All right, thank you for uh being patient. Our executive session did go a little over. It is now 7:36 and we will continue on with the agenda. Next item on the agenda is the pledge of allegiance. Will everyone please rise?
Okay. Uh today is July 14th and we have a special special presentation which will be the the final report for the 2024 2025 harassment uh harassment imit
intimidation and bullying. I think I am on summer break. Uh and the SSD report uh Dr. Forte Okay, thank you. our July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025. It's the
uh harassment, intimidation, and bullying along with the student safety data system report required by the um state department of education. This year, we had zero cases of substance abuse. We had one weapons case, five
confirmed HIV cases, 11 HIV investigations, 14 predetermination HIVs. We had one vandalism incident, eight incidents of violence, report of students uh of suspension with students with disabilities or other reason than
violence and vandalism. Seven cases, six times the police were notified. We had four inschool suspensions and zero out of school suspensions. Remember these are those suspension numbers are for HIV
um HIV trainings and programs. We had 41 trainings throughout the year, 113 different programs. And how does this how we do it? We we have teaching and learning, student relationships, safety, parental support, physical and emotional environments, morale in the student
community in the school community. And that's the overview of our that's the overview of our um program for the year. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer if the board president is okay with that.
Sure. Are there any questions for Dr. Fort from the board? I was wondering if any comparative statistics available for like the same schools and also the state how we would rank with our bullying incidents. Uh we're like in the average with everybody
else we're better or worse. I doubt we were were worse. You know I I don't usually put that field in but we could do that when we do our comp group. We could add in the HIV statistics as well. So, that's not really a big a big deal. When I'm doing
the update to the uh to the demographic thing that we do, I'll I'll add that. Oh, we do very well in so many of the other categories. Think that would be that would be another one that you know we could talk about about you know how good we
are. Test one. that one. Okay. So, we could uh the question was from Mr. Cass. Can we add in when we do our demographic data, can we add some of this information into the uh chart? And that seems like a good idea. No reason why we can't.
Any other questions? Thank you, Dr. Forte. Are there um there's no other presentations, so we'll move on to superintendent comments. Dr. Coll, would you do yours first?
I just update on our kindergarten. We have 169 students registered, 80 at Lake View and 89 at Riverview. Um and Valley View schedules will be available on Genesis and August on August 15th. and some emails will go
out, messages to parents to make sure that they fill out all of their paperwork prior so that they would be able to get their children's schedules on that date. This concludes assistant superintendent's report. Okay. Um, we are planning to do a Friday
folder to the community email on August 1st and mark your calendars for back to school nights. We have Lake View on September 9, Valley View on September 10, and Riverview on September 11th. And
that's it for the superintendent's comments. Thank you, Dr. Okay. So, it's September 9 for Lake View, Valley View, September 10, and Riverview September 11. Do you know what days of the week those
uh those are? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Forte. And uh thank you, Dr. Cullis, for the assistant superintendent comments. Uh do we have any comments from the business administrators?
Um the only thing is that the financials are closed for June. time and the auditor is going to be visiting us the last week in July. Did you get did did Dearis report about the um grant she applied for?
I believe we spoke about that at the last meeting. Okay, great. Uh does that conclude uh business administrator comments then? Yes, it does. Great. Thank you very much for that. Um, it is now 7:42 and I'm going to open it
up for public questions or comments. There are no one there's no one in the chambers from the public and there's no one online, so we're going to close it at 7:42 p.m. Old business action to be taken. Mrs. Aelis, can you
walk us through that, please? Uh the following resolutions have been recommended by the superintendent of schools uh to the board of education for approval. I move to approve the following resolutions under old business. Um A the reports from June 2025, the treasur of school monies reports on the board secretary report. B
the education reports for June 2025. Uh and then C the minutes for the June 9th and the June 23rd meetings. I'll second. Thank you. Questions or comments? Roll call, please.
Dr. Moore, yes. Mrs. Idellis, yes. Mrs. Asterino, yes. Mr. Cass, yes. Mr. Anderson, yes. Mr. Capello, uh, yes for everything except C2, the regular session, executive se executive
session meeting, uh, from June 23rd. I was not in attendance, so I'll abstain on that one. Mr. Kim. Yes. All right. The next item on the agenda is personnel. Mr. Capello, could you walk us through that, please?
I would be happy to. Uh, if there are no objections, under personnel, I would like to move items one, two, and three. Uh, one includes new hires, resignations, retirements, employee leaves. Uh we have several uh teacher replacements that uh are being approved
tonight. Uh we have um one movement on the salary guide. Uh Allison Goomer uh master's degree. So congratulations to her. We also have some approvals for attendance in his service days uh and summer exploration teaching staff salary
and uh a final actually employee replacement as well as two which is updating the staff list for summer 2025. And number three, uh, the attached list of substitutes for the 2526 school year, tab 15. A second.
Thank you. Any questions or comments? Roll call, please. Dr. Moore, yes. Mrs. Idelis, yes. Mrs. Asterino, yes. Mr. Cass, yes. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Capello. Yes. And Mr. Kim.
Yes. Dr. Moore, can you walk us through the resolution for IMP, please? Sure. I'd like to uh move for approval of the following resolutions under instruction and program. Item number one, workshops and expenses. Uh we have
the CPI nonviolent crisis intervention certification program, the uh light the way fall conference, emergency management course, uh fleet management course, the school health conference,
and then for item number two, uh we have the board uh approving the Dville Township remote instruction plan. I'll second. Thank you. Questions or comments? Roll call, please. Dr. Moore, yes. Mrs. Zidelis,
yes. Mrs. Asterino, yes. Mr. Cass, yes. Mr. Anderson, yes. Mr. Capello, yes. And Mr. Kim, yes. All right. Uh, under governance, there are no actions to be considered.
However, I will just uh uh let the rest of the board know that I did finalize uh the board goals uh into an official format. So, you can find that on page six of the governance committee uh minutes and
we'll go ahead and talk about that during the good of the cause uh for adoption for this upcoming school year. Um, I just sent out the link again in case uh anyone needs to see it. Mr. Anderson, can you walk us through
finance, please? Sure. If there are no objections under D finance, I'd like to move items number one through eight as a block. This includes our regular bills list. Um, the board to approve the attach resolution regarding
New Jerseys Insurance Group Educational Risk and Insurance Consortium. uh the board to approve the non-resident elementary tuition contracts for the following students as listed in the agenda. For the board to recommend uh recommend by recommendation of the superintendent and the school of business administrator. Uh the board of
education approves an award of professional services contract for speech and language therapy evaluation services to Dr. L. Haynes and associate. Uh the rest of the details of that are listed in the agenda. Item number five is for the board to approve uh to place
an advertisement uh for bid selection solicitation in connection with the sale of various uh old items uh as listed in the agenda. Item number six is for the board to retroactively approve the following uh out of district placement as per students IEP as listed in the
agenda. Item number seven is a resolution for bid uh uh to increase the bid threshold uh for uh up to the following ite uh the amounts listed as listed in the agenda. Item number eight is authorization to submit funding proposal to district
elevators on November 4th, 2025 general election ballot as listed in the agenda. Thank you Mr. C. I'll suck it if you Thank you, Mr. Cass. Uh I believe we also had an addendum on that one. My apologies. I'd like to add uh item
number nine is for the board to approve the submission of the idea application for the fiscal 2026 school year uh and accepts the grant award for the funds upon subsequent approval of the fiscal year 2026 IDEIDA application with the
following amounts. basic public $42,824 and preschool $23,175. Mr. Cass, are you okay with those? Uh, I will check it. Are you okay? Thank you. Questions or comments? Roll call, please. Okay. Dr. Moore.
Yes. Mrs. Zidellis. Yes, Mrs. Asterino. Yes, Mr. Cass. Yes, Mr. Anderson. Yes, Mr. Capello. Yes, Mr. Kim. Yes, Mr. Cass, can you walk us through
operations, please? Be glad to number one, transportation. We don't have any actions to be considered for the agenda tonight. Under buildings and grounds, I'm asking the board to approve the attached quote from Hertz Furniture
for furniture regarding the Lake View school cabinets and four classrooms in the amount of $40,877 using capital reserve funds. I'll second. Thank you. Questions or comments? Roll call, please.
Dr. Moore, yes. Mrs. Zidellis, yes. Mrs. Asterino, yes. Mr. Cass, yes. Mr. Anderson, yes. Mr. Capello, yes. Mr. Kim, yes. Okay. The next item on the agenda is for
the good of cause committee reports, correspondence, discussion items such as board meeting highlights and um classroom space considerations. Uh do any board members uh actually before we open it up for the board members uh if everyone could take a look
at the the governance committee meeting um meeting minutes and if we could finalize and approve the goals for the board. Uh, one note I'd like to make is that I I had originally put in the uh board
goal to um become board certified with New Jersey school boards, but uh with Charlene Peterson no longer being uh part of school boards and uh replacement not being named yet, uh there would was a possibility of six hours not being
available uh for uh from New Jersey school boards. At least it would have been more difficult. Plus, it would have added added six hours to our board time um as an aggregate, not each night. Um but so uh so I'm thinking that maybe we can defer that for one year and we also
have a lot uh that we want to take on for this upcoming year. Uh five goals. So I I don't I open it up to the board for questions or comments. I'll go first. I think these are are great goals as we
mentioned in the past is that um we have to have some measurement uh probably quarterly like we do in the corporate world as to how we're doing on our goals and objectives and action plans etc. Um because I know on a lot of
our goals over the years we use the word develop. So what happens after you develop something? you know, you're getting credit for developing it, but then what happens after that where we're going to see hopefully an improvement or some statistical changes in what we're doing. Um the same thing which would be
an easier one is the visibility engagement in the school district. I know we all run into each other at some of these various events and sometimes we um think we have something you know in the afternoon not too many people can make it but that's easily be quantifiable the school events that we
attend outside of our board of ed and committee meetings but I think again that' be good good advertisement of the things we do and the time we spend working on the board of ed yeah Mr. Thank you for bringing that up. In fact, goal number three is one of the
objectives is to formalize that process uh maybe with quarterly reviews or discussions, you know, u more conversations during committee um with updates. Um I I've spoke to each board member individually and every board
member had some great ideas. So I think for this upcoming school year uh during governance uh one of my hopes is to begin the discussion and maybe formalizing a process where we can then uh look to see if we can start getting
metrics earlier um uh quarterly or semianually. So, um, and then this will help, uh, my hope is that this will help the administration so that it's it's no longer a guessing game. Um, uh, where it's less surprising. Uh, in terms of
the board visibility, you know, I spoke to, uh, Mr. Anderson and he had some really, uh, great ideas, you know, um, possibly using good of the cause to bring up some events. In fact, uh, Dr. Forte uh suggested that during our last governance meeting and that's why he
emphasized that the upcoming events uh for the board to consider is the back to school nights and so uh we can maybe use this use this time uh during the good of the cause to discuss uh which board members can attend which nights so that
we would have um that visibility. Uh and my hope is that during every board meeting we can start outlining and identifying identifying uh district events that um where the board members might uh might want to be at uh to increase that presence. So that's sort
of the goal number two there that we're hoping to uh solidify and outline. Uh number one is pretty straight uh straightforward self-explanatory. Uh number four, I think one of the goals this year uh in terms of uh advocacy at
the government level is the transportation side of things, whether it's a CDL, whether it's reimbursement for um uh transportation for special needs students. Uh those are all ideas and thoughts that I had in my head uh in
terms of uh seeing if we can get increased uh aid from the state somehow. So and then finally number five is uh Dr. Moore's, you know, um, uh,
push and support, uh, behind and which I do as well, uh, which to me is the difference between HIV versus a student code of conduct and how we could, uh, um, figure out ways to increase the,
what's the word I'm looking for, Dr. Moore? um not the exposure but increase the the awareness of the difference of the two. I mean am I close to describing it? Um maybe
I would say that it's it's more broad than that. Okay. Um you know as I I sent the email out regarding that that checklist. I'd like to take a look at how we can utilize that and just kind of drill down a little deeper in terms of you know uh
you know are the interventions um matching the goals. Hey James, can I just add something real quick? I I personally think that five goals is a little bit extuous for the board and I think some
of these like uh goal number five is is pretty pretty detailed, right? It's going to require a lot of work on our part. Um you know, I I think we should think about going to four goals and I I'm okay if we remove goal number two with the idea that we're just going to
do it, right? Like these are things we're focusing on, right? Not this isn't everything we're doing throughout the year. Um if everybody feels it's important and thinks it's okay for us to have five, I'm okay with that, too. But just a thought like three to four I feel like is is kind of probably the right
number in my mind for both uh either board goals or district goals. I feel like five gets a little bit um especially for the board. Um I just think it's I think it's a little bit a lot, but I'm okay either way if everybody wants to stick with it too.
Yeah, I don't mind bringing it down to four. Uh, so number two, uh, it it sounds like we have a process already from your idea and suggestion. So, uh, I could take that off. I have no objections.
Does anyone else object? No, I think I mean I generally agree. Um, you know, we always talk about board goals, you know, shouldn't necessarily be things that we're going to be doing anyway in the normal course. So, I think between that one and number four, number four could be another one that would be,
you know, potentially optional, but but I I I tend to agree with Mike. I think two is probably the one that we could we could take off here without really losing anything. Okay, if no one else objects and yeah, we'll just go with four and goals number
one, three, four, and five. Is ready to be on the agenda for the next meeting? Yes. Yeah. Two is Okay, thank you James for goal number
well no longer goal number two I can uh just create a Google doc with the months and I'll share it with you and I'll I'll fill in all of the school events that are like community related. Thank you. Yeah. And then you could sign up for it and
you put your name under it if you're going to go. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Culls. I think that would help as well. So, between um Dr. Fort's recommendations during the board meetings and uh Dr. Cull your documentation. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Okay. Uh, does any board members um wish to share anything else for the good of the cause? I think we need to finalize the district goals as well. There's there were four district goals that were sent to you. Um, there was a change and Sandy, you
updated that doc with your stuff. Okay. Okay. Perfect. I see you on it. So it's that doc, right? Um all right. So the the the finance committee added a little bit of language to number two, which is continue, discuss, investigate, report, and then we added the words and decide
on solutions to challenges instead of continuing to discuss and report to actually make some decisions, which we are doing, which the board already voted on one of them tonight. Um in terms of in areas of instructional space, um
class sizes and such. Oh, there's a goal that was sent around today. I sent back what I thought we could be okay with because we were already we already started it. So, that that thing's going. So, you guys can take a look at that um that list that we
gave you. Yeah. I I I just don't I don't think that's going to be good enough. You know, I I think what we talked about in IMP about actually uh looking at a different website vendor and and and going that route unless I mean even that
spreadsheet that you showed I mean the other vendor seems to be offering us much more support and and you know it's not really that once it's set up the price isn't much different than what we be spending now. So it just doesn't unless they
I mean again you know as far as I'm concerned personally I'm I'm open to hearing you know but but even just based on that spreadsheet they don't seem to really compete too well. So I don't know. Did you look at the templates I sent out? I I gave you guys that a few times but
yeah but we I think we need more than a template. the template is, you know, it's I mean, they're they're offering us, you know, it's it one of the align items is I think like unlimited customer support. I mean, we're going to get more um I mean, right now, you know, you've got we've got our people trying to do
things that I I think, you know, can can be handled for the same price by by outside sources that specialize in it. So, it just doesn't make sense to me. Even the ADA compliance, I mean, that's going to be re that's really hard from what I understand. And I don't know if
the schools, our schools have to do it, but state institutions are going to be up to like I think it's 90% compliance in the next year for ADA. That's a lot for our people to try and have to like constantly monitor. So, I don't know. It just it just seems like we're we keep
kicking the the ball down the field and eventually, you know, we can't hold on to this forever. So, you know. Yeah. Dr. Forte, I think um the one the questions or the conversations that I was having with Cliff is uh you know
what's interesting is um we have x amount of dollars being spent towards our website and everything else, right? Do we know what that figure is? Uh like I think there was a web master and stuff like that. Um if you don't know now that's fine too, but uh do you have an
idea of what that dollar amount might be? Provided that to you in all those documents from the communications committee. It's like a spreadsheet shows you all that. So, if we took those funds and maybe then reallocated it and sent it to um a
third party that would manage everything, revamp everything and manage everything. And I think uh Dr. Moore had a vendor or two in mind. In fact, I think you sent an email with three three uh vendors you suggested, right? I think they looked at, you know, I'm
not really I mean I'm I'm not sold on a particular vendor or anything like that, but the one that they looked at App AptGe, I mean that's the one that all the local schools seem to use, you know, in that spreadsheet, you know, comparably after the onboarding is the
same as what we're paying now. Oh. So, is that something that maybe we could ask them uh to see if that would be a quote that they would still honor and is that something that we could investigate, right, and research?
because if there's a if there's a solution that's comparable to what we're paying now but does a lot more um I mean do you see uh some issues and challenges to the administration and the school district to bring on a new vendor of
that that type you know it's it's not just them doing the work that you have to do it you have to train your staff on how to update the website so it's not just one thing Um, I wouldn't think that it would be good to do, you know, to get started on a whole
new one this late like we would do it in June probably to get started in September because there's a lot of work to do on the backside before we teach the staff in the in the in September and then we'd have to take some time away from the um PD in the beginning to do it. It's all doable stuff.
Yeah. And that's why we're looking at it as a board goal, right? to see what is the work that's in uh required. You know, um just having a different template as a website uh doesn't um eliminate some of the challenges and
issues that we uh as board members uh see and feel that there might be. um especially with technology moving as fast as it is today. Uh there there's third-party vendors that will probably be able to offer a lot more that's
cheaper and um in terms of the training, it is my belief and you know maybe that's the question we ask these third party vendors is that do they incorporate training in the price? how hard is it for, you know, the staff to figure out,
learn, and be trained on and stuff like that. And maybe that's not something we roll out till next school year, but at least that's the goal that we're looking for is to what will it take for us to get something, you know, completely different that would uh check off pretty
much most of what was recommended by that special committee. And how much would that cost? what what would the training look like? I think those are the questions that I'm looking for answers to to see if this is a viable solution uh to replace what we have now.
I think we got to we have to talk a little bit about this because it's not just a template. It's like a total upgrade from what we have now from our current vendor. I shared with you there's about 30 45 different options that we could select. If you click on them, they look like the ones you're
talking about. So, I don't know. I don't really understand what it is exactly that you guys are looking for because I provided you a link to stuff that looks exactly like the ones you're talking about. Well, I mean, just by changing what the front looks like doesn't mean the back end and the the structural components
and the skeleton is new, right? I think that's I think that's one of the challenges is that if you can revamp the whole system including the bones and the structure and everything on the back end then you uh you might find that there's a lot more we can do with a whole new
system not just the front looking you know website I you know yeah we can all you know change what the front looks like but if we don't get to the root you know and stuff like just because I don't know a lot about this stuff I know a decent amount but
not a lot. Can I get a committee of the board led by Dr. Moore with two other board members to meet with myself, Dr. Cullis, Sydney Castanza, and Susan Marinelo? I think that'll be the best way for us to understand exactly what it is everybody's looking for because like
the one the one that we proposed is an upgrade and it's going to have a different look, but you know, I don't know about the backside stuff you're talking about. Was that does that sound like something we could do quickly? Um, yeah. I mean, I'll do it. Yeah, I'll do it if that's what it takes
to get it done. Sure. Um, cuz I mean, from what I heard, uh, when when I spoke with them, like that particular one, again, I don't care which vendor, but they they they supply the training, like they supply things like like for when when you want to send something out, you
send it to them and they they they pop it into everywhere, the social media, on the website. Like, you don't have to do anything. like this isn't something where you have to teach all your people how to go about doing these different things. They handle that stuff. So, so it's like it's taking weight off of
people rather than keep putting weight on to to folks that, you know, it's it's probably too vast a job for them. Our um our communications person, Miss Marinelo, she works most of the time with Montville. Montville uses that apty
you're talking about. So, she knows a lot more about it than I do. So, it might it might just answer some of the questions you have and and I threw it at you because I think if you're not on it, it's not really going to it won't really be effective. Hey, what do you mean? I don't know. It just feels like we're
No. And I'm saying if I'm not on it, I don't think it'll happen. So, I'll be I'll be on it. We're going to we're going I'm going to reach out to you tomorrow to schedule the dates. All right. Like get something on the calendar within the next 10 days because we've already started the process of this upgrade. I would want to stop the
process, the one that we have, the one we're getting for free. Okay. But, you know, on the other hand, it's free, so we could just do it and then do it the other way, too. But I don't know. But we still there's some of the things if we use Apogy, we if we use some of the other vendors, we would have to stick with our vendor for some of the
things already because they don't have all of it. Like they don't have like the communication systems that we use, which is fine. You know, we just use a different one, right? And you know, it's not the training. It's the time to get the training that's the problem, you know, like for the staff just because as Dr.
Cullles could tell you, like every one of our minutes of uh of training is filled with New Jersey DOE stuff that we have to do, right? I mean, we we're just loaded with um you know, different state trainings and things that you know, just take up a lot of our time. So, let let
me reach out to you. Um I'm going to actually send you an email tonight. Give me a couple dates and I will get back to you right away with a good time. Get on a call. Okay, sounds good. I had a had a question. So, are we talking about, you know, the website per se where the parents and the students
are are using it or the system at large where our staff, our teachers are using it? And we have uh logging in a variety of suggestions to uh for for upgrades and things that we could tweak the
system, make it better, faster. Um I I know from my experience with dealing with uh a lot of the different websites, once they revamp the website, it takes a while to get used to that and find what you're looking for. And sometimes the websites are so bad you can't find
anything. But I'm just saying a lot of time uh we use team snapper hub soccer so they um they did a lot of revamping and I know I called Mike a couple of times to find something. He says oh that is put it from the right side to the left side. It was it was there. So uh you know I
think it's always a good idea to keep up with the technology and freshen things up but it' be good to know exactly what uh could be better and what's not working that well. Thanks Mr. Cass. What do you I mean I'd like to get started on these this these district
goals. Yes. I don't really I'm not I'm not okay with saying we're going to buy have a new vendor as a as a measurable district goal because we might not like we might continue with the vendor. So, if you if you want to do something like, you know,
just we'll just do this and it doesn't have to be a district goal, but I can't put on a district goal that's going to be approved right away that says, you know, we're going to we're Can we put on that we're either going to approve the existing vendor or have a new vendor before the end of the year,
end of the school year for 25 26 because we already approved this vendor for this year. like you guys already voted on the budget back in, you know, in April that included that that that vendor. So, we already have this vendor. If you're saying,
well, when when when does that that contract run out for for this vendor? It's year to year, school year. June. So, we can have we can we can start we can we can, you know, purchase if we wanted to go with a new vendor, we could do that in like, you know, June. So,
I agree. Yeah. But I I wouldn't be okay with a with a with a uh a goal that said, you know, contract with a new vendor because I don't know if that's what we're going to do because Right. So just have that varying language. We'll either we'll either stick with the vendor or go
with a new one by June. So the so far what I have so far um is to evaluate the cost and time to replace the existing vendor with with you. goal. The goal would be to either
upgrade our existing website or contract for a new website for the by the end of the 24 25 26 school year. Is that good? Okay. Because I'm good with that. um and I'll put them on the agenda for
next for August. Great. So, any other discussion around uh goals one through four then? Okay. If there's nothing else for the good of the cause, we'll go ahead and open it up for public questions or comments at 8:15
p.m. Seeing no one from the public in the chambers and no one online, we'll close it at 8:15 p.m. Uh, there is no need for an executive session. Correct, Dr. 14? But I just had to go over the quickly the highlights. I was going to say the
HIB presentation and the funding question was passed. Great. Thank you. Motion to adjurnn. I'll second. All in favor? I. Any nays? Absentions? We are adjourned
at 8:16 p.m.