, you know, there's no
reintroduction period the first month of school every year. The counselors know where the child was when they finish in June and therefore they can pick right up with them in September. They stay in their lives. And we have situations where children have experienced uh loss or trauma over the course of the summer
and they're reaching out to their counselors because they have that relationship. And then Miss Nebas goes to Colombia every Wednesday. So she's developing those relationships with children who who need our attention. So when they get to the high school, she's right there and she's communicating with
the high school counselors to make sure that everyone gets as much as what they as much of what they need from from the department. >> Thank you. U Mrs. Jolly. >> Nope. >> Um >> I don't know if you had something to add.
>> Oh, okay. Just really quickly just to go a little bit further. So on the counseling end of that um in the middle school I do run groups. So a lot of what I try to target are like those little pockets of students who are struggling
with certain areas. So for example anxiety or new students in particular. Um I've had social groups and it's just for the purpose of trying to connect those who are struggling to make friends. So, I'll have little lunch
bunches or something like that. So, I do try to use the data from the surveys that I give out in the beginning of the year to build those groups off of what I'm seeing trendwise with that as well.
>> Mrs. Jolly, >> yep, thank you for the presentation. I think a lot of the questions were answered, but um I'm just um going to uh reflect on the data. Um interesting point you made that sometimes you know we did see an uptick in CMS um in the
2425 school year. Um but to your point that there might be like a repeat offender like one person or two people who are driving up the numbers. I think it would be great to see that as a data element like maybe in parenthesis like how many kids I don't know if that's
allowed or um but I think that would be informative because did it really go up by you know by seven you know additional kids or is it really just one or two because it seems it it seemed it was a notable increase.
Yeah, we I think we were at 60, then we went down to 25 to 20, and then we went up to 40 over the course of five years. And yeah, that's that's not something to be proud of. Um, you know, I'll use the example that we um when we get to have
state testing, you know, the the levels of achievement are based on colors on the chart. All the parents get those forms that you try to figure out in the mail. And um you so and we get graded on how many how many children are in each
each category but I know from my my perspective I look I try to look really closely and I'll see children who are in possibly a below average range but they might improve you know 30 or 40 points but they didn't improve enough to jump
to another category and that doesn't show up but that's a that's huge that that child worked hard got intervention and and that growth is something we really need to focus on. So the data doesn't always share what really is happening.
>> Mrs. Terrarero, >> first of all, I wanted to thank you all for the presentation. Um, and I want to thank the guidance department for all the programs that you put together for all the students because I do do know it does make a difference. My daughter
actually saw the thing today and was like raving about it. So, um, the kids do appreciate it. Um, a lot of my questions were actually centered around what what Dipy and Natasha were saying. Um, you know, I I
do have a totally separate question. Um, Casey, you were talking about you've handled HIV cases that are from school to school. And so, I want to have a better understanding of how that
works. In other words, if there's an investigation you're doing here um that involves a child in another school, what are the responsibilities of the other school? And you know, where does
the burden kind of fall? Obviously, there's nothing that, for example, our district can do when there's a credit violation, but how does that typically get reciprocated? Can you kind of clarify
some of that for us? So from my limited understanding of these types of situations, I would say if it's one of our students, then we we take their statement in the same way and then we reach out to the
other school and give a a vague overview of what the situation is that occurred, what students were involved, and we asked that they conduct an investigation on their side and share back what they have learned and then we just continue
our investigation from there. Um it's difficult when the students are not in the same school. Um but we have to go about the investigation in a similar manner and and gather the evidence and have all
students interviewed. But on our end, what we can have in our system is really just our students at GL. >> So that's that's the basic overview of how it would go if another school was involved. And a followup to that
question would also be a school has to file the HIV or the ding hits that district. Where does that fall? In other words, if it's one of our children that is the victim, so to speak, and makes a
statement that this HIV has happened, even though we're filing the HIV, is it the other school that takes the ding or is it Berkeley Heights? I believe and and Dr. Maher, you did this previously in your your life, but I believe it's the the district that
initiates the HIB gets the ding. They they own the HIB. But what's also important to realize every public school, whether it's a magnet school, charter school, what have you, they have to have people in our capacity. Private schools don't. So
that's that's where we really just do to Miss Nebas' point, we do our job. We make sure we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. We document it as as you know based on our children and we let let the chips fall where they may. If it's a another public school or
a magnet school, then their system should speak to our system and we should have collaboration there. And um and you know you can have a you can have an h a positive HIV based on the the victim's
experience without an offend without an established or a known offender. So you can just treat it that way. We don't get cooperation. We don't get information. We just treat it as if it was an unknown offender.
>> Mrs. Zakiri, thank you for the presentation. And I had a question on this slide and slide number 14. So on this slide, every school in our district said we
was a 12 and the maximum score is 12 on investigation procedures. So do we take any feedback or like any constructive feedback from parents on like some of the parents appeal these
hip process so there is so are we saying this is an accurate score this is a self assessment >> so we this number is not based on feedback from parents but I we take feedback from parents all the time has you know
>> has the parent feedback been fractured in or this is basically the school and the administration saying we are following everything to the tea and we are giving ourselves the maximum score for investigation procedures.
>> Well, it's it's it's not just I mean just not to nitpick but it's not the administrators the admin this is done by the the school safety team. It's counselors, teachers, members of the the school community. We have um you know parents who serve on the school safety team as well. That's
something that we're required to do. Um you know we ex we get feedback from parents daily. We accept feedback from parents. We often don't solicit it but we get it. But that is not informing like that feedback is not represented.
>> So basically because you know just to be honest you know a parent is is is the most biased human being that ever existed. You know you're me included is your experience is based on your child's experience. You know our we have
to react based on 182 days 100 kids dozens of investigations. >> So if I understand this correctly there is no chance for improvement. We are at the we we every school in our district is saying we're doing everything that
needs to be done. So not only from a victim or a multiple of like you know multiple offense offender like you know multiple case offender. So there is no chance for improvement. We're doing the best we can in investigative procedures. That's how we need to interpret this.
Correct. I yeah I I think we're doing we're doing our >> because from so even from a a a HI victim can say maybe you know if it wasn't if a particular case was not
adjudicated as like you know it was a valid HI or not there might be something missing right there might be maybe there is a chance for improvement but when we look at investigative procedures and every school district starting from elementary to high school is saying we're doing the test and that is it. But
that's how I Okay, can we go to slide 14? >> Can I just Can I just >> Dr. Moore? >> Um Okay, I'm on. So, um for every one of these indicators, something that's really important, I think, for the board and the public to understand is that there's a rubric that's provided by the
New Jersey Department of Education. So what is what we task our anti-bullying coordinators and our anti-bullying specialists with is taking the rubric that's provided by the state as well as the sample documentation that they provide and saying do we meet the criteria based on their rubric right and
so when we're looking at these numbers these are numbers based on the requirements by the NJ DOE so we meet the requirements of the NJ DOE that doesn't mean that we can't shift and change our procedures based on our student population and which is something that we always strive for,
which is continuous improvement. Um, anything that's going to benefit our children is something that we look for. But that score of 12 means that we um exceeded the requirements of the NJOE based on the rubric that they provide for our anti-bullying coordinators.
>> Okay. As long as that's accurate and that's >> Yeah. Any more questions? >> I uh Slide 14, please. >> Excuse me, Mrs. Sakiri. Slide 14. I had a question on slide 14. >> A question on slide 14.
>> So again, this is based on self assessment. What does what do these percentages mean? >> It's out of 78 is the maximum. So those are the scores, right? >> It's from the previous slide.
>> Okay, go. >> If you look go to the other slide, you look on bottom left, 78's the max. >> Okay, >> so they'll go across. That's what each total each building's total was. >> Okay. Got it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'll make it short, >> Mr. Dylan. >> Yeah. I was just curious because I
hadn't seen substance abuse or the mixture of violence and vandalism, right? So, what what was under that substance abuse >> is so >> I think my main question is really to be honest with you, >> um has the Zen situation calmed itself
at least here, right? I know I'm new to this board, >> uh, but at least in in the Mountain District, we had uh some incidents where, you know, especially in the in the middle school, um, maybe the awareness of tobacco or ZID usage wasn't
known as to be a danger, right? So, I guess that was my my main question. So I mean these are situations where a child was perceived to behave in be behaving in such a way that called attention and they were they were assessed they
were sent out to be am I using the right word to be um screened. Thank you. So you know I don't know if what you're talking about was ever found >> but that's that's something that that I've heard of. I don't know if it's
So these are these I think what I hear you saying is in five times last year a student came in and they were suspect suspected of being under the >> influence >> substance abuse right under the
influence right yeah okay and would tobacco usage be included there do we know >> I don't think you can tobacco Okay. >> I'm an elementary school principal. That's not my >> That's okay. Um
may maybe a followup then, right? Um just curious to see um how that is. And the reason why I bring it up is there's been some success with uh potentially partnering with the DARE program, right, which traditionally focuses on your more
mainstream drugs and alcohol, right? and where tobacco may be left out. Right? So, um just a just something I would a suggestion that has worked and I've seen work elsewhere. >> And I will say, you know, we at the 345 level, we have what we call lead and uh
Detective Maxwell comes in and interacts with all the kids in Berkeley Heights and the, you know, tobacco vaping. That's something that's they spend a lot of time on obviously alcohol and and street drugs but they spend a lot of time on
tobacco vaping and alcohol because that's something that the children >> witness and is readily available. >> That was my Thank you. >> The short answer is yes. Tobacco is part of substance use. Yes, Dr. Forer.
>> I'm sorry. >> Hello. Okay. You mentioned the DARE program. Uh the consensus of the researchers though is that's generally viewed as a failure and in some studies you actually get more drug usage because of kids that went through deer. So it's
not a program we should be using at all. >> Okay. Um any other questions from our student representatives? Yes, please. >> Uh can we go to the next slide? I think it's the next slide. Uh, next one. Maybe the one the one with
the percents on it. >> Slide 14. >> Yeah, slide 14 then. Yeah. So, as a student when I'm viewing this, um, especially with what I'm learning right now, we've been learning about the importance of labeling your
charts and graphs. So when I see this, I just see a bunch of numbers. I don't know what these numbers are correlating to. So I recommend in the future that you do a better job of labeling your graphs because I see average 96 95 96
95.5 on the district self- assessment. What is the district self- assessment on? Uh if you look at the last slide, you gain context. But say someone walks in through the door, they have no clue what's being taught on this uh on this uh slide.
>> Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Nimz and Mr. Maro. Appreciate it very much. Dr. Feltry. >> Yes. Thank you very much. Um I have a couple of announcements as Dr.
Mar gets ready to present the NJSLA presentation. So, um, Dr. Mar, Dr. Moore and I met with the Mountainside Superintendent, Mr. Christopher Kenny, the supervisor of special services, Mrs. Sher Ruo, and the curriculum and instructional support coordinator, Mrs.
Natalie Chrysafouli, to discuss articulation opportunities between the D two districts and related to curriculum and special education. And then the Mountainside and Berkeley Heights will be Mountainside and Berkeley Heights
districts will be co-hosting a parent partnership on December 15th at 7 p.m. in the GLA uh the in the GL auditorium that addresses social media and cyber security presented by Lieutenant Tom Rich. Um the flyer will be going out
tomorrow via Thrillshare and um social media. This is a parentsonly uh event uh so that uh Lieutenant Rich can inform the parents of things that they should be aware of for their students as opposed to being a how-to
for students. So, and then without further ado, Dr. Maher. Okay, they turned it off on me. Tonight I am presenting the NJSLA results for the spring 2025 assessment. The New Jersey student learning
assessments were administered in English language arts, mathematics, and science during the spring of 2025. Individual student reports were sent to parents and guardians last month. New the New Jersey student learning assessments measure how well students meet the New Jersey student learning
standards which specify what students are expected to learn in the three assessed content areas. So just an overview um the NJSLA again is a statemandated assessment designed to measure student achievement in English language arts, mathematics and
science. The purpose of this assessment is to inform instruction and identify areas for targeted supports, monitor progress towards meeting state standards, support district and school accountability requirements through the NJ DOE. And the test administration includes both computer-based and
paperbased formats when applicable and accommodations are provided with students for IEPs, 504s, and our multilingual learners. The purpose of this presentation is to meet the NJDOE requirement for public presentation within 60 days of receipt
of student scores, to ensure transparency with the board, families, and community, to review results, subgroup performance, and interventions, and to outline steps for instructional improvement. Tonight we will cover an overview, student participation in the
assessments, achievement at each of the levels, subgroup performance, and growth and trends that we see across the district. Here you will see the participation for English language arts, mathematics as well as science. Uh you are looking at the number of students that are tested
in each of the tested grade levels per subject in the years 2024 and 2025. So this slide simply represents student participation. How many students are taking each of the assessments? Students in grades 3 through nine are
required to take the NJSLA in English language arts, which focuses on reading and comprehending complex texts independently and writing effectively when using and analyzing sources. This table compares student performance by achievement level for the 2024 and 2025
NJSLA ELA assessments. The last column shows the change in levels four and five meeting and exceeding expectations from 2024 to 2025. And we would like to see a decrease on
the left hand side in students not meeting, partially meeting and approaching expectations in a given year and an increase in the students meeting and exceeding expectations from year to year. And while our current scores indicate there's still work to be done, we see this as an opportunity to
identify specific and targeted areas for growth and strengthen our instructional practices in English language arts. NJSLA mathematics. This table displays student performance. Um again this is a similar format 2024
and 2025 comparison at each of the proficiency levels. The last column again displays the change in students meeting and exceeding expectations from 2024 to 2025. We saw an increase in the number of
students that met expectations in grades three, six, and high school geometry and consistent performance in middle school geometry and algebra 2. Again, this chart provides valuable insight into where we can focus our collective efforts and continue to support all
students in mastering the standards at mathematics at each grade level and assessed course. the science results. Um, this table displays student performance on the NJSLA in science 24 to 25 at each of the proficiency levels. Students take the
NJSLA science assessments in grades five, 8, and 11. And the last column again indicates a change in student scores in proficient and advanced proficiency levels. As you can see from the chart, students showed a decrease in performance in grade 8 and an increase
in grades five and grade 11. Here we're going to go over the same three assessments and these are comparisons to our state averages. So the NJSLA results for English language arts, mathematics, and science for each of the proficiency levels.
Similarly to other comparisons, we aim to be below state percentages in not meeting, partially meeting, and approaching expectations and above state percentages in meeting and exceeding expectations. So just to highlight the data, the green is what we're looking for on the right
hand side of the chart, level four and five, meeting and exceeding expectations. And I would like to say that in English language arts, we are above the state average in all of in grades three through nine. This is a similar table with mathematics
state comparison. Again, we want to be um we want our district and our numbers to be below state and not meeting, partially meeting and approaching and above the state in levels four and five, meeting and exceeding. And I would like to say that we are we've done this um
across this table as well uh with the exception of algebra 1 in high school um where we were below the state average. Um I do not expect to see that again as we have injected the math 8 course into the middle school and um to add that
additional intervention for our students before who may not have been algebra ready when taking this exam. science state comparison. Again, we aim to be um above the state average and proficient and advanced proficiency and we are um in grades 5, 8, and 11.
As part of NJSLA reporting requirements, schools must analyze performance data by student subgroups to ensure equity and accountability. Subgroups analysis examines how different groups of students uh such as those identified by race and ethnicity, gender, um English
language profic proficiency, pardon me, special education status, and economic disadvantage, um are performing on state assessments. This disagregated data helps us to identify achievement gaps, monitor progress over time, and inform targeted supports and interventions. The
goal is to ensure that all students, regardless of background, have equitable access to highquality instruction and the opportunity to meet or exceed state standards. Please note that these slides are distributed by achievement level across grades for each assessment. So, I
just want to reiterate, you'll notice that this is not by grade level. So, this is taking the um NJSLA English language arts uh subgroup and this is by race, race, and ethnicity. Here you will see the NJSLA subgroup for
language arts by gender and by subgroup program for English language arts. are multilingual learners, our students uh that are economically disadvantaged. Section 504 students that are classified
and our students in the general education programming. So I will repeat these slides as we go through. So here we have math disagregated by race, mathematics disagregated by gender and mathematics disagregated by subgroup
program. And here we have science disagregated by race. Science disagregated by gender. Science disagregated by subgroup program. So just a few items to note with district-wide trends in English language
arts. Um our grade six showed major growth with a 16.6 6 increase in uh percent increase in levels four and five. We did see slight declines in grades four, five, and seven that indicate a need for targeted reading and writing supports in the upper elementary
and middle schools. Across our mathematics programming, grades three and six improved in proficiency. Grade six uh actually grew by 9.1% a strong indicator of successful instructional consistency and interventions. Grade four declined by
13% suggesting instructional gaps and foundational numerousy skills. And while there was a decline in algebra 1 scores, geometry and algebra 2 scores stayed consistently strong and showed a slight improvement. In science, grade five uh was
marketkedly improved with 10.9% increase in proficiency and grade eight saw a decline and grade 11 stayed relatively consistent outperforming the state but with room for enrichment and continued foundational knowledge building. Some things to celebrate. Um, the
English language arts grade six jumped from 52.9 to 71.1% in proficient and advanced. That's that 16.6% increase. Math grade six, that 9.1% increase in levels four and five and the strong gains in proficiency in
grade five science. And across all subjects, district proficiency rates um exceed the state average uh by quite a lot. Um, another item to note is that we are investing in refresher training for tiers of support. Um, all of our school
administrators have access to this data and work with their data teams in order to design interventions and ensure that this data point along with the data points that they collect in the classrooms are used to make sure that we are matching the appropriate interventions across the spectrum with
student needs. Um this will include tracking our interventions and continue to expand our toolbox of matching the interventions to needs um to make sure we are assisting students in meeting grade level standards. And additionally in alignment with our data literacy goal, we are working with our full administrative team to continue to use
this data and others to drive those intervention um practices. Questions? >> Yes, Mrs. Jolly. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Mrs. Connor, >> where are we going? You can go first if you want.
>> That's common. >> Um so thank you for um uh the presentation. It was really helpful. Can we go back to the slides that um that showed the math numbers one more time? The >> you want the full math table? >> Full math the algebra and the geometry
numbers. >> Yes. One more >> this slide. >> Um yeah, let's stay on this one for a minute. So this one says for algebra 1
our level four was 25% level five was 2.5% whereas the state >> that's in 2024 >> uh >> 2025 is the second >> oh this is not the state okay sorry uh actually let's stay with this one that's
fine >> so our 24 numbers were better and this is what grade are we looking at here. >> I think that you're on the line for algebra 1 for high school which is a freshman course. >> So yes, so that is a freshman course,
>> correct? So in order for kind of the next cohort to do better that's the math 8 intervention or maybe can you talk a little bit more about >> how do we want or like what's the plan
to address this for the students who are now in middle school I suppose and they will take this when they are here at the high school. >> Absolutely. So um with the addition of a math 8 course so um prior to that course being introduced this year so we don't
have data on that course yet right so prior to that all students in eighth grade took algebra 1. So if you see the majority of our students who take algebra 1 in um in the eighth grade. So though we still saw a decrease, we saw
higher numbers of proficiency in meeting and exceeding expectations for middle school and eighth grade. The students that historically have taken algebra 1 in 9th grade struggled in algebra 1 and eighth grade. So in algebra 1, if you're
going from seventh grade mathematics and then you go directly into algebra 1, there are eighth grade standards that are embedded in that math 8 course that you're missing. Right? So oftent times in an accelerated math program at a middle school, um you want to embed those skills across your math 7 and math
8 courses so that students have exposure to them, right? So, the math 8 course also introduces a lot of the algebraic concepts in a much slower pace, allowing them to be introduced and have the full breadth of those grade 8 standards prior
to moving into an algebra one course in um at their freshman year. Right. >> In the high school. >> Yes. >> Right. Because I was trying to correlate those two line items. Do they indicate different students taking the same test? >> They do.
>> They do. Right. Yes. One's one's for the middle school students, but it's the same test. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um and I think our our numbers for just one of those line items. So, it is it's those students who are not in the accelerated math program that need the
extra support in the middle school. That's the way to read the data. >> So, ask me that one more time. >> So, if you look at the if you look at the the state numbers as well. >> Yes. that particular line items I thought was lower than the state average.
>> Yes, that is that is correct. So in let me get there right here in our state comparison our algebra one in a high school is where our district is lower than the state average
in a traditional programming across the state. You do have that math 8 course embedded. So oftent times your students that are taking algebra 1 in middle school are only your accelerated students, not all students. And then the students that are taking algebra 1 in
high school have had access to that math 8 course and the breadth of standards that are within it. So there's additional preparedness when they get to algebra 1 in high school. >> Okay, that that makes sense because I wasn't sure why it would be that off compared to the state numbers.
>> Yes. And that's oftentimes in these state presentations um grade eight math and is um so when you do have a grade eight math included in these and it's tested it's oftentimes lower because you're splitting your student population right so your students that are and I
wouldn't even say intervention that are on a a regular mathematics trajectory are in that math 8 course but you have taken your students that are high achieving and and really advanced in mathematics and they're in that algebra course. So oftent times from math seven
to math eight you do see a decline because rather than having the majority of your student body taking one test you've split it. >> You've split it. I get that. >> Correct. >> So when you when you look at the curriculum and in the way that you would assess, you know, is this working? Is
this helping? Is there like a target that that next year this time when we look at these numbers we would be at X% better? You may not have an answer right this minute. But I like I'm trying to figure out how do we
assess that the curriculum is helping our students. This is one way to measure. I get that, right? >> But it is a way to measure and it is, you know, um so I'm curious if if you're thinking about how do we measure that and then sort of feedback loop back to
what needs to be different. Yes. >> For the next cohort because it's it's an ongoing process. I get that. >> So I would say yes. Um, as far as percent increase and what I would like to see as far as our growth, like obviously it's different. It's not the same cohort of students, but it's also
going to be an adaptive test this year. >> Go ahead. Can I add something? But it actually won't be this year because you introduced the math 8 course, right? >> So, you're not going to see any change in algebra 1 this year. We'd be looking at the ninth graders who take algebra 1 next year to see an increase. Yes.
>> Yeah. So we may not see any difference this year unless we have more intensive interventions for algebra one this year. >> Yes. Thank you Mrs. Terrero. [Music] >> Um just kind of getting on this whole algebra 1 middle school versus high
school. >> Could you move the microphone closer? Thank you. >> So looking at the algebra 1 middle school versus high school and comparing the numbers that you see from 20 what? Well maybe it's not this one. And it was the other slide. There's another slide. >> Hold on.
>> Um where it's comparing 24 and 25. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> This one. >> So my question would be obviously you've corrected it with the math 8 which is great. >> Wouldn't we see an an a potential improvement? Because
weren't most kids that were taking algebra 1 in middle school repeating it in nth grade? >> Right. So why would there be a decrease? >> Flip flip flip that. Right. So um our students all took algebra 1 in 8th
grade. >> Um recognizing that from my understanding because I wasn't here. Um that course um had all of our students in it. So you moved it was very differentiated for kids in the classroom because you had a wide range of students
in the classroom. So the students here Yes. um that are taking algebra 1 in high school is this would be their second year taking algebra 1. That's correct. >> Right. So So that's a little concerning
to me because it's a repeated class. So I I'm just concerned whether or not the math aid is going I'm not >> okay. So, let me I think I can I think I can help clarify that, right, about why would math aid help if a student who was
taking algebra 1 as an eighth grader and then took it again as a freshman was still struggling with the content. And I would draw that back to what I what I said before about there are standards that are taught in a math 8 curriculum that are not taught if students are
going directly from math 7 to algebra. So you have a completely different pacing guide. And what a teacher would try and do here and did try to do was to embed those grade 8 standards the best they could, but they weren't explicitly taught the way they are in a math 8
program. So when I'm doing if I'm a student and I'm doing algebraic equations, then I may be missing some of that foundational knowledge that would help me, that pre-learning that would help me in that course. and even if I took the course a second time, I may
still not have access to those standards that are within the math 8. >> Okay. So, so to kind of add to that, if you had a student that was a on the progressive path and took algebra 1 in 8th grade
>> and maybe fell into a situation where they had to repeat it because they struggled for whatever reason, how are we correcting it to make sure the foundation is there? >> That's a that's a great question. So, let me just make sure that I understand
it. So your hypothetical is that if we have a student um this year that is taking algebra 1 >> and let's say they really they were in they and and Dr. Curtis had a very um um
outlined process for students that how they would how they would go into math 8 in algebra 1. So if the student was in algebra 1 is really struggling and then has to repeat it in ninth grade, then those are conversations that we're having. Those foundational skills, what we would need to do is place those
students in a section, right, and find a way to intervene with those direct explicit instruction of those skills in order to make sure they're successful in math and algebra 1 in high school. That's a great question. I mean, I'm thinking specifically about the freshmen this year >> because
clearly there's a problem. So, what what is the what are they doing to try to give them those foundations? >> Did you want to add something >> so that they're not they're not going to run into problems when they get to algebra 2? >> Yes. So um so the teachers that are
working with algebra 1 at the high school um this year and have um taken their curriculum and they've mapped it in a way that they are integrating those standards, right? Because they because they see this. So Dr. Curtis is working with those teachers to ensure that there's small group instruction and
there's explicit instruction of those standards. What um and then and then really like formatively assessing them throughout the year to see what their gaps are. >> Okay. So we should we should see an increase in algebra 1
high school. >> Well, you won't test those kids. Oh, you might you might >> in the scores in the spring. >> Yes. >> Hopefully. >> Hopefully. One of one of the things that I know that Dr. Curtis talked about this summer when we were in our admin retreat was we get evidence statements. So
reviewing the evidence statements with um the teachers so that they know the specific um standards where we were weaker >> um and focusing on those when they come up in the curriculum and really making sure that the students um shore them up. Something that I want us to take a look
at though is we definitely want more in four and five, right? We want our students meeting and exceeding but we also need to take a look at um levels one, two, and three. We want to see a decrease in the number in the percentage of students at level one and we did. So hopefully
those students, you know, went to level two. We we we want low numbers in level two. But the fact that we increased the numbers, we decreased in one and increased in two, that's a good trend. And then the same thing, you know, increasing from
to to three. Well, your ones and your twos are hopefully moving up the the trend in the right direction. We want them in fours and fives, but at least we're trending in the right direction. >> Yeah. And we want to we want to value the growth as well as the proficiency. >> This is Dolly.
>> Um so these are September sorry um spring 2025. So none of the kids who took these tests had any math eight. >> Correct. >> Right. So we're really comparing 24 and 25 based on the same level of
instruction. And so it it is a little disconcerting to see them fall by, you know, such significant percentages, right? So there's no, you know, ideally like they stay the same or increase and then math 8 even amps that up a little
more because I think we do have um a state target to hit 80% proficiency by 2030, right? >> Yeah. So then the other so the only thing that's different right and so I'd like to also understand maybe from Dr. Curtis because there's been professional
development a program that started and that would include spring 2025 that started last year. So, you know, I what are we seeing as a result, right, of that PD for teachers when, you know, we're looking at this and
year-over-year, you know, there's a decline. So, maybe math 8 will help bring us back like I was hoping that we would, you know, at least be in the same boat, right? Because the story kind of has been steady, right? And this feels like a
little bit of an unexpected drop like 8%. I mean >> and then and then also concerning right in um I mean a double-digit drop in grade four. >> Yes. Yes. And and and I agree and that's
one of the reasons that I closed the presentation. Um, and one of the reasons that we have data literacy as a goal this year is really working with our administrators and then working with our teachers about how can we take the data that exists in their classrooms and make
sure that we're using it to drive the interventions that are happening. So, we don't want to wait until the state tests to find out what those gaps are that exist, right? We want to see those and we want to address them in the moment. And one of the things that I know Dr. Curtis has said um and we just had on
the last October 13th PD day that the math department had training on um was is a it's called Alex. It's part of the new um the new reveal math program and it is an adaptive um almost like like a tutor, right? It's an
adaptive intervention piece that works with students. Um, and it's new and so the teachers are learning how to use it and um, that is a data point that we can use. Obviously, a computer doesn't teach kids, right? I think that's the balance that we have to have. The computer
doesn't teach the kids, but what it can do is it can provide data for the teachers to pull those students, see what gaps they have within that data, and then make sure that they're using that direct small group instruction to intervene. >> Sorry, just a followup. Right. And so,
as was mentioned earlier, the NJSLA this year will be adaptive and won't count for anything. So, I don't even know how we're going to be able to measure like progress, right? >> The field test will the fall field test
will not count. We will have it. We will have the we should have the test in the spring that we will get results from. The fall test is what we're not getting results from. We'll have results. Um, as far as how those results and the state will ask us to compare them to the non-addaptive
platform, we don't have guidance on that yet. >> Mrs. Stanley. >> Yeah. So, I'm I'm less concerned about the algebra because one, we know uh we're addressing it, right? That was something that we we already knew was an issue, but I think the fourth grade, it
definitely concerns me. Um, you know, what what is happening is specifically with the fourth grade. Can you show us the English language for fourth grade? Because I think that one was also off if I was >> You're correct. >> Yeah.
Um, so do we have any knowledge on what's going on in fourth grade? Because this would be the first kids who had full day kindergarten uh after COVID. Um, so I'm just kind of wondering what what we what
do we know about them? Have they Right. because in the past it looks like they scored. Okay. Right. >> Right. So, um what I can say is that um I sat in um the as a matter of fact to your point the fourth grade and the
fifth grade um data meetings um at the beginning of the year, right? Because you'll see this. So, it's pretty steady in fifth grade for math, but um but we did see the drops fourth and fifth. So, really the three to five band, right? um is somewhere where we're looking to
ensure several things, right? We want to ensure that teachers are using that small group targeted instruction in their classrooms and they were they they're asking for professional development in that, right? And how can I take the data that I have in front of me and design centers and design that
targeted intervention and then how can I monitor student progress with that like outside of the curriculum? If I'm teaching all of my students the same thing at the same time, um this is a different cohort of kids. Uh and I think that sometimes um I struggle with comparing like the dips and the trends.
Um to your point, Miss Jolly, like it it's a different group of kids, but we still want to see consistency in our programming. So, one of the things that we're also doing is looking across the grade and what are those standards? To Dr. Feltry's point, what are those pieces where we're seeing drops? A tier
one plan is what it would be. So tier one means universal for all students. So what are all students missing? So we can target that in our instruction and then we can look at those smaller groups of kids for the tier 2 interventions and the tier three intensive interventions and they look different. Um but it's
it's definitely a topic of conversation. The teachers are pulling that and they're asking for more development in it. So we're working very closely with them. Yeah, I would like to see that because I know we had a cohort that recently graduated and they they they struggled with state testing um every
year. We followed them year after year and they did struggle. So, I'm interested to see what's going on in fourth grade. I know that when we look at state testing, we have new students that come in, right? But we are allowed to take them out of the testing data um because they technically weren't really
educated by us, right? Because they have moved in within a year, right? Have we done that? Do you know with this >> students were not removed from this data set? >> Okay. Like there's like um there's like a within the one to two years if they haven't been in the public school for
that long. I know we've talked about it before uh with previous administrators. Um sometimes you can remove them from the data, right? because they're they're not an accurate description of >> so I would I would probably look so if I'm looking internally at data then
that's a conversation that I would have internally but if I'm presenting data to the public once they become our students they're our students and so I want to make sure that all of them are represented in the public data but I could understand that if I'm looking at those largecale curricular pieces and um pulling that out just so that we're not
skewing data um and making decisions based on a student who may have moved moved in to your point two weeks before state testing happened. >> Right. Okay. No, I was interested to see how that might have affected the the fourth grade, right? If we know, right, that there is a a larger cohort of
people moving in in the younger grades that might have made those numbers go off at all. Otherwise, I do think it's something we need to look at. >> Certainly, we are. >> Yeah. Because if you look right, like their previous years don't seem as off, right? So, what happened last
>> I agree. last year as we follow them. >> Questions from our student representatives. >> Hi. So, I'm trying my best to understand the data and everything that's going on, but with No. Yeah. But looking at the fourth grade, I was just curious with the math department, have the younger
students also switch to like a more online approach or are they still sticking with typical textbooks? >> No. >> So, I do. Um, so I would say that some of their pieces are online and but the majority of math instruction at the elementary level is paper and pencil and
so they really want students showing their work, working through the problems. Um, they do have I Ready the I Ready platform. So they do use that which is again adaptive to their level. Um, but they also do a lot of work on whiteboards and you know they want really want to have um exposure to the
content not just the computer. >> Okay. Yeah. cuz I was a little bit curious because I know like throughout my schooling especially in math uh in elementary school, middle school we usually stuck to the textbooks but now towards like high school obviously we switched away from that but I do think there is a value in textbook learning
like you just said that you want people to learn content based like on the paper. Um, so maybe you could look into that as something. And I do also want to note in math, maybe this is just a personal experience, but I do also know that uh with the I don't know if it's still currently employed at the schools,
but we had like the thinking classrooms um in math where there would be a lot of group work involved. And I do think that sometimes that when you do group work, typically people or younger children may get embarrassed if they don't understand certain topics and then other kids might move ahead from them. And I'm not sure
if with the I Ready and the adaptive learning if anyone does this in groups, but say you're working on a problem together, but one kid gets the problem and so we all just plug it into the Chromebook because that would happen a lot of times when we use math space or Delta math. So typically that can occur between kids. So, I feel like that could
also be something to look at. Um, especially since you're talking about uh the math program for the algebra 1 students and maybe asking for their feedback for how they like to learn because I know that group work some people do view it as oh collaboration.
But for me, sometimes when people get something and I don't like I'm embarrassed that I don't understand it and I don't want to say anything. Um, and so then I kind of just >> I don't get it and we move on. So I think that can also be valuable for the classes especially for the students who have to retake algebra 1 because again
there might be a stigma around that. It's like oh you took it in eighth grade and then you have to take it again. So I do think that maybe including student feedback um would be valuable in a situation like this. >> So I would say that that is something that um I have not seen. Um it's you
know obviously we get feedback from students on surveys and things like that. You get a survey for everything right? Um, but having student voice in that curricular development process is one of the things that I think makes it the most valuable, right? Because a lot of times when we have students within
our district, we do things for students, we do things to students, but we don't do things with students. So, I appreciate that and I want for you to know that that is something that is certainly on our radar and is um highly valued. So, thank you for that uh from our student representatives and then Dr.
Forer. And then to add on to Pipa's point about the thinking classrooms, uh, I also feel that with the instruction on the whiteboards and the group work, I feel like it wasn't very efficient because there were there would be students in
your group that say they didn't understand a problem. The teacher would just throw the problem out. You'd go into a group and you'd have the people who just rush and do the problem and then those students, they would just like stand around on the side and they wouldn't do anything. and then when it comes time for a test, they're going to
fail the test because they don't understand what they're learning. And with the direct instruction, I've actually seen significant improvement and results from that and the think classroom. And then going on to uh student participation, when I get all these surveys sent out, I ask people, I
say, "Please fill the survey because if you want to see change, this is what they're looking at." And a lot of the students who are being impacted, they per se, they don't really check their email that much. They're like, they see the survey and they see, oh yeah, look at how many questions there is. Look how
much I have to fill out. They're like, I don't have the time to do this. I think that we need to think of better solutions than just sending surveys out to students in their email. >> I completely agree and I want to say thank you to both of you for your feedback. Um, one of the things as
educators that we have to always consistently be aware of is that we have a huge variety of students that exist within our classrooms, right? So, uh, to your point, so some students may work very well collaboratively and may need that support from their peers. Some students may really prefer to do things independently. So what we have to do is
we have to ensure that our teachers have the skills to both ask you that so that they can make sure that they know and understand the way in which you best learn um and that they incorporate those strategies so that there's something for everyone within that classroom as they teach and that everyone has access to learning the content in the way that
works for them. >> Yeah. And as I GL as a student I've been here for three years. I'm a junior now. Um, all three of the math classes that I've been in through, I've just been gone going through the process of the teacher talks for 10 minutes, explains what it
is once, and then throws you a packet and tells you go to this group, go to the whiteboard, do the work, >> and then if you have a question, like the teacher will come around and they'll explain it. But it's it's not as efficient as uh direct instruction.
>> I appreciate that. Thank you, Dr. Forer. Yes. Uh certainly uh direct instruction is far superior method that's been shown many times. Um do you have any comparison to uh I know
you I know you're doing a a comparison to the state averages. Do you have any comparison to district factor group I? So um that comparison data so oftentimes in October and November are when the districts do their presentations. So while we don't have that publicly
accessible now, we will have it publicly accessible once that 60 days has passed and then and then the we have the 60-day requirement for you have to present publicly within 60 days. So yes, that um will be available. >> Okay. So we're that's good. Uh, as far
as your presentation, uh, I don't know if this is maybe that maybe it's dictated by the state, but it'd be a lot clearer if you would just collapse into two groups, uh, proficient and not proficient because all you're doing is seeing some little movement within
groups. But the real thing is how many are proficient, how many are not proficient. Um, the other thing is you're using an extra decimal place. you know, 79.1. We don't care about the 0.1.9, whatever. Just show me the integer.
Okay, that'll make it easier to follow. Uh, I'd like to see a cohort analysis where I follow a group over time so I can see how are they performing in third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade. Okay. Um,
and uh, you mentioned adaptive testing. in the state. I think they announced they were going to do that. I don't know if they're going to get away with that. Uh that violates uh at least in the math area, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act where you're required to
give the same test to everybody. So, I don't think that's going to be a valid thing. I don't know if that's going to hold up, but um I don't even know how you would determine proficiency if if kids are answering different questions and it's going to be make it very
difficult to compare things. >> Maybe that's a good idea. >> What? Well, I mean, yes, because we're under the gun to get to 80 80% proficient and uh you know, if we're not making progress, then there's always a temptation to go change the measurement
system, right? to make it look like you're making progress. All right? And they're already making changes, small changes, but I think maybe we'll see others coming along. Maybe this adaptive testing is to kind of negate the whole thing so that the 80% requirement will
be magically met. Okay. Um anyway, those are my comments and then uh Mrs. Stanley and Mrs. Akiri. >> Um so I wanted to actually give you some additional feedback. Um because we were talking about the algebra one
specifically to kind of go back to that. >> Um where I think we should also be mindful of it because I'm seeing it with my own child. It's when they move from algebra 1 um to um geometry.
>> I'm talking about the kids that are like sophomores, >> okay? >> Okay. They've moved from algebra 1 to um geometry and now they're in algebra 2 or algebra 2 honors or whatever it is. Um, I'm seeing that a lot of those kids in algebra 2 don't have the right
foundations as well because my daughter actually is a tutor that's told her this. So, I think it's important maybe when we're kind of starting off the year to make sure that those foundations are year because it's been a gap. I mean, >> I agree. >> They've moved from algebra 1 to
geometry. They need a refresher, >> right? So, I do think that that's something with this particular sophomore class that the math the the math department should be making sure is integrated. >> Yes, I agree. Mrs. Bley,
>> so I just wanted to say I think I misspoke when I said about the full day kindergarten because now right these fourth grade in this is actually fifth grade this year. >> Correct. >> Yeah. So then I misspoke. So they >> So they were not our first full day. They would not be our first full year. they would have been the ones that had to go one week on, one week off, okay,
during COVID for a half day, okay, kindergarten. Um because the third graders who are now fourth graders are the first >> uh full day kindergarten kids. >> Okay. >> Right. Because they're the current >> fourth grade. So, I misspoke on that one. So, it makes a little bit more
sense to me the numbers why they might be off because I do think those kids are the ones, right? like when you're learning to read and you're right and you're only getting very little education on half day kindergarten on the one week on one week off. >> Um so I definitely want to see us
increase our our win periods with these kids and um pulling them out. I want to push on the special education science. We every year that cohort does not do well in science or special ed. Um, I know that we put in the win program to
try to prevent us from removing students from science programs or other programs during the day, but I think we need to continue to do better because I know science is one of the ones that's easy to pull the kids out to help them, >> but I think our numbers show that that's hurting us um in special education. And
then the other two things is I would really like to see these two presentations on the website um because I wasn't able to follow along. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, if we can get those up. But other than that, I just want to say about the fourth grade that it that they're fifth graders now. So, got it. Thank you,
>> Mrs. Zakiri. >> Yeah. So, I think last year also when we had this presentation, I specifically asked in addition to this presentation of comparison with level three approaching and this is where we are
with the state. Can we say these are our action items? This is what we intend to do. So when we ask you questions, yes, it's great to hear the answers that, hey, we are looking at PD, we're looking at Alex, we're looking at this new
program. This is my third year on the board. >> Mhm. >> And every time when we have this data and when we ask questions, we hear all the right answers. And sometime like how Natasha said last
year we were told you if the board approves the PD the professional development for the teachers we will be given an early January presentation on where the professional development is actually showing us the results. Then we
were also told this grade 8 math and the new consultant that we have hired at the recommendation of Dr. Curtis will show us results in three years. Can I just make sure to understand that that was the consultant that came and worked with the mathematics department last year. >> Yes. >> Got it.
>> So, we did not get an update in January. Now, we're seeing the the data. We're hearing answers that do meet the expectations, but maybe on the presentation saying for level three
approaching this is these are the three steps like it doesn't have to be a lot. these are the three constructive like you know this is what will be done and that can be validated because I can speak from my personal
experience and some of my you know daughter's close friends who were in CMS >> after fifth grade I think they were all in level three approaching and some of them were special ed
but when we went for our IEP meetings or when I went and met on parent teacher conferences I asked what are we so if the data is saying NJSLA fall data is saying she has not met or is approaching what is it that is being done
differently the answers are always the same academic strategies we're pulling them out >> but if you like if you for and Dr. Dr. Faruger I think I I must have asked he heard him say I would like to see a cohort analysis like following so I can
speak from my own experience sixth grade 7th grade 8th grade approaching approaching approaching no so if every answer from the administration is like hey we are doing this we are doing this there is high >> switch again so no this is dead now okay
so and my daughter was in the after school tutoring program. >> Okay. >> In addition to that, I can vouch and I have asked Dr. Feltry this. I don't know if that survey will ever be sent is if you asked a survey to the district
parents and asked them how many of them are actually getting external tutoring, you would be surprised. So in addition to the PD in addition to all the academic strategies all the action I you know that you say this this is what is
being done to help the kids who have not met the level four. >> Mhm. >> If we are still in this state after like just following my daughter's cohort six 7th and 8th and my daughter was recommended for geometry for high school. So I feel there is a disconnect
and at some point we might have to say these are the only three things that we need to do maybe going back to direct instruction textbooks or this is what will be done with the student if they have not met approaching and if the same student in the next year's NJSLA has not
met then what are we going to do? >> So I think I think what you're talking about uh Miss Cury is like is a targeted intervention plan and and that's and that's what you're looking for right? Okay. So, um that is something that I mentioned. So, two two things to what
you just said. Um number one, when I mentioned we're really looking at those tiers of support and finding ways to monitor progress in those interventions. So, if I'm doing um an afterchool tutoring program or if I am working in a small group in my classroom with a teacher, how am I monitoring my skill
progression? And how is the teacher monitoring the skill progression during that? And is the NJSLA score for that student next year reflecting all this work that we have put in? >> Right. I do know that there was a very close analysis of the high impact tutoring program that we were able to
implement last year. Um and they looked at the NJSA SLA scores and um and it was a very positive impact. So I absolutely hear what you're saying. So two things. Um, number one, I can I can add a slide when we post it on the website because this does need to go onto the website um
that just outlines some of the things that I've said that have been represented during the conversation. I'm happy to do that. And um and then number two, I think more for reassurance um is that is something that's within um how we in our plan to use our title 2 funds, our professional development funds that
we're focused on with with teachers so that we can uh help them to continue to improve matching the interventions to the student needs. I need to know why what this gap is so I know I'm intervening the right way and then I need to know if that has or has not been effective. And if it hasn't, I have to
do something different. So that's part of the training that we'll be providing. >> So one other suggestion, Khan Academy is free. >> Yes. And in addition to private tutoring and after school high impact tutoring my daughter again every year in summer I make basically once once she graduates a
grade I say go to Khan Academy do that grade and see where are you and I'm telling you every year it actually tells you are you proficient not proficient in which area and surprisingly with for grade eight I think we were missing like
I don't think she was even able to attempt anything on geometry So do we compare the free resources that we have? I know we have a lot of delta math I ready but just giving that test takes about I think 45 minutes to 60
minutes. >> Mh. >> Just having kids take it like you know at the end of the year or before they come to next year >> are the like you know it it takes 50 minutes and you can see are they proficient and which area are they failing and then that's where you can factor in. So Khan Academy may work very
well for you and um and I use it with my kids at home too, right? Um so it's a great parent resource. Um when we're looking at things in our classrooms, we want to do things that we can track and that we can store the data and that work with our information systems that we have. So, one of the things that we've been working on um that we just trained
um teachers from every building this last week is to have link it, which is a system where we can put all of those data points and make comparisons so that we can better understand what that gap is and then we can make collective decisions about what to do about it. >> Thank you. Sure. Okay, Mr. Dylan.
>> Yeah. So, we've got an opportunity as a district and I I'll phrase it in a scenario where you're a parent at home, probably over the summer, you get a form letter that gives you these results and those results closer to the left than
they are to the right. We as a district do not do enough to educate the parents as to what's going to happen based off those scores, right? It's a huge opportunity and it's my experience specifically at the high school is that uh while it may be
going on and we may be focusing on moving the students more from the left to the right, it's not transparent for those at home. Okay. Um I I don't know how you got ahead of it. I don't know how you are aware of the results before
the letter comes. There's a plan in place. Maybe it the more students move from the left to the right, there should be more time for those responsible for sharing what the results mean and what we're doing about it to reach out to those parents. Um, but it's a miss at
the moment. >> Got it. So, I I do want to share something that um we discussed in our um curriculum um PTO meeting that we had earlier this year. So, one of the things that we talked about um was parent programming. um understanding that um
there are some things that we can like have parentto parent programming on and and we have districtto parent programming on and I do think that understanding a the importance of the NJSLA prior to it being uh taken the importance of the NJGPA and making sure
that families understand and have resources and then again um I do think that there is always room um it's important right so I know when something is happening with my children and um and they have needs and they and I'm receiving something from the school district. I I' I'd like that personal
piece. So, that's something that we're discussing as well. So, I hear you, >> Dr. Peltry. Superintendent report. Anything else? >> Uh thank you, Madam President. That concludes my superintendent's report. >> Good. Thank you, Dr. Maher. >> Thank you.
>> Moving ahead to the report of the business administrator on board communications. Uh, Dr. Gail, can something be done about the air conditioning? It's It's freezing out here. >> I have I have been texting and and emailing.
>> We're working on it, Mrs. Zakiri. Okay. I don't think this is on. >> Oh, it's on. >> Hello. Okay. So, the business office team has been hard at work keeping things running smoothly and making sure we're following best practices in every step of the way. Right now, we're
working on ASSA submission, QAC, um, which is once uh, every three years to ensure districts are meeting state standards. We're preparing the comprehensive maintenance plan and reing incumbrances. So, the business office is also getting a head start on the budget
season, gathering information for the forecast we'll need next year. reviewing processes, staying on top of reporting deadlines, and making sure the district's operations continue to run efficiently, responsibly, uh, and with the students best interests in mind. Planning for the upcoming district
referendum is moving forward. Project scopes, timelines, budgets are being reviewed and discussed with the district's architects and bond attorney. Materials, and information continue to be shared with the community to ensure that voters are informed about the proposed improvements and their impact on students and facilities.
Construction update. All major construction projects are on schedule. The WWS toilet roof gate upgrades are complete. There are minor punch list items and casework uh installation pending. Uh the CMS roof replacement is
nearly finished with the final metal and duct work progress. Punch list reviews for both will be on Monday, October 20th. Gym floors are complete with punch list reviews on October 20th. and the G um Governor Livingston press box is in fabrication and expected to be delivered
on November 5th, completed on November 14th. The annual audit is proceeding on schedule and the district remains on track to meet all statemanded mandated audit deadlines. Only a few items remain outstanding and the business office continues to work closely with the auditors to provide the necessary
documentation updates. We anticipate the audit will be finalized promptly ensuring full compliance with all state reporting requirements and board policies. >> Okay, any questions? Mrs. Jolly >> Jen, just a a quick question um with
respect to the um the uh the materials for the bonds, right? Um uh so I I know that there were some brochures at the last meeting, right, that we picked up for distribution. I guess how else is
this being advertised to the community? Um because just in my you know, regular inbox or in my you know I did I'm not sure like that it's visible at least to me as a community member. >> Sure. So
there have been several things that are have been done and Dr. Feltree, if you want to jump in here at any point. Um, we have business cards with QR codes that give a presentation. Um, we've also been uh getting QR code stickers in areas where that are planning for
upgrades. Um, like media centers to kind of give you a visualization of what that area could potentially look like with the referendum. Um, we are not putting QR codes in parking lots that we plan on repaving because but uh we do have that
on our project list and you know aside from the brochures, the website, >> there's the website um which is linked right to the the home landing page and then the architects are planning on coming for November to present here. um
they do need to present before the planning board because of some of the building um as a courtesy for some of the building um uh changes that will be made. Um we're uh requesting to present before the
senior citizens mountainside um uh potentially uh inviting other community groups. uh they will sit at any PTO event uh with a scrolling
video if you will and all the little video clips are on the website and we'll be doing like a media blitz if you will. >> Okay. I I just wondering that if um you know we have like a I don't want to say PR department but we do have um somebody
who posts and advertises right and that's typically I think what people would see the most. Um and the presentation, sorry maybe a little off topic. The presentation by um uh by the firm that's they want to do in November. Is that um in any way dependent on the
bond questions that we have here for approval? >> Meaning that um like let's say for examping that yes thating all the information based on this. Yes. Well, no, the information based on that, but like do they need to present the actual language of
>> part of what they >> what we will want to do is have presentations that explain the language so people actually understand because it's a lot, right? Those questions are very long and involved in and and having it um
deciphered, if you will, and explain to them. >> Is that what you were asking or no? Um, no. It's what I was asking, but I guess we can talk a little bit more about the questions when we get there on the agenda. But, >> okay. At this time, we'll have comments from the public on agenda items.
During this portion of the meeting, district residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda items, action items only. The board requests that individuals state their name and town of residence or school of attendance for the record. All comments should be directed to the board president and depending upon the nature
and complexity of the question. It may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration. If so, the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded. Although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum of all public comments will be considered. The board asks that
members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking. Specifically, comments regarding personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board. Students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey. The board bears
no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public. Please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting, the board president may terminate the participant statement. Continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjourment of the meeting. Each speaker statement will be
limited to three minutes in duration. We'll take in-person uh comments first and then online comments. Make sure that you're online, your first and last name is visible to be unmuted. Is there anybody here in public? It's not.
>> Yeah. Get the video. Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, so two quick questions. Am I allowed to talk about some of the presentations? >> Yes. >> Oh, you couldn't hear. Rebecca Aerson,
80 North Road, Berkeley Heights. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, um, both of my kids are here at GL and they were both very excited by the No Hate Tour that happened today. So, that was great. As a parent, um, I
did flip over the card that was sent home, uh, with some of the BMX writer signatures on it, whereupon there was a QR code that said, "Scan the code and win $500." So, I clicked the code and lo and
behold, um, I have it on my phone and the information is asking for your name, your address, uh, if you have an apartment number, email, your school, your grade, your birth month, your birth year, who is
your favorite BMX athlete today, and then it says, please fill out your contact information so we can stay in touch. The United States Marine Corps has been a proud partner of the No Hate High School Tour for the past 16 years. This presentation is an impactful
educational program that uses the excitement and energy of action sports to deliver critical bullying prevention tools, techniques, and information to students in a relatable peer-to-peer manner. Then it goes on to say, "By checking this box, you are requesting to receive
information from the Marine Corps and may be contacted directly by a local USMC recruiter to learn more about what it takes to become a Marine. You will be contacted via the information provided in this form and your personal
information will be used for recruiting purposes only. Checking this box is not required to participate in the sweep stakes and there is no affiliation between the sweep stakes prizing offered and the Marine Corps. Refer to sweep stakes
rules and restrictions for eligibility continues on and on with the consent box that says check this box to request a local Marines recruiter to contact you with the submit button. My point is that there were a lot of people that were excited and thrilled to
watch BMX bikers and they also have a device that are scanning a QR code and probably are not educated and understanding what some of that information is or is not asking. So the
excitement is awesome. The message is awesome. the information as a parent I'm devastated by um that that this information is accessible to people that may or may not understand what it is.
That's the first point. Um the second point is I wanted to say thank you Dr. Bar for your um presentation. I am uh a parent of a freshman who is dealing with a math issue right now and um so am and
my three month my three minutes are up. >> Yes. Could you conclude quickly please? >> I can. I just wanted to say that um I think I'm hopeful that moving forward there'll be a clearer understanding of what the curriculum is supposed to be from the eighth grade to the ninth
grade. and we are actually in that transition right now trying to figure out how to move forward so that we're not in a repeat mode. So, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in person? Hi. Uh my name is Elena Kelly. I live in
Berkeley Heights. Um I have a daughter at CMS. Um I just this I will make this quick. I am also the um girls flag commissioner for our PAL girls flag um program and um I
do see on the agenda tonight that the um is the approval for the girls flag football club at GL for this spring. Um and I just wanted to thank all of you for your support. I want to thank uh Mr. Hendris. He has been a supporter um from the first time I reach out to him to
talk about this as an opportunity. Um we've had two very successful years of Girls Flag with over 40% growth and a lot of happy fun times with the girls. Um amazing coaching as well just by our volunteer parents. So I just want to
thank you. This is a really exciting time for me personally as a part of being a part of this um and for our community. And um I'm sure you guys have heard of all the things happening girls flag in the country and the world and I just feel like it's really fun for us to be a part of it. So I want to thank you. >> Thank you.
I see no one else in person and I see no one online who wants to make a comment. Is that correct Tim? Okay. So we will conclude our comments from the public on agenda items. Moving on to minutes. May
I have resolution A from all board members approval of minutes? >> May I'm sorry. Is it Mrs. Kana? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. And second. >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Mrs. Jolly.
Any discussion? Madam Secretary, roll call vote. >> Mrs. Airi? >> Yes. >> Dr. Forger? Mrs. Mrs. Terrero, >> yes. >> Mr. Dylan,
>> abstain. >> Mrs. Jolly, >> yes. >> Mrs. Connor, >> yes to August 21st and abstain on September 18th minutes. >> Mrs. Stanley, >> yes.
>> Miss Bradford, >> yes. Moving on to finance resolutions A through P. All board members resolutions o excuse me Q through R Berkeley Heights only. May I have a first and second? >> Sorry before before we do that we
changed the format of this agenda a little bit, right? We did not do committee reports. >> So um are we going to do it after we vote or >> No, before you vote. >> Okay. Yeah. >> So do we then do we have the finance
minutes? >> You make a motion to Yes. They're there. So, you make the motion and then the committee reports and then the discussion and then the roll call vote. Did I get that right? >> You did that right. >> Yes.
>> So, may I have a motion, please? >> So, moved. >> Thank you, Mrs. Terrero. A second. >> So, M I'm sorry. Was that M? >> Yeah. Miri. >> Yeah. Both Debian. Okay. Quick. Thank you. And we're moving on to the finance
and facilities committee committee report. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. So Gail, I think the confusion is on the agenda. The committee report is listed after R. >> So >> correct, but it's listed after first first motion and second motion.
>> Okay. So maybe right first motion, second motion. Now our committee reports. >> Yeah. Going forward, I think can we just put the you know motion and then the what is going to happen first? That way it's clear that we'll do the reports first and then we'll vote.
I have no comment on that. >> You you you have to have first and second motion to go in. >> Yeah. I'm saying yeah. So when we say finance and so put the first motion and second motion right after you know on page two finance resolutions first
motion second motion and the reports right here. Yeah. Before a before >> Mrs. You want to put it right after where the section says finance. Yes. Right where the section starts. >> First motion, second motion. She wants a bullet. Just saying so that we
>> because here you say resolutions A to P and Q to R but then you don't say first motion second motion >> finance can you just move it so then >> or even before a right just before you
like just so it's clear after you do the motions then you do the committee like even before you get to the various topics >> okay we'll let our business administrator take a look at that. So, right now we have our findings. >> We have to differentiate between Berkeley Heights and Mountain Side. >> Yeah.
>> I mean, >> I I don't think it matters. You're looking at R, right? You have to approve R. >> And once you approve R, you made the motion. Now, you go through committee reports. Now, we have discussion as soon as we order, >> right? There's first first motion,
second motion, now we have our committee reports. So, finance and facilities committee report, please. I thought you'd never ask. >> Thank you, Dr. Farger. >> This is September 26th meeting of the Finance and Facilities Committee. I
won't I won't list out who was there. It was a virtual meeting. The meeting discussed the upcoming referendum for school improvements focusing on the need for a netneutral question to avoid tax increases. The first question valued at 21 million included capital projects and media center renovations with no tax
impact if approved. The second question valued at 29 million covers additional projects like science and STEM labs at GLA GL high school and CMS as well as capital renovation projects. The committee debated the number debated
the number of questions with some preferring individual questions for each school. on council advised against multiple questions to avoid splitting votes. It was stated, however, that individual project questions allow for a true determination of which projects
have majority support. The current 99page presentation is on the district website. Once a question is approved, we must do all the projects in that question unless we cannot afford to do a particular project. Escalators and multipliers are built into the estimated
costs to allow for increases over the next four and a half years. Woodruff roofs were will be replaced and this is part of the referendum. The removal of the solar panels will of course be done first. There are multiple questions to
have some flexibility. The timeline for projects will be created so as not to stress out the business administrator. Specific changes to the presentation were noted. progressive curriculum was mentioned. Uh we asked to come up with another term for that maybe growing.
This was changed with the new presentation. A small correction having to do with the effect of property revaluations was noted and will be made. There was some skepticism that the tax impact of a question can really be zero. If bonds are fully paid off, then
issuing new bonds means that the payments continue instead of dropping to zero. Somewhere it needs to be noted that for question two to pass, one must also pass question one. This will be on the ballot. This is being done because the priority items are in question one.
We are on track for approval of the referendum in January. Well, actually, it sounds like we're on track to approve it tonight. Board still needs to decide on the exact configuration of questions for the referendum. The presentation will be refined and presented to the full board
in November. That's it. Thank you. Um, now we could have our athletics curricular and co-curricular activity report. >> One thing we had two finance and facility meetings. One was on September 19th and this was the September 26th. I
have the minutes for the 19th. >> Thank you, Mrs. Zakiri. For the first meeting. >> Yeah. [Music] M has to come up. Maybe um Dylan can go on and then I'll pull this up because I need >> Are you sure?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh Mr. Dylan, athletics and co-curricular committee report. >> Absolutely. Uh so uh the committee met on October 8th. Um we had a good conversation uh about all the great events that are occurring across the
district. Bulk of our time was spent on some of the specific areas. Uh press box construction which we just got an update on. Um, great to see that's coming along and it'll be installed, you know, early November. Um,
we did discuss um the need to have in finance uh K uh the $120,000 move from capital reserves and why that was needed and how optically it may look like we're spending more money, but we're actually saving $80,000 off of the
original budget. Um, but given the way that finances were moved at the end of the last district, money that was unspent was put into reserves, we just got to pull it back. We put 200,000 in. We're pulling 120 back out. Just leaves 80 there for something else to be used.
U we talked about openings with uh specific uh coaching assignments. Uh on the agenda tonight, we did talk about the lacrosse coach. Um uh we also a couple of other items that we we met on uh we reviewed uh the success of Friday
Night Lights and mainly not just Friday Night Lights but Highlander week, right? Um and uh the committee um is fully supportive of switching a little bit of the branding for next year rather than focus on one individual event. But a way that we can get uh those lights are here anyway, right? Where throughout the
entire week different sports can take a different night. You can have field hockey, you can have soccer, and so on and so forth. Uh here at at the school, uh we did discuss the powderpuff game and how what a great opportunity that was for them to raise money, which was already covered. Um
and of course, flag football. Oh, one other club that we uh putting forward for recommendation to be approved, which is on the agenda tonight, is the GLando. Am I saying that right? >> Lando. >> There you go. uh which is the uh music for music and vocalist right so do you
want to say it for me >> gland >> there you go perfect uh and that is the end of my committee report >> thank you and technology and communications committee report and then we'll come back to Mrs. security >> um the technology and communications
committee Friday October 3rd um we spoke about the security awareness training uh the initial baseline simulation test was provided utilizing cybernet and about 30% of the staff clicked on a link in the simulated emails targeted cyber
security training will be provided to the staff to address this vulnerability and improve awareness uh Chromebook protection plan. An optional Chromebook uh coverage plan was offered to families of students in
grades 6 through 12 for the 2526 school year. A total of 107 were sold. That's a little bit of an update from our meeting by the way. Um a few challenges were identified. Um one non-payment. Um
several families enrolled in the plan but have not submitted the requirement the required payments. Two post damage enrollment. Some families attempted to enroll in the plan after the Chromebook had already been damaged. And three, lack of inspection. Many devices were
not inspected by tech staff as required for coverage eligibility. The committee acknowledged the need for a formal policy to address non-payment scenarios. Administration will consult with building principles to gather existing practices regarding unpaid
student fees. Key questions that need to be explored. What guidance is currently provided in the student handbook? What are the consequences for non-payment of outstanding fees? Um, pending input from principles, the policy committee may be
tasked with drafting a new policy. This item has been tabled until the next meeting. Remote participation at BOE meetings. This topic was raised in response to disruptions experienced through town council meetings caused by bad actors. While the technology staff
has been effective in managing most incidences, one specific scenario was flagged as a potential risk um for obvious reasons. I'm not going to talk about that publicly. Um the committee discussed the risk and felt it was limited. The decision was to stay with
the status quo and if such an issue arises, the committee would revisit the issue and develop an appropriate response. And then lastly is gov deals. Um, the district utilizes a liquidating services marketplace to sell surplus equipment.
This platform shared by multiple entities allows the district to generate revenue from items no longer in use. This there is a resolution on the agenda this evening to authorize the disposal of old printers and projector mounts. Proceeds from the sale of these items
will be deposited into the general fund. The platform does charge a 5 to 12% buyer premium which is paid by the purchaser. So that would not be on the district. This initiative supports responsible asset management and provides a modest revenue stream for
obsolete equipment. So I would encourage everybody to approve what's on the agenda tonight. >> Thank you. Mrs. Akiri, the first finance committee meeting. >> Yeah. So this was on September 19th was
held at the board office. Um I think we had Tom, me, Jenner, uh the BA and Dr. Feltry in person and Pamela Stanley was virtual. The referendum discussion did not happen as the consultant reportedly called in and said he was unavailable to
attend the day before the meeting on September 18th. Um the finance committee discussed issues with transportation system especially um and identifying 44 students at Columbia Middle School who were ineligible for mandated busing but
apparently received a bus pass without paying for it. It was stated that the these free bus passes uh were issued by the previous transportation coordinator. It is not understood why this occurred for only Colombia middle school students and not other routes. There needs to be
a root cause analysis to understand how this happened and won't be repeated next year. Uh Jennifer shared the 44 letters uh that were sent on May 18th, 2025 to the parents of students that they do not qualify for free mandated busing due to the distance requirement. These letters
do state that if they want to take the bus, they need to pay the subscription rate for 2025 2026 school year. There was a discussion to review the second email with a confirmation letter that would have been sent by the district's transportation director to the parents of these 44 students assigning a seat on
the subscription bus to CMS, including a bus number, route information in the third week of August 2025. Verifying that these 44 students are riding the bus can be easily accomplished by checking attendance or conducting a roll call as they line up to board the bus from CMS at the cafeteria after school.
Dr. Feltry and Jennifer both felt it would be time uh consuming to verify if these 44 students arriving the bus um or riding the bus. The list shared by the BA did not include the students home addresses. It listed the designated bus stop and route info. So, it's unclear
how the distance was calculated. It was also clarified that none of the 44 students were special ed students. The committee debated whether to send notification to parents emphasizing the need for proof of bus assignments. Uh the they also discussed the need for
better oversight and potential software errors. Additionally, concerns were raised about transportation directors familiarity with the local routes and the need for more efficient transportation management. We also discussed that some district vehicles use regular gasoline that is not
available from the township under our fuel contract and maybe should find an alternative source for a regular gas for these vehicles. action items were confirm which of the 44 students on the list shared by um
hold on a second by Jennifer Nicholson are actually riding the bus to CMS obtain copies of the email sent to the 44 families notifying them of their assignment of the bus route to CMS along with the designated bus stop in August 2025. Draft a communication to the 44
families giving them the option to either pay for the bus service or stop using it by a certain deadline. Investigate why the transportation software has a manual override issued bus passes to ineligible students and implement measures to prevent similar
issues in future. Thank you. I'd like to bring to the attention of the board members on your blue sheets the resolution under finance EG and O have been updated. So please look at those. Do there any
questions to chair of our committees or discussion items? Mrs. Stanley. >> So I see all right. It took me a few minutes to figure out O, but in the in the blue sheet in the amendment um right at the at the back right is the amended
O uh attachment O. However, has anybody actually read this? Because it it makes absolutely no sense, right? The additions don't make any sense. They're not grammatically correct.
Which >> on the blue sheet in the back? >> Yeah. >> There's no page numbers. It's updated attachment. Oh, >> right. It says undertake various security technology site and building interior improvements alterations at
Mary K Center Mountain Park. Then it just says security technology site security inter intern technology and then just says Thomas B. Hughes, right? It doesn't there's no >> that we're missing letters in there. The second one goes when you look at the
second question, it repeats itself multiple times with no reason. And then the explanation does the same thing. It repeats things. There's no spaces between some words. >> I'm just I'm very confused as to why it
was needed to be added >> and why we added it so inconsistently. So, Mrs. Nich, Miss Nicholson, could you give us an update on uh the update? >> So, this is something that was provided to us by the bond attorney uh for the
verbiage for what will go propose to go on ballot uh because we are under deadline to approve that we're going to put questions one and two on the ballot.
So, they had done several updates for us and the they were trying to provide more information as to what the projects were in the questions,
but it looks like someone copied and pasted everything and then just put it in one paragraph instead of actually making a a sentence. >> Right. Right. And then so we were having some issues with the formatting that was coming through but I
don't think that that's resulting from that. I think that's how this was presented. I mean >> I know but if so approved >> I think the word add >> the word letter the word at
>> on on one of them but if you go to the next page I mean read the next page right like so the second question it literally says select equipment and systems select equipment and systems the systems select equipment systems select equipment and systems electrical upgrades
>> right like it's not even a complete sentence on top if it just repeats itself. But then this the next page, the explanation explanatory statement is another full mess. >> Yeah, this is um Pamela's right like
this is un readable. Um and and I and I actually didn't I I was looking at the one the original one and I had questions about that. I'm looking at this. I'm like, "Oh, I didn't realize this was in the back." um like even at the very
basic like um level I don't love the um that the bold font that says bond proposal question two number two will only go into effect if bond proposal question number one is also approved by the voters at this election and the
implication at least like my first reading of it I was like wait so it says it won't go into effect so I'm going to approve one and then two will also go into effect so It it doesn't it doesn't say like it it's not clear at least when I first
read it like I think I know what they mean but if I'm voting for this I'm like saying if I'm voting for one then number two is also going to go into effect. No. Can I can I just So what it means is if the voters approve question number one
only then can question number two be approved. It's not for us. This is the impact like the decision at the end of the election if everybody approves two or if majority approves two and
doesn't approve one >> won't work >> doesn't happen but it might be >> it might be influence influencing in how people will respond >> will respond they'll respond to the qu like I know what they mean but like in
reading this they're Like, yeah, because like I want number one to go into effect. Let's say if I only want to vote for one and not for two, but I'm reading this and I'm like, I may not vote at all for two because I'm thinking like, oh, it's going to go into effect
because I'm, you know, if I approve one, if one gets approved. So, I don't it's just a little weird. >> I agree worded. >> Yeah. >> I just have a question in terms of have we I know I missed the last meeting. Did the board actually discuss this as a
group on what's in here? I know it was discussed in finance committee, but I'm curious about the timing of this on the agenda today. Is there a reason why it's on the agenda before everybody at this table has actually had a conversation
about it, feedback, anything at all? Um, and Miss Nicholson, uh, could you tell us what would happen if because of the language in here and the wording and the mistakes, uh, what would happen if we postpone this, do we have to approve this?
>> So, actually, I'm looking to see what was submitted on the attachment only because I don't know if this is a printing issue because of the formatting that came over. So, I'm going to I'm looking on the attachment that was sent to everybody first. So, just give me one
second on that. Thank you. Yeah. >> But but even uh so that was but even looking at the original attachment, right? Um I'm also what's not clear and I because I know we've talked about it was that the first bond um question of
first bond proposal is meant to be kind of netneutral from a tax perspective, right? Um that's not really anything that's laid out here. Um it's not kind of mentioned, right? Um, and so and the
tax impact of, you know, the second question if approved, right? Because I think I'd want to know that if I'm voting for it because the numbers are quite large. >> Yeah. I mean, like the the second one, if you approve the second one, it's like nearly double. You're doubling our
school budget, right? Like so it's the tax implications would be good if they were also included um >> in the in the bond proposals so people have full information when voting >> but that information is out in all the
presentations the tax impacts not on this but it's in all the presentations um broken down between question one and two >> right that's on the website is that correct those presentations of those one through 99 slides It's understood. But
again, sometimes people go into the voting booth, right? May not have read everything in the presentation, right? This is this is what they're reading as they're, you know, standing in line. I I I you know, like not everybody is going to do the research necessarily. You
know, they may have an idea about it. They may want to vote for it, right? But it would be good that you know I I don't know if there's like a legal implication or if there's like any reason why you wouldn't include that information there. So that's why I'm just asking
>> because the impact would be different on every individual who's voting. You'd say net neutral. You mean as a whole, >> right? >> That's not necessarily at the individual level, >> right? And there's a tax calculator within the presentations that you can use that are posted on our website. No,
but Gail to Natasha's point, if you look at the referendum questions, a simple Google search of what successful referendum questions look like versus unsuccessful ones, there I was saying, you know, having multiple questions for
each project, you know, each building. But we were told no, that's not the way to go. And my basic question like where I am struggling is if you answer yes on first question one you're as I think we're asking them to approve $21 million
and $227,000 and if you say yes to second it's another $29 million and $125,000. So, and where my concern here is that might be a sticker shock to somebody. Like if
it's a senior who's walking over, that's a lot of money. And to Natasha's point, saying, "Hey, if you approve these, you will get all these, but this is basically this might not because there's debt rolling off or whatever." I don't
agree with that explanation that just because debt is rolling off we need to go back and take all this debt and there will be no tax impact. It's I've given that analogy multiple times. My mortgage is going to end in like couple years. I'm me and my husband are not jumping with joy and saying hey let's go take
another half a million dollars. That's not going to happen. The other thing is if you are going to let's say stop and shop to buy with a grocery list. you want milk, eggs, and bananas. But then you walk into Stop and Shop and Stop and Shop says, "Hey, you want to buy milk,
eggs, and bananas, you got to also buy avocados, olive oil, and some chicken." This is how it feels like. If you want, you cannot just pick and choose a single project and say, "Hey, let's do the parking lots. That's $8
million." Like, why are we bundling everything? And we as a we have discussed it in a committee which is a closed dooror committee and it's a one-page minutes but we as eight board members have not publicly discussed the
impact of this. >> That's my point. I'm not sure that I understand the timing of why we are doing this, why it's on the agenda without an actual discussion without even having the you know the architecture firm here come answer some
of the questions that were asked in committee but you know it was it was a limited number of people. I would like to understand why it's on the agenda today before we've actually had a conversation about this publicly.
Uh please remember also that Dr. Felry just discussed the community outreach that's going to be done between now and March to the seniors to the community groups to different uh stakeholders. So we do have that information coming. Dr. Ford
>> my understanding though was that the schedule was November we okay they were waiting on getting the approval from the state for all the projects. I don't actually don't know that they've gotten that, but um they were going to have
that they they expected to have that by November and then there was going to be a question in January uh to approve what are the questions and all of a sudden I'm seeing questions. I'm also seeing and I raised this
earlier um it says 40% is the the debt service aid but in the committee we were told up >> 34% >> up to 30 it was 34%. >> I thought it was 34 >> 34%. This is the first time I've seen anything that says you're going to get
the full 40%. Um I do prefer that there be more questions. Um, I don't see why you can't vote on each individual
project. And if that's too much, then I would like to see a vote on the projects for each school. So that would be six questions. >> Okay. Um, does administration have any answers for this on the uh application
project process from D uh DOE and the percentage I do, but I just want to note that if you look at the attachment that was sent earlier today that's on the computer, the formatting is very much different
than what was printed out here. So, what is I'm I mean I'm looking at >> I'm looking at the what was sent today, right? The same thing is the same problem, right? There's no app in the first question. The second question uh
again uh it repeats itself >> are you looking >> select equipment and systems select equipment and systems and the system select equipment and system I mean that's literally what it says in the attachment O that was sent today to the
board members >> Gail >> yes >> can I just ask a question just to kind of to the point of what everybody's concern Is is there a need to have these questions done tonight or is this
something that can be postponed so that it can be corrected and we all understand and we talk >> we talk about it at least >> right so we have approached um and had conversations about referendum in
finance committee um and approach subject um we did talk about it in September. That meeting ran over. They were going to come back and then it was decided that they wanted to address items um other items. Uh so we were unable to have them
back. We are under a schedule. Um we do approve um we do go by the recommendations of the people that we've hired who've done these before. um which includes our architects and then
our bond council. So, it was our bond council who asked us to put this on, although we did have admittedly issues with the formatting back and forth. So, I think this is just coming out of that. Um I I can't say either way like what you
should do. I'm just saying that there's there's a timeline that we have to follow because we have to be approved to put questions on. But again, >> what's the drop dead date for that? >> I am not. Kim, do you know what the drop deadad date for that is? >> What we were told before was the timeline that Tom just gave. We were
told we are going to get a yay or a nay from the DOE or wherever we are waiting on approval. We will hear the answer from the state by November. >> And then we will have time. We we were very specific. We were still asking
questions on what can be on these questions. There was some feedback given that if you put multiple questions there's a chance of it failing. But then we were our rebuttal to that was well maybe two or three questions might not pass but the remainder will pass and
then the second meeting that they attended I don't know if we went into the depth of that but we were told first the DOE approval or we will get that status in November >> then we will have time between November to January to formulate the questions
and then they will be approved in January. This is a surprise for me, too. And it's a sticker shock, >> right? DOE has approved those letters. Um, >> can we get a copy of that?
>> Letters get a copy. >> Oh, when did they approve? Because we were >> we just approved them last week. So, we were asked to put this on. um mentioning that you know it's I'm going to say from my perspective it's difficult to present things to finance when the meetings
after the board meeting and we are under deadline. Um, so, uh, we do have, um, the letters for your review and I'm going to say like if you have to if you
have to strike it or whatever, that's what you have to do, right? Because I am I think the attachment the attachment that I'm looking at, one of them's clear. I'm not sure why it printed out like this. I think the attachment that
we had from the October 14th from Diane on the board packet is the attachment. Oh, is correct. But the new one she sent six hours ago, the updated is the one that matches the printed one. >> And that one just um kind of >> added a few blue line items on it. I
don't know why it's skewed like that. >> Jennifer, being on the finance committee, I'm going to speak for myself. This is the first time that I'm hearing that we got the approval. If it was last week, it is not confidential information. This is something that the entire board is working on. And if that
is the precursor for putting this agenda item on here, that basic communication that hey, we've got approval or the consultant that we have hired has gone to the state and all the projects have been approved is a simple email communication to the entire port. I
don't know why >> noted. >> Yeah. So that is first point. The second point is we were always told by the very consultants that we will have time between November to January to review and approve the questions.
>> Right. >> And I take your point that the meetings are after but we have heard about that and we were planning to add more. So there is no urgency then on why we have to approve this today because the previous timeline that they communicated
to us is we will know by November. We'll have time between November to January. So, >> right, >> uh, Mr. Distler is going to make a phone call to our bond attorney, Tony, and see if what the deadline is, right? And we we may have to table this um depending
on what he has. So, let's give him a few minutes. >> Yes. >> Yes, Mr. Dylan, >> your mic is not on. So, >> I remember we approved all the projects and they were individual projects. However, 28, 18, what was it? 19, right?
So, we said, "Okay, 19. We're going to put them all forward. We're going to see which ones of those qualify for the state aid, right? And then we get that information back and then we determine which of the 19 we wanted to move forward with." >> I now am at a point now where it seems like that decision has been made that
we're going to package the 19 into two different groups and present all of them. Like, where did the the vetting of the 19 occur? It seems like we missed the step and I don't and I'm not sure you I guess you guys are saying at the finance committee it didn't happen.
>> It was just it was prepackaged for you in that way. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. So I I do think that there was a misstep that we talked about where we were going to have the 19 come back to us, >> look at the cost, see how much it would be, which ones qualify, which ones
didn't qualify, and then agree as to what the packages would be, >> which will be the priority projects versus >> Yeah. So I guess question what would be the priority ones like, hey, this is really it, but >> parking lots. >> Yeah. So, so as someone on the finance committee, um
we were we were asked to get together and have a meeting with the um the group the architects. >> Yeah. >> And we had a meeting and people did not look over uh the slideshow prior to
coming to the meeting. So I think there was a lot of questions. So we were not even able to get the whole presentation um presented to us because there were so many questions about basics um from language in the presentation to um a lot
of different things. At the end of the meeting um there was let's meet again right so we can finally get through the full presentation. Um but then people did not want to meet again because of schedules which is understandable except
we had um back to school nights coming and Dr. Feltree said that she wanted to make sure that this was presented right to families right that we can start getting this information out and the finance committee decided that they wanted to work on other agenda items not
meet with architects again and Dr. Dr. Felry made it clear that she was going to move ahead then with the presentation to present it to families. That presentation does present it as two questions. >> One, >> well, and so the way they split it is
that the first question is a net neutral. So all the projects in that one out of the 19 projects had to fit in there. Because I've had a lot of people say, well, the second question has like STEM labs and I think that's more important. And why I think that that's
important it w it wouldn't have fit in the net neutral question one. >> So that's how they split that's how the architects split it up. >> So so what you're saying it was a mixture of math and priority >> just to get on. >> So it wasn't even like >> number
>> right. It was less priority projects because all of these projects really need to be done whether we get them approved through referendum or not. Right. They all kind of need to be done. Right. the parking lots, if they don't get approved, they still need to get done, right? The STEM labs still need to
get worked on. There's a couple of like nice things in there, but for the most part, most of this is plumbing and electric, heating, and >> but I hear what you're saying. So rather than come back to us as a group of eight and discussing the 19 projects and which
ones would be in or out or whatever, we we went with the methodology of net the matching the previous referendum amount that's rolling off and then everything else in the other one. >> Yeah, pretty much that's how it was set up. And what I wasn't clear on when we
first uh approved those 19, when you first approved the 19 is they were actually broken down by question question one and question two. So they were already um >> maybe but I certainly the the deliberation here was we we had a lot
more freedom to >> correct >> in order to let's move forward with and without this the parameters of one and two and that was kind of why we sent all 19 down there because like there was no harm no foul because we would re-review them before they went out is the way I understood it
>> right like we were submitting a superset right and then >> why not >> right and what I didn't realize is that super set had already been divided into question one and question two. So I I was unclear on that and you know I'm going to going to say I likely
>> marketing of it. Right. >> Right. >> So and I mean because I understand the um like the sticker talk and you know and if there are like we said the everything that needs to get done even items in question two maybe question two
gets broken down. So maybe some people do want to prioritize the STEM labs and they're not another 27 million, right? And so maybe they >> So in finance, we talked about splitting up the questions because as you could see there was a lot of um questions
about trying to make more questions like why can't we split this up? Why can't we split up? Um one of the big push backs from them is that they've they other districts have never really done that because it's not successful. the most they've ever seen is three questions and
even then they do not recommend that because it becomes too much. I think if you watch the presentation that's on the website already that has been shared on those QR cards QR codes they you can actually tell a lot more of what is going into each one. Um but they
suggested not to break these up because once you get past two questions it's really hard for people to understand. Um, but then the biggest thing is one of the things the committee asked is that they wanted each project a different question or each building to have a different thing. But that's really tough, right? If if if a bunch of Hughes
peoples come out to vote because they've been paying attention or their PTO did a really good job at getting the information out and they only vote for Hughes. I mean, now what about Mountain Park, right? So, they they don't recommend doing that at all. On top of the fact that they said three is the
most they've ever seen. Um, and even then it's not very successful. But I think if you look at the presentation, like seeing that we're getting this 34% so you're getting like thousands and thousands of dollars from the state, it makes a lot more sense.
>> We have Dr. Forer and we have Mrs. Jolly. Dr. Forer. >> Yeah. But I if it's never been tried uh with having m more than three questions, you really can't say for sure what's going to happen. You don't know.
It's never been tried, right? Um but we know what's also been tried is three questions. Sometimes that works and sometimes that fails. Two questions can work and fail. So I could argue well based on the evidence
sometimes two questions fails couldn't I and there's no evidence that more more than three ever failed. So >> I would like to spend some more time debating that question >> logically you you don't have any evidence for you know argue against more
than three questions. There's no evidence against it. It's just never been tried. But there is evidence for failure of three questions, failure of two questions. Uh so maybe that's the wrong approach to have just one or two. Anyway, um
>> anything else or should we go to Mrs. Jolly? >> Uh I will yield the floor to Mrs. Jolly. >> Mrs. Jolly. Thank you. So again, I don't know like the specific format, but if the second question could be like by
checking this list like you vote yes for these projects, meaning it's like a second question, but you have the projects are listed and you could, you know, click on which project. And I only say that for the second question because
those are the ones that we're not getting any state funding for, right? I as I understand it. They also get state funding. Every project on here is eligible for state funding. >> It depends on what type of project it is. >> Well, no, I know. But I thought that we were going to put everything that got
the 34% into >> that's not all >> but we we will know that Natasha to you to answer your question, we have to see the approval letters. >> Okay. >> Right. Important too. everything approved for um
>> what percentage and there is a disconnect in what was communicated on the presentation and to us was 34% but right now we're seeing 40%. >> Let's let it Miss Nicholson and then Mrs. Zakir will get to your question. You >> want me to tell you about the 40%.
>> Please head it up. Actually, I do want to go back Gil to my question from before which I don't think was answered. Why do we need to do this tonight? What is the question for Mr. Distler? He's >> he's working on it.
>> So, is this something that maybe we could table till later in the meeting so we can move forward? >> We can do the other stuff first because I can come back other parts of the agenda. >> Okay. >> And I'm happy to make a motion whatever. >> Um let Miss Nicholson tell us about the 40%. >> Because I asked this question because
Tom Post Dr. for proposed to me. >> Uh so the bond proposals need to include the eligible costs of the project, the ineligible cost of the projects and debt service aid percentage. We have PEC letters indicating that debt service aid percentage is 40%. So this is what came
back from the state. We are required to disclose that amount in the bond proposals. However, since the state has not fully funded debt service aid since about 2012, the debt the financial advisor runs the calculation at 34%.
So the tax impacts reflect what the financial advisor believes the board will receive. >> Okay, thank you. Um so at this >> can you share that mean >> the states? >> Yes. >> Well, the preliminary the preliminary um
PEC letters that we resist Jennifer, where can you share what you just read with the entire board when you get a chance? >> Eligible 40%. >> No, the approval letter. >> Yeah, >> I was reading what the bond attorney
sent me when you >> I can forward that. Yeah, >> thank you. >> No, I'm I'd like to get a copy of whatever they approved as well, >> the PEC letters. >> Sure. >> Okay. So at this point um can we um have a motion to table O for further
discussions >> and then discuss other items under finance. >> Okay. Dr. Borger, you had a question. >> No, I'll take you up on that. I move to table. Okay. >> Table this uh item O till later in the meeting.
>> Got it. >> Second. >> Too many seconds on this one. >> Okay. >> Is item O or is it attachment O? It's the items on it's agenda item O. >> Okay. I'm sorry I missed the second. Was that you, Mr. Dylan? Oh, Mrs. Connor. Thank you.
>> Okay. May I have a voice vote on tableling O until later in the meeting? >> It's attachment. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Says attachment over at the top. >> Yes. Okay. Anybody? Yes. Everybody else? Yes. Okay. Great. Okay. So, are there any other discussion items under
finance? >> Um, we have to vote on that or no, >> we just didn't >> No, we didn't. We didn't vote. >> You said yes when I asked for a voice vote. >> I missed the voice. >> Okay. I'm sorry, Mr. Dylan. Voice vote. >> Oh, yes. Still yes. >> Okay. So, we're tableabling O until
later in the meeting. Any other discussion on any other items under finance? >> Yes. >> Yes. Mrs. Connor. >> Um I'm looking at item F, approved professional contracted services. Um this looks like for French world
language. It has a start date of September. I would have imagined this would be under education or personnel or something other than finance. Uh what sort of organization is this
that will provide these services and how do we ensure consistency of instruction if this isn't as as usual practice? one teacher that will teach the class who is, you know, who knows
the students, who knows their proficiency and so on. I'm just, this just seems like a very strange item here. >> Item F. So this is the second contract that we
um would be approving through KCO. Um and so this specifically what happens is um when we have a um a leave or a position that we can't fill, we have to go out to a staffing agency. um KCO, who
we partnered with for our Italian position, it they were the only ones that had an Italian teacher. Um the new supervisor, Mr. Santoro, did reach out to another um staffing service for our French position just in case because we
wanted to cover our basis. Um they did not have a French teacher. So we we we are dependent on our partnership with this company um in order to get a teacher. So obviously the thing that is preferable is for us to have an educator
that we hire and that we are in control of. Um however when we've exhausted all of our options and and we have either no certified instructor in front of a student or a we go with the staffing agency, we choose to go with the staffing agency. So, Craco, it was
formerly uh language learning network. And so, they have been working and partnering with school districts in New Jersey for quite some time and have a good reputation. And so, we went with this one after meeting with them, myself and Mr. Santoro several times. And we
weighed the pros and the cons of various different um various different staffing agencies. So not not just with a live teacher in front of students, but sometimes with a virtual instructor or sometimes self-paced content. So we weighed all the pros and cons of all of those and this was the best option for
our students at this time. >> So is this one individual who will be dedicated to the district? >> Yes. >> Okay, that makes me feel a little bit better. >> Yes. Yes. >> That was a medical lead just just so we know it's not the same situation as the Italian.
>> Correct. concerned about because this is in the high school. >> It's, you know, these kids have been learning and some of them will likely be in the advanced classes as well. >> Correct. >> So, I want to make sure that they they have the right support. >> Yes. And so, I'd also uh want to add
that um with significant um um oversight and check-ins from our administrators. So, we'll be keeping a very close eye making sure that they have the supports that they need to be able to keep the students on the pace that they're learning. >> Dr. forward, sir. >> Yeah. Can I talk about one of the other things?
>> Of course. >> Well, sorry, Tom. Can I can I just make a comment on this on still on the French? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Real quick, >> Mrs. Dolly. >> Um, right. So, I guess I should have uh read the curriculum committee me meeting minutes. >> No, no, no. I I don't think so because this was placed under finance, right?
Obviously, we wouldn't have gotten to the curriculum, but because um and I believe that these sorts of services were requested to be under finance because it's a financial obligation. And so ordinarily right we would have you guys next time though I think tomorrow I think I think that is what happened.
>> Okay I would have thought this go under education and hence curriculum. >> Yeah it was discussed in curriculum. Um so the only thing I would ask um so the the dates right are from September 19th. Um is this going to be prrated? Is this an like
>> um so the $75,000 is for um is for the time >> like I just don't know why it's September because I think from the minutes we had that um >> typo that should that that should not be September. >> Okay. So October 29th will be the meet
and greet with Mr. uh with with Mr. Santoro and then the start date would be November 3rd. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> That's correct. Yes. Thank you for that. So, is the 75,000 then? >> No, it's 75,000. >> Okay. I'm sorry. Time period, please.
Was that uh um Natasha, you said 102925? >> 113 is the correct 11325 to 6:30 26. >> Thank you. So, this has to be amended then before we vote on it. Okay. Okay.
>> Any other discussion? Dr. Forer? >> Yeah, I hate to bring this up. Uh, you got a student educational field trip. You're going to Dory Park on May 29th. I have to tell you that doesn't seem educational to me. Isn't it just a fun
day away from class? I hate to do it, but >> my guess may be it's a learn choir, right? They do um >> I I think it's the holy eighth grade. >> What? Isn't that a water park?
>> It's a amusement and a >> but why I It just doesn't feel educational to me. >> They never are. >> Well, >> when they go to the camp, >> what why why are we sending kids on
trips that aren't educational? >> This is the eighth grade trip if I if I'm right. Right. It's the eighth grade trip to Right. They pay for it, but they they get to have a day where they get to bond and enjoy being eighth graders,
>> right? I I don't believe the board pays for the trip. It's paid by the parents. >> Yeah, but it's a I mean, >> isn't there anything they can do in the classroom on that day? >> Don't they get anything out of class? >> And also, Kale, you were a teacher.
Wouldn't they get something out of having class? It's a fun trip for agreeing to say it and we're not paying for it education and you know it's traditional. What are >> you? >> He's not joking. >> No, I'm I'm serious. Why are we doing this?
>> Okay. Um Well, >> I mean Tom, maybe it's the the issue is that it's listed like under educational trips where it could we would maybe list it elsewhere something else rather than calling it. >> They are missing class though, right?
Correct. I >> mean it's not after school. >> Tom, thank you for your comment. Any other comments or discussion? >> Yes. Item Hana H. >> Item H, it's about the approved use of facilities at GL. Do we have dates right
>> on the top of the next page? >> Yes, it says May 2025 to May 2025. >> Oh, no. No. The 26. >> Yeah. >> Oh. May 12th 26 to May 17th 26. Is that what
you're saying? >> Thinking it is, but I just want that. Is that right? >> Okay. >> Okay. >> You're going to get another one. >> Yes. >> Okay. You're approving uh
item uh I approve cooperative wrestling program. >> Yes. With Mountainside. >> Yeah. Mhm. >> I I looked this up. All right. I'll just tell you what chat GPT will tell you about middle school wrestling.
The main downsides of middle school wrestling include a high risk of injury such as sprains, strains, and concussions and potentially potential issues with extreme weight loss and skin infections. Additionally, there can be
concerns about a lack of experienced coaching and the mental and physical burnout from overtrainings. And there's a little bit more. Repeated blunt force trauma to the ears can lead to a deformity known as cauliflower ear.
>> Okay. >> Thank you, Dr. Forer. >> And the mental toll, the intense and demanding nature of the sport can be mentally taxing and some athletes may not be ready for the pressure of competition at a young age. So, >> thank you. We'll let parents decide. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. We're just on such a thing, do we? It is an agreement that has been done in the past, a cooperative agreement between Mountainside and uh Berkeley Heights for their wrestling program. >> You've done it for middle school or high school? >> Middle school before. Okay.
>> Yes. >> Tom. >> Okay. >> Yes. Dylan, >> I honestly think it's a great opportunity. Uh if CMS is going to offer wrestling, uh I thank you on behalf of the Mountside community for inviting the Deerfield kids up to join you. Uh I wish
to see more of these cooperative type of agreements where both districts and middle schools together can put together a team or a club that wouldn't necessarily be possible uh without it. Uh so yeah um in addition to that, this
same exact wording was on the mountain side board of ed um agenda Tuesday night and was passed and approved. So um just a comment on that. Uh also, uh an item K, like I said before, uh the money for
the press box, uh it's coming out of the athletics and co-curricular committee. I highly uh request that we we resolve that and again it's um money that was set aside last year, put back into funds, and now we're just taking it back out. >> Thank you. So, it looks like we need a
motion to uh change the dates on item H, which is the date from 51225 to 51226. >> Okay, fine. And then 517225 to 51726 and then the date on item resolution F
which would be amended to 1132 to 63026. May I have a motion to amend those? So move. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Jolly. And thank you, Mrs. Kana. Okay.
So, at this point, uh, we have tabled O. So, we're ready for a vote roll call vote on finances. Madam Secretary, are you ready? Okay. So, we had uh we now need to have
a motion for a through No, no, I'm sorry. It was by Mrs. Kana. I apologize. And then by Mrs. Akiri was the second. So, we have the first and second. Thank you. So, now we're ready for the vote. >> Okay. A carry.
Um I'm a no for A which is um check number 212340 212438 212756 212 630
and 213004 and You got five. Check number >> five. >> Yeah. And then a no on C. >> Yes. >> As in cat.
>> Yes. Yes to D. E. Abstain on F. Yes. For G. Yes. from G all the way to N. O, we are not voting on right now.
Correct. Okay. So, a no on P and a yes to Q R. Let me repeat this back to you. Okay. An item on a note 212340
438 756 630 and 213004. >> Yes. >> Abstain F. >> Yes. And no on C. >> C as in cat and P as in Peter. No. >> Yeah.
Dr. Forger. >> Okay. Uh, on item A, no on check 212340 and no on check 212630. Abstain on checks 212438
and check 212756. Um, oh, also no on 213004. Uh, yes on B. Uh, no on C. Uh, yes on D.
Uh, yes on E, but not for the Dory Park field trip. Um, >> are you a no for Dory Park? >> Yes. No on Dorney Park. And uh, let's see. F is yes. G is yes.
Um I is H is yes. I is no. Uh no on L M&N and no on P and uh yes or up to Q I guess. Yes on Q
and Q and yes on R. >> Can I read this back to you? >> Good. >> No on 212 340 212 630 213004. No on C. No on DY Dornney Park.
>> They abstain on two checks. I >> I'll get to those. >> Okay. >> No on C. No to Dorney Park. No on I L M NP. >> Yes. >> Okay. Abstain 212438.
Abstain 212756. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Terrero. Yes, Mr. Dylan. Um, A through P. Is that what you said? Am I right? >> Yes.
>> Yeah. >> Yes. To all of those. We got to start paying our bills. >> Mrs. Jolly. >> So, I am um I'll tell you the nos. No. On 212 340. No. On 212
630. No. On 213004, abstain from 212438. Abstain from 212756. And no to item no to item P.
Everything else is a yes. >> Okay. So, I'm just going to read that back. No to 212340. No to 212 630. No to 213004 and P. >> Correct. >> And then I'm abstaining from two
>> 438 and 756. >> Correct. >> Mrs. Connor, I'm a no on three check numbers. 212 34 0 212 630 21304
abstain on checks 212438 212756 and I'm a no on item P and yes to everything else and always table
>> I think I got that okay Mrs. Stanley. >> Yes. >> And Miss Bradford. >> Yes. To all. >> And I I just wanted to thank the PTO's. I meant to do that um earlier um for
their donations. So, thank you so much to um to Mary Kay uh McMillan PTO and to the um Mountain Park Elementary School PTO. Thank you so much. >> Okay. So, we have
I'm gonna need your help. Okay. >> So, we have two We have one, two, three. Three nos on four nose on P. So, that
item does not pass. Correct. Who knows on C that item does pass. We have on checks 212340 212438. Wait, no. I'm just going to do the nose
first. 2123 4 0 212630 and 213004. We have 1 2 3 four nose. Those checks do not pass. Okay. On checks 212438 and 212756,
we have one no, four yeses, and three extensions. votes total that passes. >> That passes those checks pass. So checks 212438 and 212756
pass and then all other items pass. Thank you. Moving ahead to personnel resolutions A through Q. All board members resolutions R through AB Berkeley Heights only. Uh
may I have a motion? So moved. >> That's Mrs. Terr. Thank you. And Mrs. >> Mrs. Connor, we do have updates on the blue sheet. >> Do we want to do the minutes? >> Yes. I'm sorry. I'm just writing it all
down. Okay. Uh personnel committee report, please. >> Sure. Uh personnel committee met uh twice. Uh I'll I'll go with the minutes of the the second meeting first. U so we talked about the Gando Club proposal. U
it has been an informal club for the past two years and they're now seeking to be formalized. They're on the agenda today. Um per the agreement that is a stipen for the adviser. There are about 18 students in the group. Uh there was a
question about if this club was offered to middle school students. um that at this point there are no uh CMS students in the ensemble and um given the format of of how the club operates and the sort
of competitions that they um they go to it is advised that this stay as a high school club. So you will find that on the agenda today. Um in the attachment you will see all of the various performances and and um competitions
that they have participated uh with the YouTube video links. I saw a few of those and they were really good. Uh the second item on the discussion which is also on the agenda today is um the position of the reading specialist at
CMS. Currently we have a 0.8 985FT teacher and based on the needs of the students in in the middle school, uh the recommendation is to have that teacher full-time. Uh this is the only reading specialist
position at CMS. Uh and uh the teacher is is going to be ready to start as soon as it's approved. Uh the details on the salary and benefits are in the minutes as well. The third item on the agenda um that for
from the discussion is also on the agenda today. It is to have the uh adaptive PE teacher at MKM um have uh additional classes in support of uh the
ABA and the ERRI students. So um at this point this teacher is serving both the the gened and the adaptive PE classrooms. So, it's not getting a new um new teacher, but rather extending or adding more classes to an existing PE
teacher. The fourth agenda item um from that meeting was the discussion around the uh GL uh principal position search. The committee discussed um uh the process that the administration is
putting in place for the search. Um there was a conversation on how can board members participate in the process while still maintaining their their role as board members in in the in the
oversight and the advisory capacity that that we have versus getting into the details of the interview process. Dr. Feltry did um share a document that was published by NJSBA that's included in the minutes that explains the uh role of
a board member in this process uh and and sort of the dos and don'ts to make sure that we don't cross any ethics lines um as the district is going to um initiate and go through the principal search process.
Um there were some differing opinions on the committee, but at the end of the day, um the the committee members were unanimous that this is an important position in the school district and we need to make sure that um we we apply the due diligence to get the candidate
and and the the the next principal at GL. I think that's about it. We did have another meeting right before this one and again the contents of that meeting were really focused on the GL principal position search. So more of the same
conversation that um that occurred. >> Thank you. Any discussion? >> I have few Mrs. >> Airi on the agenda items or the minutes the agenda items. >> Uh both the minutes and the agenda items for uh under personnel.
>> Yeah, thanks for the detailed minutes. Oh, sorry. There was one more thing. There was a survey and you guys should have that in the minutes. Um, there was a survey to to sort of elicit um some uh
uh inputs from parents and students on what are the desirable qualities for the the GL principal position. So parents should have received students should have received the survey and those results are also in the minutes >> and board members received that survey
too. >> They did. >> Yeah. I'm very happy to hear Dr. Feltry that parents got the survey. Initially when you said only the students I was like I hope we include the parents. Thank you for that. Um and I do agree it's a very key position. So I hope
we'll have some input on that. Um I have a quick question on personnel. I believe we have E and the same an L.
So E is basically 827 to 103 and then it's basically five. Are we amending the dates? What between E and L?
Uh yes. So E was a switch from 3 to 5 days. So originally it was 8:27 to 10:30 3 days a week and then it was going to be the rest of the month for 5 days a week and then L's self-explanatory.
>> Yeah. Okay. Got it. Okay. So are we refilling this position? Is there I thought usually we see No, not right now. Not on this agenda. >> Not quite yet. Okay, I see no other discussion. Madam Secretary, roll call vote on personnel.
>> Mrs. Aerry. >> Um, I'm a yes on all. >> Dr. Forger, >> yes on all. >> Mrs. Terrarero, >> yes. >> Mr. Dylan, >> A through Q. Yes. >> Mrs. Jolly,
>> yes. >> Mrs. Connor, >> yes. >> Mrs. Stanley, >> yes. All but I have to abstain on X because I I know this person well >> and Miss Bradford. >> Yes to all. >> Motions pass.
>> Moving on to education resolutions A through H. All board members. Uh going ahead now to uh motion first. Uh approve. May I have a motion to approve?
Thank you. And then a second, please. >> Thank you, Bill. Mr. Dylan. Okay. Curriculum committee report. >> Okay. Thank you. Um so our meeting was held on Friday, October 10th from 12 to 2. In attendance were Dr. Feltry, Dr.
Maher, Dr. Forager, um Miss Stanley, and myself. Um on the agenda we had course proposals. We had um the fine arts course proposal which is an elective two and a half credits and how art can be a
way to stress relief. Members questioned some details alignments to standards and additional items as per policy 20 uh 2220. Um discussed how you know we have low enrollment in some cases and may reduce enrollment in other electives. Um this
would be for grades 9 to 12 with no uh no prerequisites. Um we wouldn't need an additional teacher. Um but I think the uh ultimately um we agreed to just defer to the next meeting to just to allow for some additional information to come from
the administration. Um there was a multivariable calculus proposal um that uh based uh so there there was like a dual enrollment contract um for multivariable calculus um and
this was for the 25 sorry the 2627 school year um I should make that clear in the minutes um but when we looked at the pricing um Mley raised the concern which is valid like the pricing versus h
of having uh the UCJ instructor teach the class versus having um an an in-house teacher teach the class was a bit off. So, we are we agreed to postpone that until the next meeting so we can get some clarity on the pricing as a takeaway for the administration.
Then there's a dual enrollment agreement which is on the agenda for multivariable calculus for the um 202526 school year for the spring. Um it's really a pass through agreement. Um you see in the contract we selected option
three where it will be a UCJ uh teacher um on campus. Um and again the committee supports this for spring of 2026. Um, sorry. Then there was the French contract which I think we've already
approved. Um, so uh I left uh um a carryover topic was um guidance regarding um there was a porzio notice regarding a particular court case. Um so I I think we discussed it last time but um just wanted to get
an update from the administration. Um so this uh so according to Dr. time will be dedicated during the winter and spring um articulation meetings with supervisors to review the information from the notice and examine its potential implications for the units of
study across applicable disciplines. Um and the information from Forzio has also been shared with all administrative staff. There was sorry a little bit more um some follow on topics with respect to physics. um just a general um I guess uh
expressed frustration from the parents um with respect to communication issues and and grading. So I think that's a takeaway for the administration to kind of review. Um Italian um we have a new teacher uh the meet and greet uh will be
October 16th for the teacher to start October 21st and the communication to parents. So I guess the meet and greet already happened or happened today. Yeah, today's the 16th. Um, so hopefully the communication to the parents um was supposed to go out after the meet and
greet. Um, so Italian three for juniors. I think there was some concern that there were only two grades in the system. Um, and the question was will there be additional assessments? There's a there's a project that the students are
working on um that will be entered. Um but the general consensus is also communication needs to be improved as you know those those um subject areas are going through some you know instability. Um we also talked about inequality and grading between classes.
Um so this is again where you know some some classes uh even within a given subject you know give weight let's say 50% weight to um to tests others uh the classes might give you know 90% weight to tests right so Dr. tomorrow will
present a plan to the committee next meeting. Um, this is not something that can be changed in the middle of the year. Um, another topic was uh discussed the GPA not being available to students and power school during the school year. Um, you know, we discussed some cases where
students need to see it like if they need to apply for internships, they need to know the GPA or some have like a particular GPA number they need to hit. And so having that information in the middle of the year will help them know how far away or how close they are to
hitting their target um because like some some universities or even some internships or something may require a certain GPA. So the students are you know very conscious of it. Um I had on the agenda allowing study hall in place of um PE for
athletes. Um we didn't have time to discuss that so that wasn't discussed. Um, other discussion topics. Um, we talked about flipped uh, classroom. This was a question that arose in the PTO curriculum meeting. Dr. Maher was at that meeting um, and kind of gave us
some feedback during our curriculum committee meeting. There's no class that is completely um, a flipped classroom. It is um, like I guess an a technique, right, that the idea where the child watches a video lesson at home and then does the quote unquote homework in the
classroom. the next day. It might work well for some kids, might not work well for others, but it's not like that there's we have classrooms that are full classrooms entirely. It's just one teaching, I guess, mechanism. So, and that concludes the meeting minutes.
Thank you. Thank you. Discussion uh Dr. Forer and then Mrs. Terrero. >> Um on the multivariable calculus, it's going to be taught on campus. So are we providing transportation for the student to go to the campus?
>> Yep. >> So the the professor will be on campus. It will be um taught virtually. So the students will take the course online with the professor in the evenings. >> Good question. That's the minutes. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's the way that's the
way their contract reads. >> Okay. So the professor >> they stay here. They watch a screen. Is there um one of our teachers in the does one of our teachers have to be in the room with them at the time and they'd be unsupervised?
>> No, they are not. They so the the course the the the meetings of the course. So they would do the synchronous pieces um in the evenings with a professor and they would work asynchronously in their classrooms in a study hall setting >> on the content.
>> It's an evening lecture that they're watching. Okay. Mrs. Terrero. >> Um, this is just kind of a comment and I know you've heard this before. This back to my PTO days. Um, parents have been
asking for a really long time to have more equity in in the classrooms amongst class courses. Um, it's been something that has been talked about with the district for at least three years that I
know of. So it's it's quite an issue and I think it's a bigger issue mostly at GL and CMS. Um but it is something that's very concerning. So I think it's really important that we take that feedback. It is kind of unfair for a student who
draws whatever one particular teacher um and having you know a heavy weight on for example testing where another teacher is willing to and could be a difficult class and another teacher is actually giving extra credit for
participation or something like that. It we need to have more equity across the same course. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Roll call vote. >> This is a carry.
>> Uh I'm a yes to all. >> Dr. Forger. >> Yes to all. >> Mrs. Terrarero. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dylan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Jolly. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Connor. >> Yes to all. >> Mrs. Stanley? >> Yes.
>> Ms. Bradford? >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> Moving on to policy resolutions A through B. Excuse me. May I have a motion to put those resolutions forward, please? >> Thank you, Mrs. Connor. Second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Mrs. Stanley.
Discussion. Oh, sorry. Policy committee report. I apologize. >> Yeah. So, we met on October 7th. Um uh the first uh item that we discussed was regulation 22
uh 6220 budget preparation. Uh this is new. Um it is not mandatory. It's only recommended by stressesme. Uh we had the BA take a look at it and she is asking that we um she made a request that we
make it um through that she makes it through one budget season with the Berkeley Heights um before she makes any recommendations for this regulation. Um and the committee agreed to take that into consideration and we will look at it again next fall um after they have had time to look over the budget and how
we do it here in Berkeley Heights. So, the first one that will be on the agenda tonight is policy 0143. That's board member election and appointment. The new language that is in this one comes directly from the state statute. Um, it's a lot more wordy than
what we currently have. Um, so it would have been nice if we could have stickked with it, but unfortunately the state did ta change their language and this has the same um language in it to to match. Um, but it does have have the same requirements. So, the state hasn't
really changed the requirements. It just changed the language. Then there's policy 0173 duties of public school accounting. Um, this is there was a lot of multiple language changes in there, but it's mostly based on the state statute
language changes. Um, we didn't have anything that we disagreed with. Then we have policy 2422. We had held off on this one last time we met because we were wondering if we needed to add anything. Right now the state um does
not have any recommendations. Um so we are going to stick with this policy as is and in like we've talked about in curriculum we are doing in-house um stuff to make sure that we um don't get ourselves in legal trouble due to the Porzio um
uh letter that went out. Um but this regulation is mandatory. Um, there is there is an update on the statutes and then the addition of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander history that we will have to um make sure we're in.
Sorry, it's too late. Um, in compliance with then we have regulation 2200 which um had failed the first read maybe a month or two ago. Um, we did reach out for stress estimate to find out more about why they removed the process items
that were listed. They said they removed it to give districts more control on how they would like to address the topics on the process. Uh, the majority of the committee agreed to add the language back in because it is currently what the process is here in Berkeley Heights.
Then we have policy 2200. Since we were looking at the regulation, we did ask uh to get the stress estimate updated version of this policy to see uh where we were. So we are going to look at this next meeting to update our current version just so the policy and the uh
regulation match. Um then our last one which I think is probably going to have the most discussion is policy 0155 board committees. So this one we had had on um new business uh for multiple uh meetings
to try to discuss as a full committee. Unfortunately at the last committee we were not able to continue on with the meeting um to have that discussion. So the superintendent is recommending that we move forward with the first read so we can have the discussion tonight. Um
the superintendent is recommending the following committees to align with the board agenda. As you could see tonight, some of the items have gone to multiple committees. Um, and this will help us streamline that. So, the standing committees would be administration, that would be items from policy. Then we
would have business, and that would have items from the finance and facilities committee. And then we would also add any financial things that come from athletics and any financial things that come from technology and any financial things that come from personnel. Then we would have education
and these would be items from the curriculum committee and athletics and technology. Then we would have personnel which would still be items from personnel and then we would make a fifth um policy uh sorry a fifth committee um which would have the four chairs that
would meet and that way they could discuss what happened at their committees and we could have some governance over the board. Right. Um and this was something that the committee had asked to add. Then we're going to leave on two ad hoc committees, which is negotiations and strategic planning.
These we know that we always have. Um nothing's going to change. You can still add ad hoc committees um at any time, but these two we know that we have pretty regularly. We just don't have it every year. So, we just wanted to keep them listed there so people didn't think we got rid of them. The committees uh
the committee had a lengthy discussion on how the committees would differ from the current structure. The staff discussed the current process which means that they often have to bring the same items to multiple committees and it is taking up a significant amount of time. Um after much discussion the committee agreed to move forward with
the first read. The committee structure would not take effect until after the January reorg meeting but obviously we would want it approved tonight for first read. November would have the second read and that way we wouldn't have to worry about the December meeting and the
changes. Um we did additional changes on um how an ad hoc committee is formed. Um so the ad hoc committee would need a vote of the majority of the board. Um if you also look we did revise the liaison
positions um to what we are currently uh doing right so we currently have liaison for all of the additions to the leaison positions. So, if you do click on there, you can see right it's going to be the Mountainside School District, the Berkeley Heights Town Council, the
Berkeley Heights PTO Council, the Berkeley Heights Education Foundation, the Berkeley Heads PTO Curriculum Committee, the Berkeley Heights Special Education Parent Advisory Group. Um, then we're going to have the Governor's Educator of the Year, that which is a district thing. We're going to have Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying,
HIB, which is a district. We're going to have the technology advisory board district. Then we have the Berkeley Heights Veteran Affairs Committee, which is the township, the Berkeley Heights Rec Commission Township, the Complete and Green Streets Task Force, which is the township uh their new committee to
look at um our streets and how to make them more walkable, but especially when it comes to these ebikes. Uh then the Union County School Boards Association and the Union County Educational Services. Uh the last thing I want to talk about is that we
did look back at regulation 1570 after uh Tom Forger had some questions at the last meeting. The committee feels that the policy was okay as is because um the language agreed with the state statute and then we also had the administration make sure that all the positions that
are not explicitly listed fit under other al like alternative things in there. Um, so all of the positions are covered. There's nothing that would not be covered under what's currently listed. Uh, we did go back to policy 0174 and we did add an or instead of the
dash in between the superintendent and the assistant superintendent. Um, and then we are going to ask stress estimate for guidance on language um, for homeschoolers and AP testing. And that's it for the policy committee.
>> Thank you. Discussion items. Mrs. Terrarero. >> So I want to just go back to this 155 policy on the committees. So and I know you kind of touched on some of it. So the vi the vision of the
policies that you have in place where do they fit in? So I tried to kind of do that in the minutes right is by right like so athletics a lot of the issue that we were having is that athletics kind of everything that was going to athletics was getting repeated in other
committees right and so kind of trying to just if an agenda item is going under one item right so in this particular agenda right if an item was under finance it would only to the finance committee if it's under personnel it's only going to go to the personnel
committee instead of having it go to personnel and finance and the athletics, right? And they were oftentimes repeating it to some of the same board members, right? Having answer the same questions, right? Because minutes hadn't gone out between meetings. Um, so we were just trying to help them uh
streamline the process a lot. Uh, we did have a huge discussion on athletics and technology because those are the two ones that were really kind of moving and shifting. Um but I think they they made a case to say that right technology a
lot of it falls under either finance or curriculum right and so these discussions are being had in technology but then they're also going to finance and then they're also going to curriculum or curriculum feels like oh well we didn't discuss this even though right it was a curriculum item because
it went to technology. So just a way to streamline it. Um, there are a lot of other districts that have it like this. I know that in the past, uh, New Jersey School Boards Association always gave us a hard time that we have too many committees. Um,
I do think it's hard to give up some of that control over athletics, but I know that, right, I'm on four committees this year and I can tell you it's a lot because they're two hours long and they're extensive. Um, some of them are running well, some of them are not,
right? So, I think I think I agree with the administration that we're trying to get it to look right more like the the agenda. >> So, I don't have a problem with changing the committees. Like, that's not an issue.
But I'm going to take the finance and facilities committee. Like, that's an incredibly demanding committee. So, you're just giving them even more. So that's >> that's where I think there we need to think about that. That's a lot.
>> We discussed it. But you have to remember they're already right. It's already going to the finance and facility committee anyways. It's just going to athletics first. >> But it's not but >> right. It's going to technology first and then it's going to finance. >> And I think we need to realize that
finance is a huge committee and people they need to really be committed to that committee, right? Because it's not going to meet once. it's going to meet multiple times and it's going to be a long committee. Um, but having people that are on there that are dedicated to that I think is important, right? And I
could tell you, right, I don't think the finance committee is working well this year and we're still getting things done. So, I think if we have a committee that works smoother next year, I think we can get I think we can get it done. But I do agree, right? It's a lot. >> Any other discussion? >> Yes,
>> Mrs. Ghana. >> So, I'm going to and I said this in committee. I agree this structure puts a lot of pressure on the same four people and I know that when we formed the committees this year there was a lot
of resistance of having four people on the finance committee. So if you're going to not even do that it's going to be three people and they have to probably meet every other day in order to accommodate everything that gets on the agenda. I believe that when it comes
to something like technology, you need to have that that needs its its own focus. So I'm not supportive of combining everything where the finance committee is going to become a bottleneck unless you're going to have
some sort of people rotating on and off the finance committee so that you have more people join in these conversations. you have more people's calendars not be like blocked by committee meetings every other day. So I'm I'm not fully
supportive of everything that's in this recommendation because I do think that it and then you will have more people jockeying to be on the finance committee even more than what we had at the beginning of this year because it's going to have an immense amount of control.
>> I agree with that. I think if if you truly have like we'll take technology as an example. I think to Dr. Beltree's point at the beginning of the year her thoughts were if I'm bringing it to the technology committee and I'm getting approval that
should be enough. So maybe that's where we kind of need to spread the responsibility out and not have to run everything through the finance and facilities committee when it comes to uh Miss Nicholson.
So ideally we could have I it would be a good practice I would suggest that the finance committee have the opportunity to schedule meetings so they could review the finance agenda items ahead of the meeting to communicate that information to the rest of the board.
finances is the a very heavy thing but at this point what I'm seeing is you have something that's going through two committees and then another committee is like for instance we have that um capital transfer now that'll be
discussed tomorrow in finance but um in order to do that you know we had to do we had to address both athletics and we had to address finance so that's two separate committees that's time out of both committees where we're addressing the same thing and so and really it
would have been a a finance item that would have gone ahead of the actual meeting. So um those items can be separated into there and as long as we have a good flow of the way that things are moving and we
give the opportunity to re you know for finance to review items before the meeting that would be ideal for communication and then communicating them out. I I get that and I'm just curious in that example I would have imagined I
would have assumed that item would directly just go to finance because it is about transfers. I would not have imagined that the athletics committee would care for it to be honest as long as the
the project is on track. Uh but I I mean I'm just going to say it again. I I feel it puts onus and a lot of burden on the four people assuming that the board agrees that there should be four people on the finance committee and not just
three to basically do most of the work. I mean the if the point of the committee is to allocate the work between all board members this structure is sort of going in the other direction in my opinion. So I don't think that's the point of the committee one but then two
when we did discuss this in committee right the that when that concern was brought up right the the negotiation was that we would have the governance committee right and the governance committee would have all four chairs right so the finance chair the education chair the personnel chair the admin
chair come together to discuss those things um the reason why I know we didn't have four committee members on um uh finance this year is because last year there was an item that after it was
discussed board members said that Mountainside couldn't vote on it and so then we were not in compliance right by having four board members there and so to avoid that right we we didn't do that this year but G were you going to say about that
>> I was going to say the governance committee that is part of this new structure would allocate where this would go so the finance committee may not have as much if it's going to go to uh athletics for something like that. There's where it would go and it would end there. So the governance committee
with all the chairs would be the one to allocate in how to more efficiently run our board committee structure. >> I think that makes it I'm sorry Tom just one 30 seconds. I think that that point makes this even more confusing because if we are establishing these committees
with specific intents, then we would go through exactly what what Jen just said. You go and say athletics committee, go deal with this next month. You change your mind and then say don't go there, go to finance. I I feel like it it will
likely cause more chaos than order. If you know what the job of every committee is and the prescribed agenda, you would stick to it and not make it dynamic. >> Well, there would be some um definitions of what these committees were and what they would handle. But the governance committee would meet to be able to
determine where is the best place and the most efficient place for this to go. Dr. Forer. >> Okay. um governance committee with four members uh would violate an agreement that the
district made, a promise the district made. There was a complaint a few years ago about violations of the open public meetings act and um Mr. Gagliardi, you can check with him on this. It was kind
of like a settlement agreement where the district agreed that the committees would only have three members. So if you want to go and have four on governance, you're going to be violating the agreement with the Union County prosecutor. I don't think that's going
to work. Plus, it looks like uh this could all be resolved if we would just be following Robert's rules of order because what a committee is supposed to do is to work on items that are assigned to it by the
board. So when you have some work for the committee, the board looks at it and it says we refer this to such and such committee for their study and there you know and there be might be some additional things like they they should report back to us. So that's going to
take a little more planning that doesn't hurt. Let's do a little planning and get these things into the committees but first to the board and it's just a referral and then the board works on it. Now, my specific objections are there's
no definition in this policy uh as proposed about what these committees do. None. They they only have a title and so that's that's not really good. Second, there are too many liaison, especially to the township committees. Uh I don't
think we need so many. Uh there's a mountainside liaison. I'm not sure why we need a mountainside liaison when we have a mountainside board member. Um, negotiations I think will have to be a
standing committee as it is now. Virtually every year you have negotiations. Okay. I can't think of a year when we didn't have it. Uh, and if we don't have it some year, then that year they just don't do any work. But most years you do have negotiations.
Um, I dislike the idea of the governance. It looks like a power concentration for people deciding what the board is going to be working on, what they're going to be doing, what the positions are, and everything. That doesn't look good to me.
>> Well, the governance committee doesn't decide. It just assigns where it would go. The liaison for the committees on the town council would be one person, one liaison who would keep in touch with the wreck or with the veterans affairs
committee and the uh others. So the liaison um committees are or liaison positions are important to keep track of what's going on. I feel the mountain side school district liaison is an important one as we want to communicate
with our partners and sometimes it doesn't get done be just with our representative here also it's currently what we're doing right we currently have a mountain side leazison I think there's two people on it um but the the governance one I would
just suggest that next week when you go to NJSBA that you go to some of their their thing on governance and what governance should be doing right and I think when you hear what they what they say board members should be doing in governance I think it's important but I
I I again these are the recommendations from our superintendent I did not come up with them so I'm I'm telling you what we discussed in committee um and why why we wanted to make those changes >> so ga so um
>> this is agreed I mean I think the concern about finance and facilities is valid I actually my initial reactions But like shouldn't we even break them up because they're too big? Like have finance and then have facilities but everything is so inter related, right?
And so um so the the whole idea was really just to reduce the repetitive nature of some of the meetings. I don't know if this is you know like this was the intent. I don't know if we got there right. Um, I'm a little concerned about what Tom said because I would certainly
wouldn't want to violate any agreements by having a governance committee of four if there is something that we have uh legally said that we weren't going to have committees of four. So, we definitely need to revisit that. Um, and there was one other um suggestion that I
had that I would like to add into this. So, I don't know given that there's we are discuss we put it on so we could discuss it as as a whole, right? I don't know if there is consensus at this point, right? And some additional
changes that are needed even to the even like additional verbiage to define what um these committees are >> what the committees are. So um is >> but we don't currently have that right we have that in our our minutes right in our minutes right me me and Gail have
tried to put in descriptions some people have kept them some people have cut them out but right like that I don't I mean we didn't have that before I don't know why we would put it now maybe because it you know finance facilities >> well because I think
>> sounds easier than business but >> I mean if you look in the minutes I did try to put in there how it how it goes. Um, I would love to actually put on the website like what each committee is because I think that's more important is
letting the public know what is happening in these committees. Um, and I I think that's something governance could work on, right? And and and we you know, if you didn't want to put four in there, you don't have to, right? You could keep one of, you know, you could rotate, right? You do three if you wanted to. I don't know about this Union
County thing. I don't think it was like a we got in trouble. We got a slap on the hand because we were putting four in finance when not every item, right? So, we used to kick people out when it was an elementary school only thing. But it's hard to keep track of that. So I do
think uh but I think one of the things we did talk about though is having an alternate right on for every committee because people don't they can't come and then we're trying to cancel or reschedule where if you have an alternate you just call that alternate and say hey you know can you make it to this meeting. Um so that was another
thing that was kind of mentioned in committee. >> Uh Mrs. Secure I saw your hand but see if Mrs. Mr. Distler has a answer for us on that. I I don't feel it's that difficult to create and define and I agree with
Pamela. We should put it on the on the B on our district website. But before we go ahead and change the structure and start discussing about revising the policy and creating it, I think the first step is defining what each committee does clearly and let the board
come to an agreement and then proceed with the next steps. Not saying, "Hey, we don't have it now." So what's the thing and to Gail I I feel like we used to have a mountain side leazison on before then it was removed then it was added back on. So it's basically it just
feels like whoever is at the helm and whatever decisions are made. So I feel we should define which committee does what and then go with the next step and instead of saying hey govern let's have governance and then let them decide and also the OPMA thing with the county I
think it was multiple times it was reported and I think the settlement happened with not just one slap on the hand but well let's remember this is up for first reading. So that means we have between now and December to get to second reading. If we don't do this now for
first reading, it'll be first reading in November. Uh, no, this is Yeah, in November, right? November, final reading in December. And then if it doesn't pass, then we're still back to where we were in January for the reorg meeting. >> Mrs. Terrari, you had a question.
>> So, I think um just a thought in general would be, and I mean, we have Bill here, he might be able to tell us how Mountainside does their committees. I think maybe And I don't know, Dr. Feltry, if you've specifically looked at what other districts do, but I think
maybe it would be important to kind of look at what some of the other districts are doing with their committees and that would be helpful. But I do agree with what everybody said, and that is there should really be a clear definition of what each committee's responsibility is. And I am concerned about finance and
facility because that's a huge huge heavy load. And um I think it would be very limiting for certain people that work full-time jobs to really be able to to do it. I mean it nothing against them at all. I just think the responsibility
would be heavy and the demand would be a lot. >> Okay. Thank you. Mr. Distler has an answer for us. >> Is the question what took place with regard to the Union County Prosecutor? >> Can we have four? So, and just sorry it took me a few minutes. So, this take this took place back in
2021. There was a complaint that the board had four members on its committee. Um, the issue arose because you had a board policy in place regarding your quorum which was established in give me a second 197 1964 at the time and not
revised since 2001. So it did not fully take into account the law change that made a mountainside member your sending rep. They gave them a lot more authorities. You know if anyone dates back 15 20 years they remember the rep had very little authority. The law was
revised about 10 to 15 years ago. Now obviously your rep can vote on many more things and the law is very clear that they are a member of your board. So the issue became now what does that mean for your committees? The problem was that your policy was outdated and it said a
quorum is four. So there was no agreement reached. There was no finding is my recollection. The way it was and I don't want to speak out of turn again. I'm trying to remember this from four or five years ago. Um our office worked with the prosecutor's office and said made representations then working with
the board something to the effect of look we're going to be looking at this policy. We were going to be revising it and we're going to be working with the board so they understand that there are circumstances where if the committee is discussing something that's not related to Mside, you can't have um four
members. If the committee is, you can. So then it is now up to the board whether you want committees with four with the understanding that there are going to be times or if you're going to discuss something that is specifically related to we'll say um your prek program that obviously the mounted rep
if you have four um you would have to have make sure that someone steps out of that meeting. So does everyone get the background here of the history like? >> Thank you. >> And there were I should say based on that representation of the board takes actions I believe then the prosecutor's office dismissed the plate.
>> So thank you. So at this point if we do pass this for first reading it will send it back to policy committee for uh these points that have just come up. >> Yeah. Just >> uh Mr. Dylan >> looking ahead right this is going to
take effect in January of 26. U where do we envision things like send receive relationships and negotiations falling other than negotiation team? >> Correct. >> Thank whoever put this together by not
limiting the role based on your town of residents. So it looks like in the creation of these committees and the assignments to them uh it will be all equal across all eight. So >> correct. And Mrs. Jolly last comment. Um
just to your comment about um like the I think there's too much that was discussed in my opinion to have it pass for first read. Um I mean it was it was like and we knew there was going to be a lot of discussion, right? We didn't uh so we put it up just so it could be
discussed and everyone's you know and we all have kind of like the same concerns and things like that. So I think that it's I don't think it's by I think we need to work on it a little bit more maybe take what is here define it maybe
put parameters around it so to address concerns of finance and facility this that it's not like overloaded and then um bring it back because I think that like if we pass it for first read like it won't pass second read because there will be substantive changes so if you
want it to get to December Yeah, we need >> first read in November, second read in December >> and then and then we could work on it and then send our changes like ahead of time, you know, um to to see if people what people think so that when we do
come back in November, everyone's kind of more >> Okay, thank you. Uh Madam Secretary, roll call vote. >> What we could do is get written feedback from everybody before the next policy meeting so that it gets discussed.
But I do I would love for Dr. because she's given it to the committee. But >> I don't see the problem with everybody writing an email to the committee and saying this is our opinion or our point of view on the committee structure because we all have
>> I think that's an excellent idea. >> Okay. >> Okay. Dr. Felry and then we'll go to the roll call vote. >> So >> just sorry just to be clear before you make again your usual accusations people
are going to write an email and send it to the committee members. There will not be a back and forth unless you go for it. So again mind your words Pamela. >> Okay. Thank you very much Dr. Feltry. So
my thought was that um it was twofold. One is to streamline the process in efficiency. Um we have board members who are on multiple multiple committees and I said this to the policy committee and and and you spend a lot of time because you're on multiple
committees. Um and I thank you all for the hard work that you do and the time that you spend. But it is also about streamlining um and making us more efficient. I'm flexible on the names. If we don't want to call it administration and we want to call it policy, it was
also to try to um make the what we're discussing on the agenda more concrete, clear, transparent, overt, whatever word you want to put in there. Um because oftent times there is
some confusion regarding, okay, we're discussing this, where does it show up? and and there's been times um that it's on a totally separate section when we're discussing it. Um do you want to split facilities and finance? That's really hard to do. uh it
it you know I I'm willing to take a look at other structures you know um it's really about streamlining and I was much more articulate when it wasn't 11:48 at night
when it was 9:00 in the morning so I do apologize for that was much more articulate um but it really is about streamlining the process making us more efficient um as a board Um we're we're not as efficient as we can be in committee structure.
>> I think Dr. Feltry to be more efficient we need more board meetings that way we're not sitting here at 11:48 and I hope you make that recommendation next year like when you and we have given you this feedback having >> you haven't given me a guarantee that that's actually going to work.
>> Oh >> you packing that. >> This is another discussion for another time. Madam Secretary roll call vote please on policy. What are we what are we voting on here? >> The policy. >> Okay, but I haven't finished on there's some other comments I want to make here. >> Yes, Dr. Forer.
>> I mean, you only talked >> Please keep in mind the time. >> I know it's >> How come this comment doesn't happen to other board members? >> Okay. 2422 uh has a mistake in it. Um let's see here.
Yes, 2422. Okay, I'll point this out. This is easy to fix. Uh, that's why I bring it up. It says, uh, the following statutes that require instruction to be part of the school district's implementation
of the NJSLS include, and then it's got a list of 26 uh, statutes, okay? 1 to 26. But look at number six, domestic violence education.
That's not required. It just says it allows instruction on problems related to domestic violence and child abuse. Okay. So, your list does not match what the uh beginning of the list says. It's going to be all things that are
required. That number six is not required. So, my suggestion is that we take that out and then just renumber remaining ones. So seven becomes six and so on. So it'll
be 25 required items. Okay. So that's one one change I have for 2422. That's an easy fix. Um now 2200 I don't think I have it in front of me
but uh wait let me take a different one. Just a minute. Let's see. Yes. No, this is um okay this is let's take uh 0143 board member election and appointment.
Um one of the paragraphs says uh the board will give public notice of the vacancy and invite any qualified person to submit a written request for consideration of their
candidacy for the vacancy. But we're talking about a singular person here, not a multiple. So it's ungrammatical to say there. It should be his or her, which is what it used to be. And
does anybody remember their instructions on grammar >> there? >> Yes. >> Yes. Does anybody remember it from seventh grade? Okay. So I looked it up. Correct meaning of words. This is from a book common errors in English and how to
avoid them. >> Uh m Dr. Porer, could you just make your recommendation? >> Yeah. My recommendation is I mean I was going to explain this. There is a plural. Those are plural pronouns. Okay. So you don't say there when you're
talking about a single thing. So that's a mistake to have to take out the his or her. So my ch my change for that would be to just leave it the way it is. Don't put in the there. Okay. Now, similar thing happens I think on
2422 statutory. Uh no, that's not the one. Uh curriculum content 2200 that also has a his or her that's been changed. So there. So I would ask that 2200 revert back to his
or her the grammatically correct statement. And um that's it. Okay, thank you. Can we send those back to the policy committee for revision? >> They can take it under consideration at their next meeting, but I wouldn't say
revision. >> Thank you. Uh, roll call vote, please. >> Mrs. Aerry, >> it's a no. >> Dr. Forger, >> what are we voting on the policies? >> Yeah. A and D >> as as given to us without any changes.
>> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh so if you're not going to change 143 the way I suggested, then that's a no. Uh 173, that's a yes. 2422,
if you're not going to change it, that's that's going to take out I wanted item six out. If you're not going to change that, then that's a no. and uh curriculum content 2200. If you're not going to change that, that's a no. And
board committees, I thought we would just uh send that back. So, right now, it's a no. >> Uh Mrs. Airi, clarification on yours. You're saying no to all the second reading? Yes,
>> Madam Secretary. Did you get that for Dr. Forer? Oh, on second readings. I thought we were doing first readings here. >> A and B. >> Oh, on B. Um, he is a yes. Yeah.
>> So, Dr. Forger, you're no on everything but 0173 and item A. Uh 0173. That was a yes and the other ones are no. >> Mrs. Terrarero.
Um so for um policy 155, I think there just needs to be quite a bunch of updates. So I'm just going to say no and send that back to the committee for um for revisions. And then everything else is a yes.
Mr. Dylan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Jolly, I am a no on 155 and uh yes on everything else. >> Mrs. Connor,
>> I'm a no to P15 and yes to everything else. >> Mrs. Stanley? >> Yeah. >> Ms. Bradford? >> Yes. All right. So, it looks like everything passes, but
155 is a no. Okay. Strategic planning update. Mrs. Airi, I don't think there's any update. We didn't meet. Okay. Um, Dr. Feltry did send out the minutes from the uh, strategic planning meeting that was held
here. It was in the board buzz. So, we do have that. And the next strategic planning meetings are coming up on October 28th, which is a Tuesday, and then in November, which is a back to a Monday. Um, negotiations. Uh the
committee met on Thursday, October 13th at 5:15 with representatives from the head custodians contract and discussions continue. The negotiations committee for Mountainside uh sorry I just lost my
what happened was we had a meeting uh we presented our questions back and forth. Mountainside requested more time so our next meeting was cancelled. We met internally last week or uh uh within our Berkeley Heights negotiating team and we have more questions that are being
refined and sent back to Mountain Side. So, they continue. Okay. Moving ahead now to liaison reports. >> One. >> Oh, >> okay. Yes. Uh and we'll have to go back to letter O after liaison reports.
>> So, very quick update. This is from the Union County Ed Services U meeting that they had this um I want to say last week. Um they presented their NJSLA um reports as well pretty much like how
we did. Uh as can be expected, they their students need additional interventions for them to actually be able to graduate and and you know meet the targets. So they're working through that. One of the things that they offered through that meeting
was a chance to tour the schools. So, if there's any interest on this board to go tour their schools, um I can um link you up with with their um BA who may be able to figure out the dates. Um if you want
to join um and tour the schools, we do have some students, I believe, who take advantage of the different facilities that their schools provide. So, Any other liaison reports? Yes. >> Um, okay. So, there was a uh the tech
advisory board met on Wednesday, October 1st. Dr. Forer and I actually went to this. Um, due to recent updates in printer and copier models. The default auto setting for print jobs is currently set to color. The setting will be changed back to black and white for all
staff to reduce unnecessary color printing. Each teacher will be allowed up to 200 color copies per month. Exceptions will be made for certain staff whose job responsibilities require higher require higher color usage. Color
copers should be reserved for learning centered materials. There's no limitation on black and white printing or copying. Prometheium boards have been successfully installed in all K through five home rooms. Uh, additional installations have been completed in
special locations at both GL and CMS. And don't ask me what they were because I I don't I didn't write it down. Um, CMS is slated as the next school for expanded Prometheium board deployment. This ongoing initiative supports enhanced interactive learning
environments across the district. A comprehensive discussion was held regarding the use of AI within the district. This was important fe there was some important feedback from the teachers. One um the limited adoption
most teachers are currently not using AI tools um in their instructional practice and two um concerns that were raised and there were four of them. um lack of controls or oversight of AI usage, potential for plagiarism, risk of
diminishing critical thinking, and fear of creating unintended consequences or sinkholes. Staff expressed support for using AI in non-instructional context such as refining written communication or softening tone in emails or documents.
>> Thank you. Uh the Union County Schoolboard Association meeting was held at the Westwood in Garwood. There was a panel of four students. They discussed their experiences with artificial intelligence and the discussion revealed a need for more communication and integration of AI among administration
staff and students. The Berkeley Heights Town Council met on Tuesday, October 7th. A presentation was given by Ray Freeny from the Rotary Club about the need for education regarding the life-saving drug naron and rescue samples were given to the attendees. Community presentation was held last
night by the complete and green streets committee and the Berkeley Heights Police Department on the topic of ebike and e scooter safety and they receive feedback at town hall. There's a clothing and shoe drive at GL this Saturday from 9 to 1. Number of fall festivals coming up this Saturday. The
Berkeley Heights ball festival festival at the Latell Lord farmhouse are being done being held along with the youth fishing derby and an autumn a hike done by the mayor's wellness committee. The veterans affairs committee Mrs. Andre Mazerie at fourth grade teacher at Mountain Park will be spearheading the
Veterans Day program in schools 3 through 5. Local veterans will be invited to read to classes on Monday, November 10th and Tuesday the 11th. Classroom teachers can sign up for a reader for their students. This is an ongoing program in our district to connect our students to our local
veterans. Uh the process for creating board goals continues with the board members to attend a training mission on Monday, November 3rd at two at 6 p.m. This will be advertised as a public special meeting with no action taken. Mrs. Jean Clearary will share the online results and assist the board in creating
goals based on the online uh evaluations. And the training session will also include an update to board members by our board attorney on HIV procedures. Okay, going back to item O. >> I just want to say one thing from B the
BHF meeting. They are uh their last meeting was just in preparation for to tomorrow. They have their one of their big fundraisers. It's the plaids and pints um at the vintage uh tavern. Um it should be lots of lots of fun. They have raffles. Um, remember you can raffle off
for seats for graduation and eighth grade promotion. So, this is a big deal. You can get those seats, those front row seats. Uh, but yeah, it's plaid for pints tomorrow, I believe, at 7:30 at Vintage Tavern. So, you can get your tickets on their um social media site.
>> Thank you. Any other reports? Okay, going back to the tabled O. >> So, I'm I'm going to recommend that the board postpone this to its next meeting. Uh I did reach out to um I'm not bond counsel obviously and I don't pretend to
be one on TV. It's a very esoteric area of the law. Uh what I can say is I know that these questions are extremely important and the wording of them are extremely important not just for transparency reason but obviously for legal reasons to avoid any challenge. Um
there's clearly some language that needs to be cleaned up in it just based on the corrections that were made. I I reached out to bond counsel via tried making a phone call and email. It's obviously pretty late and so I didn't expect to hear back but I didn't. So I don't have any clarity on what the board should do.
Um my understanding of the law is you need to submit it to the board of elections to get it on the ballot minimum of two months beforehand. What I don't know though is what is the intent of both your architect and bond counsel with regard to getting the material out to the public, things like that. So, it
is possible they say, "No, we did need you to get this approved prior to next meeting." Obviously, if that is the case, the board has the ability to hold a special meeting, but in good faith, I can't recommend that you move forward with this language as written, I think, for all the reasons that were brought up tonight. Um, so that would be my
recommendation. It's obviously up to the board how you want to proceed, but I would recommend at least to postpone to the next meeting, a motion to postpone it to the definitive time, which be whenever the date of the next board meeting is. Therefore allowing your administration to reach out to bond council to clarify the language.
>> Okay. May I have a motion to for postponement of resolution O to our next meeting? >> So move. >> Thank you. Mrs. Connor and seconded. I'll second m um madam secretary. Roll call vote.
>> Mrs. Aerry. >> Yes. >> Dr. Forger. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Terrarero. >> Yes. Mr. Dylan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Jolly, >> yes. >> Mrs. Pana, >> yes.
>> Mrs. Stanley, >> yes. >> Miss Bradford, >> yes. Moving on to comment comments from the public on any topic during this portion of the meeting. District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on any item. The board requests that all individuals state their name, town of
residence, or school of attendance for the record. You postpone to I missed you did postpone. Okay, >> we did. Yes. >> Okay. All comment should be directed to the board president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question, it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the
administration. If so, the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded. Although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum, all public comments will be considered. The board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking.
Specifically, comments regarding personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board. Students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey. The board bears no responsibility, nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the
public. Please note that if any members of the public become disruptive during the meeting, the board president may determinate the participant statement. Continued disruptions may result in removal from or German of the meeting. Each speaker statement will be limited to three minutes in duration. We'll start with our inerson and then our
online next. I see no one in person. Um, uh, Jim, could we ask if you could unmute please our online person? Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can hear you.
>> Good morning everyone. That is morning. >> Yes. >> Right. Um, so I so I do appreciate what >> Please identify yourself. >> Oh yes, John McGuirez. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Uh, I do appreciate what Dr. Faltry is trying to do with the
committees, but and I just want to kind of give the benefit of a little bit of history and why I think there's a concern around the governance. So the issue really comes down to you know the president the position of president I at least in my opinion and other people's opinions has become a pretty powerful
position um that and whose power hasn't always been used in a correct fashion uh and then to have a governance committee that's appointed by that president that then acts as a gatekeeper uh adds even more concern. I have the
letter from the prosecutor on the OPMA and and you know obviously the attorney is correct. However, that that three board that three committee was agreed to and and regardless of whether or not we feel that agreement is relevant today, I
think it is important because having four again concentrates it more and so I I certainly appreciate the idea of efficiency but not to not you know but we don't want to sacrifice checks and balances and we don't want to create a
circumstance where we create sort of like a dynamic hammock where plurality can be marginalized simply through appointment. So I think there's there could be a way through that but you know um just concerned about the overall structure. Um, you
know, the second thing, uh, that I'd like to bring up is, um, look, I don't agree with Tom all the time and, you know, the whole him, her, and their thing. I'm I you know you know I don't but like he asked an important question about Dorny Park
and you guys kind of laughed at him and the question is what are the kids learning and you you know that's a good question for a school like it doesn't mean that you don't have to go to Dorney Park but you know maybe somebody maybe it could
maybe there could be something that's educational our kids in this in the US our kids spend more time in schools than any other kids in our country, other countries. Well, I think we're the eighth eighth. We're definitely in the top 10, but our test scores don't show for it. There's a lot of inefficiency.
I don't think it's a bad question. I also don't think it's such a horrible thing to talk about concussions and injuries for a middle school sport. Like, you you know, just to dismiss the guy and just kind of interrupt him because you think it's funny. I think
it's good to maybe step back and be curious and less judgmental. And maybe and maybe it won't be about cancelling Dorney Park. I don't think that's the case. And I don't think it has to be cancelling wrestling, but it leads to some important questions and maybe a better conversation. Just maybe
be a little bit more open-minded. Thank you. Have a good night. >> Thank you. I see no one else to unmute. Moving ahead. I see no new business. Old business. Mrs. Jolly. So, uh, old business lower Columbia. I'm
actually going to make a motion and then read my statement. We could have a discussion and then people can vote however they want. So, I actually I'm going to move that the BOE exit the lower Columbia lease. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Okay. So, um,
I'll try to skim through this real quick. Um, so, um, just a timeline of what happened. Um the board approved the lease on March 18th and we all know how that went. Uh March 19th, the insurance issue was resolved with um CJ providing the township with the COI. Took less
than an hour. March 25th, the township approved the lease. March 28th, via Oprah Harbor Consultants do a walkthrough of lower Columbia. April 2nd via Oprah harbor consultant submits proposal for land serving services environmental investigations conceptual
layout engineering design for 344 for 34,400 April 3rd via Oprah um Mr. Victor Venega from Harbor Consultants emails Deb that he said Deb Mr. Varnerin to say that he consulted with in-house environmental experts to see what is needed
environmentally on this project and so far it appears very doable. This email was then forwarded to um Scott Solomon um and but there was content that was redacted and I shared all the opas with you guys. So you have those. Um April 7th, environmental commission adds
synthetic versus natural turf to its new business. Um and that came from the environmental commission agenda. May 10th, uh there was a walkthrough of Lower Columbia with the BOE. May 20th, uh town council approved a resolution of shared services agreement that was tied
to the lease. May 25th, Memorial Day weekend. Uh, it was Memorial Day weekend. I don't know the exact date, but via Oprah, Mr. Ed Cous, and I I don't I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, from Eastern States Environmental Associates, examines Lower Colombia. June 16th, again, via Oprah.
Um, Mr. Venega from Harbor writes to the mayor, Tom Sarro, and Miss Varnerin, sharing email conversation excerpts between Harbor Consultants and Ed Cous. Those email excerpts have been redacted. This is the supporting information I was looking for in my OPRA which was seeking
to find um what constituted initial discovery and um available options explored. So that was June 16th. Um and then the next is September 2nd. We hear we get an email um from Miss Varner on
the update that there will be no turf. Um again this was not sent uh to the public. This was sent just to the BOE. Um there was um an uh Oprah documents also showed there was a press release that went to the mayor for approval on
the same day. Um however and you know some of us got yelled at um or people were upset and the town council and Miss Viana that NJ21st was made aware of the update but they were preparing their own um press release. Um she also said that
it wasn't transparent in some email communication that we were bccing board members um not understanding why we do that. Um but um but everything that would is still operable while the emails from Miss Varnner's um Gmail account to
the consultants are not. So I just want to be clear as to um who's being transparent. Um, September 8th, there was no response from the town council mayor or Miss Varnner and as to what constitutes initial discovery and available options reviewed. So, I submitted an Oprah.
September 16th was the town council meeting where the 32,000 was approved to Harbor Consultants. And again, this happened after the no turf um update. Um, and I spoke at the meeting. Um, there were no questions that were answered. There's a bit of righteous indignation. I think councilwoman Pog
and Miss Vanna suggested that we take back the land. Environmental commission al recommendation against artificial turf was also presented at that meeting and there were no OPRA documents found as of that date. So as of six uh September 16th in that council meeting I
didn't have any of the OPRA documents. September 17th we get the environmental commission recommendation against artificial turf that was presented at the town council meeting. The information cited in that paper was readily available prior to the lease being signed. And I guess the question
is why wasn't this done sooner and it was also on the on their agenda since early April again after the lease was signed but only completed after Miss Varnner and sent her update um October 1st. So this was a month after we were informed about the no
turf. there was um we she sent an undated letter and this letter in the keys that it's undated um stating that uh the an unnamed environmental consultant um and Oprah eventually showed that it was Mr. Kus
again mispronounced his name discovered that uh discovered hydric soils under the soccer fields and that's a parameter in classifying wetlands. The letter also stated that code D has recently determined that turf fields are impervious surfaces and are not permitted in wetland susceptible areas.
The D designation of turf fields as imperous surfaces goes back to 2009. If you look at the DP um.gov um website for rule adoptions, there was a rule adopted on um
in uh 2009 June 1st 2009. So 16 years is not recent. And the fact that this data was undated, I don't know when it was actually written. On the same day, there was um you know a Bobby Pure interview and um a video um that was published on
Tap into um the BOE saw that letter that uh October first letter that was sent to the superintendent on October 3rd. On October 8th is when I received um the two artifacts related to the Oprah and October 14th is when I received the last
artifact related to the Oprah. So it took over a month to return three artifacts that were mostly redacted over a six-month period. Um the Environmental Commission findings and the investigation of the land could have been completed prior to the lease being signed even before the non-binding
resolution a year ago. I mean there was never going to be a turf field. Um, but I guess it was a better marketing strategy to get the land. We were told the lease was needed to apply for certain grants. What grants were applied for? Now the story is the township needed the lease or service agreement.
Not clear which to survey the land. We're also told that the turf was needed because Union County took over Snyder Field. Now, as there is no turf, the reccomission promises to build a safe a field that is safe. So, I guess if the current field is not safe, why do we continue to use it? So, to date, the uh
well, the district spent $8,900 in legal fe fees since July of 2024 as it related to the lease, and we have nothing to show for it. The due diligence wasn't done. You know, the township attorney said that we were harming residents every day by not signing the lease or
the document stylized as a lease, as he later stated. And have the residents benefited in any way since the lease was signed? Um, no. The only people who benefited were the attorneys and the consultants. So, I think we need a reset. There is a new proposal because
the consultants were paid. They're working on a proposal um right now. And I think that the BOE should exit the lease and let the new board evaluate the new proposal and decide what's next. The tennis team is protected for a year after the lease ends and we know for a
fact there's no insurance issue. We can re renegotiate a shared services agreement or use the tennis courts. Um, sorry, we can renegotiate a shared services agreement for the use of the courts and fields properly, not under the not under duress. If the township doesn't want to, we can collect the fees
from the PL and do the field maintenance ourselves. Um, I feel like that, you know, we were somewhat bullied into negotiating this lease in public. Um, the public was also kind of pressured, manipulated into pressuring the BOE. The township showed that they would hurt the
kids, aka the tennis team lockout, to get what they want, and there's no transparency when business is conducted over personal email. There are too many questionable actions. Um, and so I really strongly believe that it's in the district's best interest at this point
to exit the lease and start fresh. Mrs. Connor, >> first thing, thank you for actually creating the chronology. That was, I'm sure, a lot of work. And
it does shine a light on the process that was followed. And I mean, we can all just go back. I don't even have to go back to the video. I just have to go back to the 18th March meeting. In my mind, it was the meeting when we were
supposed to have the tenative budget. We spent as a board, not enough time, no literally not enough time, not enough questions on the budget. That meeting was hogged by this um lease. Um
to me it was very interesting that the fact that there is going to be no turf field or it's you know um wetland classification sort of just very much under the radar.
While for the last year or more than that, there has been a very active public loud campaign on why this land was so important to be taken over by the township or the recreation committee to
go and and create a turf field. So, I'm actually really disappointed because I thought that everybody who showed up at the meeting on 18th of March, all the residents, they were under an impression, a very solid one, that there
is going to be a turf field for usage by their children. So, they were out here advocating as parents for my students, my children would be benefited. Based on what I just heard, it sounds
like pretty much mostly smoke and mirrors. And at the end of the day, I agree. Um the board here has been bullied very publicly and it's very strange that there is nobody standing
here um after that meeting to to be transparent to have a real followup to say we did this in March but guess what this is um you know this is an update we are not doing a a turf
field like there is nothing um which is disappointing But perhaps not surprising, >> Mrs. Stanley. >> There's nobody here because this was not done correctly, right? Like there's nobody here because nobody knew it was going to be on the agenda, right? Like
so I think when you pull stuff like this, it it makes it impossible. But I can tell you everybody who's going to watch this, they're they're they are so annoyed at this board. They're so annoyed at this board for not caring about the kids, for sitting here
discussing things that don't matter. Like this whole monologue about the timeline and all of this like nobody cares because it's okay if you don't care. >> Excuse me, Mrs. Connor. Mrs. Stanley's talking. >> It's past midnight. Gail, it's past
midnight. I'm done with Pamela insulting people sitting table. Please let >> If she is intending to continue, I'm not going to listen to this. I don't think anybody sitting here past midnight serves your nonsense. She's okay to
comment on the topic, but she's not okay to make personal attacks on people on the board. >> Thank you, Mrs. Connor. >> So again, right, I think that this should go to a committee at least at minimum, right? because we don't even
know what the repercussions are for doing this on two on right on top of the fact that why are we once again trying to hurt a relationship with someone that we work with, right? Like we need to work with the town to get things done. I don't know why we're purposely trying to hurt that relationship. There's nothing
that has changed in the lease agreement. The lease agreement is still the same, right? What we signed up for is still what we signed up for. We'd also be giving up the paving of that lot, right? because they agreed to pave that lot, right? So, I I I think that we I I like
I one I just don't understand this whole thing. Again, doing it after midnight again makes no sense. And it was not brought to a committee to actually decide like how what the repercussions are. And I think that you're just upset, right? You're just upset that something
happened, but that doesn't mean that we knee-jerk reaction and do something that can hurt us long term, right? How many times have we voted here for things that we don't know the consequences for because of stuff like this? I I don't understand it. It needs to go to a committee. The administration should
give it you should give them time to be able to come back and say, "Well, if we do this, this is what's going to happen, right?" But you're not giving them that time. So, I would say that I don't want to spend any more time talking about this. We just listen to a 20-minute monologue. Let's just take the vote because I think it's going to fail. >> Oh, thank you very much.
>> Monologues. Okay. Thank you. Um >> ouch >> this is late. Mrs. Kerry, do you have a quick comment because there may be repercussions for this and then we'll go to our roll call vote. >> As the board president, as I said in the exact session, I would like you to
uniformly give your advice every time Mrs. Stanley interrupts. No, no, please don't interrupt me. I have the floor. No, no, I have the floor and you allowed me to speak. You don't interrupt any other board member when they start in going to monologues or
whatever. But when we can get interrupted by a board member, we never see you stopping Mrs. Stanley. But the moment if we say that these are personal attacks or whatever, you have to give us your sage advice. I just have to say
this. The board had legal council sitting at this table on March 18th which should have specifically told us this is contract negotiations you need to do this in exact session and it it did not happen and the way it was led up
and the item was put on the agenda Dr. Feltry is aware. Everybody's aware this happened over the weekend. The board never looked at a draft contract. It was all moved at rocket speed because we were promised that oh we did a
referendum question at last election and we told everybody that we needed turf, we needed to do this. So Pamela miss you know Pamela can has have her opinion that this is not benefiting the students but the land belongs to this board and
what relationship are we talking about a relationship where they can be they cannot be transparent. They cannot be honest about the intent of that contract. the whole council can
use our dollars as a resident. My taxpayer dollars were used to put that referendum question on the ballot. Then my taxpayer dollars were used not only for the legal services of the township but for the board so we can have that contract up on and then our
administration instead of focusing on the budget tentative budget that we had to vote on it was all moved at rocket speed over the weekend which is all very questionable and if you're going to give me sage advice that you know this is not you know fair yeah let's look into the
chronology of events and how did that contract get on the agenda. So it it we were bullied publicly. We were bullied publicly to negotiate not in exact session but openly and our
tennis students were basically denied access even though there was no insurance issue. So it's fine and the reason is after we got that private personal email from Mrs. Warner in from her Google email. We were told multiple
times by the administration, oh, they're going to come here and present. We have never seen anybody come here and present. And the reason why we have to do this is because the whole intent and the premise of that contract was not authentic.
There is no turf happening. And from 2009, everybody knew that was in the flood plane. So why why even dance around it? So everybody can vote. And I think to you Dr. you know Mrs. Bradford
like when we go to NJSBA or when Mrs. Clearary comes here maybe you need to get some advice that you need to treat every board member equally. Not saying hey you know somebody can have a monologue like if you go and if you actually go and look at our meetings
and see how long does one board member speak versus others you can smile all you want. Thank you. >> Thank you. Madam Secretary, we're going to go to a roll call vote. >> Bill has hand up. >> Mr. Dylan.
>> Yes. So, just on this topic because, you know, we're going to vote, so we should be able to to give feedback. So, the way I recall the events was it was pretty clear to us in our conversations that turf wasn't coming and we were clear
when we made our vote that you're making a vote to give them access to the land regardless if there was turf or not. Right? So, that was very clear part of all of our conversations. I think even publicly we said out loud, hold your breath when you're gonna get turf
because we all knew that it was in such a way probably wetland you weren't going to get it right. So, um that's one thing. So, I I don't So, while I sit here today, there's not a lot of new information that I didn't have when I made the vote the first time. Uh I would also like to reject
that I certainly don't feel bullied. So, when we use the term we, that's not me, right? I I made my my boat at that point knowing the facts that I had. We corrected this the statements in the room about who was responsible for the
tennis courts. We made all that clear. Uh we left that night with very uh we spoke out and and everything was kind of put in place in public about what happened. So I'm not disagreeing that in the future we have a very easy clause that was part of what we made sure very
easy clause to get out what we need to get out of the of the contract. I just don't know what's different tonight than when I voted last time to make me change my mind, right? At the end of the day, the field will be improved, right? The field will be improved for
our athletes to use, right? Because it's still very much uh the the soccer field and and the the field for Columbia Middle School. Um so that's my opinion on the topic. >> Yes, Mrs. Terrero. Then Mrs. Jolly final
statement >> um for doing that. Um personally for me I do agree with what Bill said, but I also don't feel that it's in the best interest to make a decision before we've even seen because one of the things that
her email said was she was going to put a plan for. We haven't seen that. So, I do think that rather than making a decision now, and I I'm open to discussing this, I really am, but I
think we need to see and and maybe Deb Barner needs to come here to present the plan like you were requesting. Maybe that's the right. >> No, I'm not requesting. She said that and we were told by the administrator that she's on. >> Mrs. Terrero has the floor. So, so
>> I just don't think that this is the right time to make a decision until we have more information about how they plan on moving forward. >> Mrs. Jolly >> um so with respect to the relationship that we have like we have one um and I
think that's why I think a reset would be needed so we can as equal partners renegotiate a shared services agreement that would include the tennis courts as well um as opposed to just the fields um because right now the protections are in the lease for the tennis courts. They're not part of the shared services
agreement. My biggest problem is also having zero transparency. Um again the personal email thing is a big deal. So this is someone who is engaging with the consultants. Um and I know we signed over lease but like um this is a public
official dealing with with you know professional services and anything that I got was like redacted. So I I mean wouldn't it be great if we actually knew what the recommendations from the environmental consultant were without it being redacted as opposed to you know
and then I also and the communication um Deb missin did the right thing by emailing the BOE the first time because our lease agreement is with the BOE and we are the ones that are contracted with her the second time because I guess they didn't like the way it came out they
sent it to the superintendent and and we got days later, right? So, um I think that um you know there the the agreement could be strengthened also in terms of the communication lines and who gets and who gets to see you know these updates.
Like there's a lot that could be you know improved. I mean we were flying by the seat of our pants on March 18th, right? Like if I had time to go back and kind of you know re re you rethink everything and make it as nice as I wanted to. But like we were like and and
the parents and we might have said whatever we would have said, but the parents thought that we needed the lease agreement in order to open up the tennis courts. That's what the parents thought. And the parents thought that the lease agreement was to get a turf field. >> Madam Secretary. Oh,
>> I'm sorry. Only because I did I think it even came out with some of the Oprah stuff. I I I invited uh Miss Varnner in here to speak to us after we got that information. She was clear with me that depending on the date and the conflict there may be an issue and when we set
our day she did respond to me that um it did conflict. So I I I don't we should formally invite. I don't think that that's an issue moving forward. Right. But I just want to clear up that uh the speculation of coming here was based on
availability and there was a conflict of the two days with the rec committee. Um so and that was my suggestion to uh Dr. Feltry right was to invite her as as officially and I think we did right there was just a conflict. So um but since I initiated that I did want to
respond as to how it how it kind of landed. >> Are we ready for a roll call vote? Mrs. Madam >> Mrs. Aary >> Mrs. Kama okay >> Mrs. Aary? >> Yes.
>> Dr. Yes. >> Mrs. Terrarero, >> no. >> Mr. Dylan, >> no. >> Mrs. Jolly, >> yes. >> Mrs. Connor, >> yes. >> Mrs. Stanley,
>> Miss Bradford, >> no. >> Motion does not pass. >> Okay. May I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> Thank you, uh, Mrs. Stanley, and thank you, Mrs. Jolly. Uh voice vote to adjurnn. >> I
>> thank you. The time is >> 12:35.