They're awful. Thanks, Jeff. 7:55. I know. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, I think there regular monthly meeting was called to order at 7 reconvened at 7:56 p.m. at
Memorial Middle School Media Center 1,200 First Street Fair, New Jersey. There are roughly 61 members of the public in attendance. Can I get a roll call, please?
Mr. Bodovski here. Dr. Berlini present. Miss Brown, present. Mr. Mali present. Miss Velovich present. Miss Casoy present. Mr. Santana present.
Miss Yerman present. Mrs. Maym present. We have a quorum. The New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon acted upon. In accordance
with the provisions of this act, the Fairlon Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place thereof, distributed to the persons on the approved list, posted to the board of education administrative office, and sent to the Bergen Rec record and the Herald News. The announcement posting
for the regular monthly meeting along with the date, place, and time thereof was originally distributed and advertised on January 24th, 2025. Please join me in the flag salute. I allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. This evening we will be starting with our student representative reports. This will be the last report for Lindsay Samuels, our Fairon High School student representative.
Um, we have Victoria Tracy from Memorial Middle School student rep and Abigail O are TJ middle school rep. So, um, Victoria and Abigail, the floor is yours. Let's start with a quick state testing update. We did it. Science,
math, and ELA NJSLA 2025 is officially complete. The testing window closes tomorrow. So, we're holding our breath and crossing our fingers that the state doesn't emerge from the shadows with a surprise requirement in the next 12
hours. This year's carnival was a great great success. Not only did our PTO raise lots and lots of money for schoolwide initiatives, families and friends were provided with the opportunity to gather and enjoy each other's company. Thanks to the fundraising efforts of our PTO president, Mrs. Sahori and the executive
board. Students were provided with the opportunity to ride the rides during the school day on Thursday, May 15th at no cost. Students and teachers in each grade level were provided with one hour of unlimited entertainment. The fund continued on May 20th with a no place for hate BMX assembly that promoted
kindness and respect. But you cannot talk about carnival and not acknowledge the efforts of Mrs. Mayan for all she did to organize and facilitate this event. Thank you. And speaking of rides, on Wednesday, June 4th, TJ's eighth graders are looking forward to their end of year trip to the Six Flags Great
Adventure. Memorial students were surprised with BMX stunt show on May 12th that brought big air and even bigger messages about kindness, bike safety, and the importance of speaking up. A few brave staff members, yes, teachers, volunteered as human obstacles
while BMX riders flipped over them. Don't worry, everyone came out without injury. However, as they put it, they may have a few more gray hairs. Eighth graders from both Memorial and TJ are scheduled to visit Fairlon High School on Friday, June 13th for their
annual common ground and day of cooperative activities that will begin their exciting transition into high school. Our heroes and cool kids wrapped up their final visit of the year, leaving our fifth and sixth graders inspired and smiling. These high school mentors have helped build meaningful
connections with our middle school students and we're looking forward to continuing the tradition to tradition next year. During the weeks of June 3rd and June 10th, Mr. Weaver will be visiting with each fourth grade class at Mills, Ryurn, and Warren Point for a readaloud as part of their transition to
middle school. Parents will visit TJ on June 11th for orientation. And over the summer, our rising fifth graders will visit in small groups of 20 for their a day in the life of a fifth grader in 75 minutes or less orientation. Our talented choir,
orchestra, and band at TJM Memorial recently performed at the Teen Arts Festival, receiving glowing reviews and participating in hands-on arts workshops. And speaking of performances, last week our fifth and sixth grade students
dazzled at their spring concert. And as we speak, our seventh and eighth graders are performing live right below us. If you listen carefully, you might even hear the sound of Memorial Magic in action. Also known as Emancipation Day
or Freedom Day, June 19th commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States of America. The official abolition of slavery did not bring equality. The devastating effects of segregation were first addressed almost 90 years later by the civil rights movement. And it was during those years that Junth started to grow in
importance. Texas adopted Junth as a state holiday in 1980. And on June 17th, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Junth National Independence Day Act, making this historical event the 11th federal holiday in the nation. During the week of June 16th, as part of our No
Place for Hate Gold Award programming, students will be receiving instruction in one class per day on Junth in the areas of language arts, math, social studies, science, health, world language, and the arts to observe, recognize, and reflect on the history and contributions of African-Americans
in the United States. Our No Place for Hate ambassadors made us incredibly proud last week when they attended the official awards ceremony in New York City where a memorial was recognized with the prestigious gold award. This honor capped off a year of impactful
activities including powerful collaborations with Fairlon High School and West Morland Elementary that brought students together across grade levels to promote kindness, inclusivity, and respect. It's been a true team effort and a beautiful example of what happens
when a community commits to a positive change. In Ziboot, we were there to celebrate with Mi Dr. Baptiste as she was honored by the ADL. Congrats, Dr. B. In other news, today Mrs. Kypers hit the
hit the road visiting Linrest Forest and West Morland as a part of our award-winning transition program for current fourth graders preparing for middle school. Her visits helped lay the groundwork for a smooth and welcoming start to life at Memorial and built
excitement for the incredible journey ahead. Speaking of Mrs. Kypers, we are incredibly proud to share that our very own Mrs. Kypers has been named one of only four secondary teachers in the entire state of New Jersey to receive
the prestigious Princeton Prize for distinguished secondary school teaching. While we know she will be honored here this evening, Memorial wanted to take a moment to give a huge and heartfelt shout out to Mrs. Kypers for all she does for the students of Memorial and
the greater Fairlon community. This recognition is so welld deserved. And talk about dedication. While the rest of us were enjoying a well-earned snow giveback day this past Tuesday, Mrs. Kyper spent her day off being honored at Princeton
University commencement ceremony recognized in front of the entire graduating class of 2025 and their families. We can't think of a better way to spend the day. Congratulations, Mrs. Kypers. We are so [Applause]
I'm very pleased to share some exciting updates from Ferllin High School as we approach the end of the academic year. The Student Government Association and class councils are currently preparing to elect their 2025 to 2026 officers with elections scheduled for tomorrow,
Friday, May 30th. We wish all the candidates the best of luck and look forward to the results. We also would like to extend our gratitude for everyone who supported the mask's recent production of Spirits. The performance was a great success and we are proud of the hard work and talent
of our student performers and crew. Students are eagerly preparing for this year's marathon events which are going to take place tomorrow, May 30th, which includes a volleyball tournament. It's a great opportunity for a school community to come together, have fun,
raise money, and to give back to local causes. In addition, many student organizations are wrapping up their final events of the year with a special focus of focusing on celebrating our seniors. Overall, it has been another successful and fulfilling year at Ferland High School, and I'll miss
reporting to you all every month, as this will be my last meeting as the BOE rep. We thank you very much for your continued support. [Applause] Thank you very much to all of our student representatives. Um before we
jump into our formal meeting this evening, um I would just like to on behalf of the board of education, on behalf of our administration and our staff, uh acknowledge Victoria and Abigail as our representatives. Both of
them have demonstrated exceptional leadership, bringing the voice of perspective of their peers to the board meetings. um their thoughtful contributions and mature insights have enriched our discussions and reminded us why we do this important work. We also want to recognize all of our other
monthly student representatives from TJ and Memorial who each month come and represent your schools, represent your voices, and speak on behalf. Um so please join me in congratulations and a warm round of applause for our student reps.
[Applause] [Music] And then last, but certainly not least, we have a very special relationship with Lindsay. She's been a student representative for the past four years and we've been very fortunate to have
her serve in this capacity each month, every meeting uh over the past year. And your contributions to this space here and also during student dialogue and your leadership um are immeasurable and we are greatly appreciative. Uh you're a
testament to what Barlon is all about and we are extremely grateful for your contributions to our school district and to the student body. Um we're very proud of you for everything you've accomplished and we're very excited to see what you accomplish in the next chapter which we know will be immense.
So please join me in congratulating Lindseay Samuel as our student [Applause] Lindsay, Abigail, and Victoria, you are all welcome to stay. Um, we have a really long meeting ahead of us. We have our um, education, the whole committee
where our uh, central office administration will be presenting our state of schools address. So, you're welcome to stay with us, but I also understand if you'd like to take a moment and get a picture or two taken by your families and then head out. I'm going to give you a minute or two if you want to take a picture in front and then
we'll move forward. [Applause] several. We would like to take a moment now to recognize um some distinguished service recognition and honoring our
educational excellence and commitment to our school district. Uh Dr. Denise, the floor is yours. Thank you, Miss Mayan. And I I'm going to start off by apologizing because clearly there's not one good direction that I could stand in that my back is not going to be to somebody. Uh but we are here for
um large a large number of presentations this evening. But before we jump into those, we have some special people that we definitely want to recognize tonight. um some really special educators. We have several people who um have announced or have recently retired and
we're recognizing them for their contributions to the district. And we have two very special people who are recognizing for some really outstanding accomplishments here in the Fairon Public Schools. Um so we're going to jump right on into it.
First, we have Lisa Dia who's retired retiring uh from Fairlon High School as a guidance secretary. Lisa has truly been an institution at Fairlon High School for years. She was a cornerstone of our scholarship program, playing a
vital role in its success. Her dedication and hard work helped to ensure that the program not only survived but thrived each and every year. What sets Lisa apart was her genuine connection within the community. Through this bond, she was able to keep the scholarship program flourishing and
ensure that countless students had success and the resources and the opportunities that they needed. Over the course of her career, she assisted counselors and helped connect thousands of students to educational resources, guiding them to brighter futures. Lisa's
contributions have left an indelible mark on this school and its students. And while her presence will be deeply missed, her impact will resonate for many years to come. Congratulations,
[Applause] Lisa. Marcy Goldberg, retiring from Mils as our RN, nurse aid. After 17 years of dedicated service, we recognize a school nurse who has consistently provided
steady care and professionalism. Her strong connections with students help them feel at ease and supported throughout their school day. Known for her exceptional organizational skills, she kept the health office efficient and well-managed, a warm, welcoming place
for anyone who walked in. Her gentle presence and genuine love for children made her so much more than a nurse. She became a vital part of our school family. As she heads into retirement, we wish her the same joy and peace she so
selflessly gave to others. Congratulations, Marcy. [Applause] There's no I'm not
laughing. You're laughing. Jennifer Gruber, retirement special education teacher. I would say West Morland, but she's been across the district. Jennifer Gruber has had and made a remarkable impact on the lives of more students
than one can possibly count. For the past 20 years, she has worked tirelessly in our stepping stones program, providing not only highquality ABA instruction, but also unconditional care and love and guidance in a nurturing environment. Under her guidance,
students have grown academically, socially, and emotionally. Jen has been a passionate advocate for inclusion throughout her career. She helped develop the Stepping Stones Buddies program, which educated general education students on how to
play and interact as peers with their classmates in the program. As a result, groups of fourth graders regularly gave up their recess time to participate in this meaningful initiative. Jen also served as a liazison for Peers for Peace, visiting with Stepping Stone
students, creating valuable opportunities for interaction and mutual understanding between students of all abilities. Throughout her years of service, Jen has worked across all grade levels. She began her career at Mils working with fourth and fifth graders,
spent nine years at Fairlon High School in the transition program and concluded her distinguished career working with our youngest learners in at the kindergarten level at West Morland. Her dedication and compassion have left an indelible mark on students across our
district. We are forever grateful for the lasting impact Jen has made, especially on some of our most exceptional students, helping them believe in themselves and realize they are capable of anything. Congratulations and thank [Applause]
you. Beth Jacobs retiring as a paraprofessional from Radburn. After 30 dedicated years of service, we celebrate the retirement of Beth, a compassionate and committed paraprofessional who served both Forest and Radburn schools with grace and
heart. Throughout her career, Beth worked tirelessly to support our students with disabilities. Always approaching her work with patience, kindness, and a deep sense of care. She made meaningful difference in the lives of so many students and colleagues alike.
Beyond the classroom, Beth was known for her generosity and her legendary pistachio bunt cake, which I have not had yet. I'm wondering [Music] why. Which brought smiles to many. We thank her for her years of years of
service and wish her all health and happiness in her well-earned retirement. She will be deeply missed. Congratulations, Beth. [Applause]
Patricia Keelin could not be with us tonight. Uh par profofessional at TJ is retiring after 25 years of service. She is acknowledged for her work over the years as a paraprofessional in her role supporting students in small groups and
as a one-to-one. Mrs. Keelin had a conscientious, dependable, and passionate member of the TJ community whose willingness to help in many ways possible made her an integral asset of the school. always smiling and willing to offer a helping hand. She truly
understand understood the needs of her students and her gentle demeanor helped to create a comfortable atmosphere for all. Congratulations, Patricia. Sylvia retired last year secretary to the
assistant superintendent of student services after 20 years of dedicated service. As secretary, Sylvia has retired, leaving behind a legacy of care and kind support. She assisted our team with countless reports, office tasks, and organizational needs that helped our
department run smoothly every day. What she loved most though was watching our preschool students learn and grow, bringing joy and purpose to her work each year. Thank you, Sylvie, and we hope you are enjoying your retirement. Congratulations.
[Applause] Laurianne Brunetti Kypers, Princeton Prize for Distinguished Secondary School Teaching, honored this year, language arts, literacy
connections teacher at Memorial Middle School, honored by Princeton University. It is my tremendous honor to recognize Miss Kypers, who was selected by Princeton University for the 2025 Princeton Prize for Distinguished
Secondary School Teaching. For 23 years at Memorial Middle School, Miss Kypers has exemplified the highest ideals of teaching excellence. Princeton's rigorous selection process recognized what we've long known, that Miss Kypers
is truly the heartbeat of Memorial. She founded our school's character education program, earning national and state schools character awards through her Celebrate America club, the points of light student recognition program, and regular student visits to West Point.
She connects literature and character education to real world leadership and service. Miss Kypers organizes events for our veterans, countless moments of learning that her students carry throughout their lives. Her teaching philosophy beautifully balances academic
excellence with character development, focusing not just on what students know, but who they become as people and as citizens. Princeton has honored exceptional teachers since 1959, placing Miss Kypers in a distinguished lineage of educators who
have shaped generations. She is only one of four recognized at the state level by Princeton University this year. She accepted this honor at Princeton's commencement ceremony as we heard earlier on May 27th. She will receive a
$5,000 award as well as $3,000 for this Memorial Middle School library. Please join me in congratulating Miss Kypers on this well-deserved recognition. [Applause]
Thank you. [Applause] Last but certainly not least, excuse me, wrong pipe. Dr. Stephanie Baptiste, the Anti-Defamation League, ADL, Gold Star Educator Award of the
Year recipient, Feralon High School assistant principal administrator. It is my distinct honor to recognize Dr. B. Who was selected for the 2024 2025 Gold Star Educator Award
recipient. This prestigious recognition honors educators who transform their schools into exemplary spaces of no place for hate environments. Dr. B was chosen from countless dedicated educators for her her unwavering
commitment to fostering inclusion at Fairlon High School and her influential work expanding the No Place for Hate program across all 10 schools in our school district. The ADL specifically recognized Dr. Baptiste for designing
activities that promote belonging, empowering students as leaders against bias and hate, creating safe learning environments for all backgrounds, and extending these principles districtwide. Her dedication to ensuring every student feels valued and included
guides everything she does. This honor came with an opportunity to speak at the No Place for Hate recognition ceremony last week, which I and many other principles and staff members and students had the honor to
attend at New York University in New York City on May 20th. Dr. Baptist's work exemplifies our district's values and strengthens our community's commitment to mutual respect. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Baptiste
on this very special honor.
[Applause]
Thank you. Congrats. Thank you all for joining us in those very special recognitions. Now we turn to one of the most significant presentations of the school year here in Fairlon. Our comprehensive state of our schools uh
report. This evening's presentation represents more than a year of dedicated analysis and strategic planning that will serve as our compass for future decision-making. Before we begin though, I want to express my profound gratitude to our entire administrative team and staff for
their exceptional leadership throughout this process. The tireless efforts of our district leadership team, our building administrators, our supervisors have been instrumental in coordinating these critical initiatives. Their attention to detail, strategic vision,
and unwavering commitment to excellence ensure the quality and comprehensiveness of these studies will guide us toward informed decisions for our district's future. Special thanks to Mrs. DeFranco, Mrs. Vancuso, Mrs. Keller, Mrs. Tai, and
all of our team members for creating the foundation upon which these informed decisions can be made. Tonight's presentation consists of three integrated components that together provide a complete picture of where we
stand and where we're headed. The district goals and objectives will begin with an assessment of our current standing, our progress on strategic priorities, and our alignment with our educational mission. Then we will turn over the program to Dr.
Grip, who's front and center now. He will share our enrollment projections and trends, community demographic shifts and their implications for educational planning. And lastly, we have solutions architecture, our
architects, our partners that will be sharing this evening comprehensive facility audit and the analysis of our current infrastructure, identifying our needs and opportunities while providing the instruments needed for informed recommendations about future
improvements. These studies represent far more than isolated reports. They are interconnected analyses that provide essential data for long-term planning, helping us anticipate future needs of our student population and guiding responsible resource allocation. Most
importantly, they ensure our facilities support our educational goals and inform our decision-making at every level. The findings we'll share tonight will direct our capital improvement planning, inform potential considerations by our
administration and board around school enrollment, guide staffing and program development, and support budget planning and resource allocation for years to come. So, at this time, I am going to turn our program over to Mrs. DeFranco and Mrs. Keller to present our district
goals and objectives on our state of our schools. Then we will follow with um an opportunity for Dr. Grip to present the demographic study and then Mr. Msino to be able to present as solutions architecture our facilities audit. So
thank you very much for your attention. We will be taking questions and comments at the end of each presentation uh and then we'll be concluding and then moving on to our regular business on the agenda this evening. So thank you Miss Keller and Mr. DeFranco. Is yours
right. Thank you everybody. Good evening. My name is Mrs. Keller and well Claire Keller not Mrs. Keller. Uh and I'm here to share our first goal which is career and technical education. So a few months ago we had done a presentation where we went point by point and the major highlights for each
of these goals. So what we're going to do tonight is give a broad overview of some of the areas we really want to highlight um areas of pride. And so this picture that you're seeing here is a picture of Fairon High School students that are enrolled in design technology courses, finance courses, and global supply chain courses. And they took a
visit to DOCO US headquarters, which is an international construction supply company. So it's a cross department field trip that they're able to apply various different um learnings throughout what they have experience with at the high school, but they got to see what it was like in the real world.
So this was a really nice event that was a lot of excitement that they learned a lot of great things and they also got to meet a fair alumni um there who was able to speak to them and give them a sense of future career opportunities. So that was exciting and that's one of the highlights really for this goal this
year was the cross department collaboration and by having that by working with you know teachers and staff members and students in different departments we're enhancing our programs which is just making things um better for our high school experiences. So, um, like I mentioned with the field trip,
but another example are our business courses working with our transition program at the high school that is with the busy bean um, uh, coffee shop and also the school store. So, they were able to see uh, opportunities that students were able to um, learn about their business end and apply that to
both of those opportunities so that the students are not only gaining valuable experience working with each other but also work-based learning experiences. Uh, one of the things that all of our career and technical education programs have are dual enrollment course opportunities. So, they're receiving
college credits for at least one of their courses in these programs. That's a really wonderful opportunity. In addition, one of the things that we looked into this year were more industry valued credentials. And so, um, what does that mean? Those are things that are valuable for employers. So, right now, because all our courses are dual
enrollment courses, they don't have that additional piece. They don't need to have that additional piece. But the staff this year spent the year looking into which ones would be valuable. So for instance, CPR certification in child care or OSHA in our architecture class.
And so they narrowed down this year things that they wanted to have for their students. And now they're at the point of selecting the actual um digital program and platform that the students can gain these industry value credentials. So we're looking forward to moving forward next year with the opportunity um of you know getting these
credentials into the actual courses. All right, I turn it over to our students. and that's exactly what we're looking for by having these programs at our high school. So, thank you to Miss Vote and all the students and staff that shared u their experiences for us tonight. Um,
you can hear the excitement about the work study. That was also one of the additional goals that we had this year was to find more opportunities for our students to be able to apply their learning outside in the real industry. And I now turn it over for goal two with Mr. DeFranco. Thank you everybody. Um, I
have the pleasure to speak about maintaining student and staff well-being, which has been a goal for us for quite a few years. Um, it really sticks. There's several aspects that I'm going to talk about tonight that fall under it. And as Mrs. Keller said before this presentation, we'll go over major highlights of this goal and what we
achieved. As during the last presentation, we went over it uh point by point. But you're going to see some really tremendous things tonight that we're all really proud of. Within this goal, there were many different areas relating to student, staff well-being, social, emotional, and behavioral
supports, and also community engagement. So, within this goal, the first three parts that we're going to talk about relate to our ninth grade counseling program, No Place for Hate, and our famous Wellness Days that everyone loves and appreciates, staff and students
alike, um, within the district. Our 9th grade counselor program is a new initiative this year. I want to thank the high school administration and notably Mr. Anthony Gatillaa for spearheading this endeavor this year. It has been wildly successful. you're going to see a video that speaks to it. I also
want to thank the school counseling department um because it takes a team for a new initiative to be successful and all of them work together in order to make this happen. So, I'm really thankful to each and every single one of them at the school counselor high school level for this. No place for hate. We
will talk about different various activities at all of our schools. Such a highlight for Fairlong public schools to have all of our school schools participating in this initiative. And a nod to Dr. be again. Here she is up on stage accepting her award. And we'll
also have a slide on wellness days and some of the different activities that our schools uh participated in this for this section of the year at the elementary school and high school level. The last time we spoke it was at the middle school level celebrated their wellness days. Here's our ninth grade
transition scene. There's dedicated time where he sees him, but like there isn't a time in the hallway that he doesn't, you know, make sure his bunker touch base or he connects in the hallway before passing. I call it making deposits. Every single day you make these small deposits, but
that's a handshake in the hallway. If I see you in the cafeteria, I say, "Hey, how how's your lunch going?" I'm thinking of one student in particular. He's tall, so you can see me and I can see him as going. Um, it makes you feel a part of the community, but it also makes you feel like you're making a difference.
You feel seen by Mr. 100%. Yeah, we're in person, you know. We're there in person. We have an open door policy. You can come talk to us at at any time. High school is big and it can be scary and this transition counselor is really just impactful on I think helping students
not feel overwhelmed by that transition and I think it's the perfect pivot for what's next. He's really guiding through all and uh I don't think anyone can do whatever he has. Both Mr. Lake and I are very creative. We have a lot of ideas. Um,
and I think to see those come through next year will just be like icing on the page. We're just excited about the eighth grade coming in um to the high school. We just excited to work with them, excited to meet them. We need to sort of assess the needs of the community, get feedback from our administration, our our parents, our
students. Um, so today we're excited as an understatement. Be sad to to see my neighbors go to to the next level, but also it's a part of life, right? Learning how to transition a transition to success. Thank you again to our ninth grade transition team in the school counseling
department at Fairlon High School. [Applause] And here are some uh nice uh picture uh picture captions of all of our activities that we completed this year for No Place for Hate, TJ Cares, um uh large assembly at Memorial Middle
School, um many of our Fairlon 100 day projects incorporated inclusivity and um uh diversity and equity within all of those activities and creating a safe environment, which is what Fairlon is. our Lizzy Cider concerts at the
elementary level. Um also our ADL recognition and celebration there and um various uh activities at the elementary level which we will talk about in the next slide too. exciting and the fun day on Thursday
March 15 during lunch with your usual friends. Each of you will be assigned a table with students from another class. Why? Because it is all about making new friends and
helped more welcoming at [Music] each school. Our goal is to make everyone feel included and to remind each other that kindness in the sky help make an ally. So get ready to mix it up, meet
new friends, and make our school even better. We can't wait to see you all on Thursday, March 13th at lunch. Let's make one point for no hate. So this was a really wonderful initiical
initiative because students mixed up their lunch tables and then they sat and they asked each other questions and they were provided with questions at each of the tables and they had to get to know new people and we did this in uh two elementary schools. So uh thank you to everyone at Warren Point and at Forest
Elementary School and also this was led by our safety patrol which are student leaders in the building. So that's just, you know, even more fantastic. And some examples of our wellness days, we had therapy dogs. We had our famous HIT class led by Mrs.
Matina. Um, student assemblies throughout the year. You'll see one right there at Forest School. different student activities within the classroom um with our Sanford Harmony uh SEAL uh curriculum at the elementary level um and our SEAL curriculum that was
cultivated by Fairlon staff for 7 to 12. So, um, really proud of those activities. And going into our next slides, we had staff professional development this year, which contributed to maintaining staff and student well-being, um, not only from a social
emotional level, but also from an academic standpoint because it takes a well-rounded child in order to be successful. We'll also show a slide about our community leadership council. And as always, we're always trying to make student connections, you know, uh bridging the gap program, focus program,
no place for hate, having visitations for um uh fourth to fifth grade transition and our 9th grade transition counselor. So whenever we can cultivate that and make those student connections, you know, we really try and enhance that here at our schools and our community
leadership council which was held believe in February or March of this year some end of February, early March, forgive me, I forget the exact timeline. Um and it was just really a wonderful day. Uh we had various leaders in the Fairlon community, various community
members. Um you'll see many of them captured here. um worked in groups, cultivated topics, um talked about how we can um you know, be diverse, be equitable, and create a safe environment. Um you'll see up here, it's
hard to read because it's my awful handwriting in there on uh written on the um uh uh large poster board there, but I was really proud. We asked the question of what is going well here in Fairlon and um everyone spoke about how
there's multiple activities for students to get involved um across multiple uh grade levels. Our strong PTO connections within the school community of Fairlon, but also outside of the community of Fairlon that our staff has connections with. So those
linkages are created. um mentioning that our school staff attend functions even outside of the school day to support our students. So, we're just really proud of those ways that Full Circle Fair Lawn is a really strong community and um this
council will be wonderful as we start to think of new ideas and and new ways to grow together for the future. And now, Miss Keller will speak about tiered academic systems. Right. Okay. And our final goal
um with tiered academic systems support is about the diverse range of academic needs that our students have and there's not a lot of uh pictures and videos for this because it's targeted support and it's a lot of work um that is happening through staff and a lot of training um
mentioned by Miss uh Franco in terms of professional development for a lot of these things. However, even though it might not be extremely visual with videos, I can tell you that there's benefits that are seen by the teachers for the students um and the programs that we have. And so, two of them that I
want to specifically highlight are Dibbles and Linkit, which we talked about last time I had made a joke about I think I however long I had worked here at that point, I heard Dibbles every single day. So, that that has maybe slowed down just a little bit, but it's pretty close. Um, and so Dibbles
provides us really crucial data that allows elementary teachers in those early reading years to really target exactly the needs of students and identify services for those students based on specific things that they need. So we're not it's taking the guesswork out of that. Not only does it do that,
it gives numerous key lessons for the teachers to then implement to target those actual needs. So that's really really important because then teachers can maximize what they do in their small group work with the students. Another program that we utilized a lot and have had a lot of training with over the past few months is link it. Um it's data at
the fingertips. You can look up a child's academic profile and we're putting as much as we can into it such as the dibbles data. It has various reports to inform teachers, administrators about classes and students. Linkit also has a grouping manager and with that grouping manager as an example what we were able to do in
the past few months is we had normally done the math placement process um pulling data from linkit but pulling it in various different spreadsheets pulling stuff from teachers individually everything went into link this time and it pulled into one data one spreadsheet it just minimized the amount of extra
tedious work that other people didn't need to do so that people could spend the time with students and maximizing what they what they really need to do instead of you know keying in things. So, it it it's about making things a more seamless process. One thing I do have pictures
for uh is our G&T our our GT3 course, sorry. Um it is a new course this year that targeted um another different level of um gifted and talented students. So, we had our literacy seminar, our mathematics seminar, and now we have the GT3 showcase um seminar as well. And so
the the goal of this course throughout the year was think of it like a passion project with a purpose and it had a unified theme across the district as well. This year was mini golf. And so the students in October took a field trip to monster golf and it was a unique experience where the middle schools as
well as all the elementaryaries got to get together. All those G&T students meet each other um and then learn from um experts. a course designer was there for monster golf and got to show them what it took to, you know, make a mini golf hole and then, you know, they
talked about advice for planning and what they could do and it really set a nice foundation for what they could do throughout the year. And then they were tasked with creating, as you could see in these pictures, their own mini golf holes. And so this was from third grade through sixth grade. They then went through lessons throughout the year. And
this isn't the sole thing they did, but they went through lessons about STEM, engineering, angles, creative pieces of it. All these different other learnings were brought in based on interest of students that were going to benefit um their mini golf holes. And then they came together in a showcase to highlight
all their work and then try and work with other people's um you know, mini golf holes. Parents got to see all this hard work that their children had been working on over the years. So, it was a really nice showcase across the district. again bringing all the G&T kids together to in a fun way share what they had worked on for the whole year.
And then next year we're going to have a different theme because that that's how the the GT3 course worked. And so while while Mr. Franco and I are the ones sharing the highlights here, this is really the work that happens in the buildings with the teachers and the administrators, the
work in classrooms, learning new programs, working with colleagues. Um, and really it's all about benefiting the students of Fairmont. So, we're really proud of the hard work from the administrators and staff and and students and the teachers and how much they were able to do to accomplish these
three goals in the past in the past year. So, thank you for your time and I turn it over. [Applause] Thank you so much for the wonderful presentation. I think the G3 showcase where you did the golf, I think that's
really cool. Um I just have one question. Um for the first presentation, is the district thinking of having a 4year course sequence for the coding program? Is that one of the things that they're thinking about?
That's still one of the ones that's a consideration. It's not set for next year in terms of the four course, but it is definitely in consideration and conversations. Please continue in the We were just You're done. Okay. I'm just going to ask that um just to help Miss Manuso with uh minutes that we wait till
the end. just gonna document the questions and then we will get responses. Miss Brown, um I just wanted to thank you guys for putting all of this together. Um I know this is only the second year, but it seems to be getting better and better each year. Um I I just
loved the student component of it. Um I the only thing that I wished was different was that there was a Knicks banner, not a Pacers banner in the background. So, uh, cuz the Knicks are playing the Pacers tonight. Go Knicks, Mr. Santana.
Okay. And thank you. Um, great presentation. Is the district considering um providing greater um access to uh the the ninth grade counseling um for incoming eighth
graders prior to, you know, arriving to high school? Uh yes, I know. Uh that's one question. Another one. Um what um what is the district planning to
um to do as far as staff well-being other than professional development? [Music] Um other than tables uh and link and link it is there any other
um best practice um data driven uh program where we can utilize perhaps for uh our middle school students. And um is the district uh considering any
um tech education as as far as uh plumbing, electrician or anything like that for non-olbond students. Thank you. The floor is closed. Um, Miss Keller and Mr. Franco, you are welcome to answer
uh or respond. Mr. Santan, I just want to make sure that I understand the question about ninth grade counselors. Can you just repeat that for me? Yes. Um, is a district uh planning to expand access to ninth grade uh ninth
grade u counselors uh to incoming ninth grade students, you know, eighth grade students in in um the middle school. as far as the students being able to create that relationship beforehand other than
the the just the the the summer um you know the summer the summer uh program that they do other than that you know because I heard relationships so in order for you to create relationships you need some some time you know Sure sure of course so they've already
started to visit eighth graders at this point in time um and they have attended the um assemblies that each school has had. They have also worked with the middle school counselors to um do some lessons and meet eighth grade group. So
that is starting now. So their first introduction is not just over the summer or on the first day of school. We are doing that now and we're and we are thinking of even more ways that we could enhance and cultivate and have even more opportunities for the nth grade counselors to visit at the eighth grade
level. So that already has been started. Um, so it's not just a first-time show when they go up to ninth grade, like a first-time introduction. Um, I'm gonna I think I got the question regarding is there anything that we do for staff
well-being other than PD? Um, we do provide PD. The wellness days have catch have captured staffled activities based on individual surveys that schools have sent out. the building principles sent out, hey, what do you want to do or what do you want to participate in or is
there anything that you know you would like to lead? Some of these activities are principles brought in for them. Some of them were led by staff um which gives a good uh census of what they want at each building level and you know what their pulse point is in terms of what
they need in terms of wellness. Um we also you know have given back time throughout the year whether it's faculty meeting time or things of that nature for wellness. So, um, we're always open to, you know, receive suggestions from staffs. Um, but a majority of that does come on the wellness days and then there
are pinpointed days throughout the year for certain time [Music] and anything that I in terms of additional data that we have in other grade levels. So, each grade does have numerous pieces of data. So
for instance, um, math has unit assessments, beginning of the year, end of year, mid-year assessments, language arts has reading levels, various different other things. So there's like link actual assessments, but then there's other things that are inputed into it. Um, so there's a few different data points and we're always looking to add more as we're meeting with teachers
and they're like, would this be something good to have in the platform? We we work to get it in there. So whether it's something that we load or even directly could go in. So that way it's a usable program so we can track progress over time and serve for teachers in future years to know about the students academic understanding. In
terms of tech programs, so the four CT programs that I highlighted are our official programs through Perkins that we receive funding for. We do also have other programs. So we have a construction class and a wood shop class where students are building walls and running electric through the wall. Um,
so we have two courses of that. They're just not a Perkins class yet. So, um, kind of what Miss Favil Filich said in terms of like coding, we have computer science as well, but it's not a program yet, but we do offer a few classes in it. So, we have experience for it. It's just we don't have like that three-year
sequence where they're they're fulfilling according to the requirement of Perkins. And that's something we're looking into for all of these type programs. Thank you. Okay. Dr. Grip, the floor is yours. So tonight, the most important thing that you think of when we talk about a
demographic study is projecting enrollments. And we look out for a 5year period. I know the first question you're probably going to ask is why can't you look out 10 or why can't you look out 15? And the real reason is because then you have to start projecting kids who have not been born yet. And yes, that
can be done. We actually do do that for New York City, but for a small community such as yours, that becomes very challenging. We also looked at who you are as a community, such as population trends and and racial structure, age structure, fertility rates, birth
counts. Then we drill down to the school district level, looking at your historical enrollments of the last decade at the elementary, middle, high uh high school grade configurations as well as by school and districtwide. We took all the birth counts that have
happened in the community and we segregated them by attendance area for your six elementary attendance zones to see how they could impact different elementary schools in the future. Uh we also computed what's called student yields which is a fancy word for
children per housing unit for your community for apartments, town houses, and single family homes. Uh we researched new housing starts and analyzed the impact on the school district. Uh we also compared your school building capacities to the current and projected enrollments to see
if you have surplus seating or shortage of seating. And finally, we projected enrollments based upon student yields and housing turnover rates. That's a completely independent analysis. I'll talk about that very briefly at the end. It's it's quite uh out in the clouds
from my colleagues out in Cal Berkeley. So here you are as a community. Um this is just the population of Fair Lawn from 1940 all the way out projected on the far right which is 2050. So if you look in the far right um that is the projected population by the North Jersey
Transportation Planning Authority. But right now in 2020 your population is around um I think it says about 34,000 up there 34,927. So, um, we're projecting a gain going forward as you can [Music]
see. So, who are you as a community? What's your demographic profile? Well, we look at all the races and we looked at it from 2010 2020. I'm only showing the largest races up there. 2/3 white, 15% Hispanic, 13% Asian. What we're
seeing in your community, and this is common for places that um we work, in fact, I probably knew about 20 districts in Bergen County alone, um is that we're seeing increasing Hispanic and Asian population in your community and a decline in white population from 2010,
last 10 year census 2010 to 2020. Median age, as you can see, fairly close to that of the state. Very high foreignb born population here. uh the Indian population population in people from India and Russia are the two largest sources of where your foreignb
born people come from very very very educated community when you see 62% having a bachelor's degree or higher with that usually comes higher incomes as you can see on the next line the median household income here is 142,000 which is probably almost $50,000 more
than the state more than 12,000 housing units here of which 79% are one unit homes so When I drove around town tonight, it's, you know, mostly detached single family homes. About a quarter of the housing units are renter occupied, which is less than that of the state.
And the median value of an ownero occupied unit is 488,000 compared to the state around 429. So, we drew a map up of the community as well as plugging in where all the schools are located. And the
next map shows the elementary attendance uh areas and the respective six schools that we just mentioned a moment ago. And then the next one is the middle school attendance areas which more or less just segregates the town left and right for the two middle schools, separates the right and
two. So the district's historical enrollment was collected over a 10-year period and it's always the same date. It's always October the 15th because that's when you send your enrollment to the state of New Jersey. So, um, when you see the counts in this report, it's
always that same time frame. And that was back in October of this year, 5464. And I've been working with your district for a while. And what's been happening here is you've been having increasing enrollments year after year, except for this past year, it's started
to stabilize. If we look back 10 years when it was 4804 and a half, there's a shared time student there. You've gained about 660 students in the last decade. That's quite a lot. So the cohort survival ratio method, which is the methodology we use as demographers to
project enrollments and in this case as well. We use that to project out five years. We'll talk about that in a moment. So here's just a graph showing that P toK to 12 enrollment over time. You can see at the far end there, you can see it's stabilizing in the last year. or
two. So when we look at it for elementary, middle, and high, I always say this is more or less the most important graph you want to look at tonight. So the elementary graph, uh, elementary line is up on top. It's the blue one. And basically, you had increasing enrollments through the 1920
school year before things started to stabilize. So when you think of that, usually that kind of means that at least the upper grades, middle and high, will start to stabilize as well. When you look at the middle school, they really were increasing and that's the um the
middle line up through the 23 24 year before they reversed trend. And the high school's been basically going up for the last eight years. You can see just straight up lines except for that top blue one kind of stabilizing. So, how do we project enrollments? I have to explain this just
so you know. I don't have a magic eightball in the back of my office telling you what the enrollments are going to be. And how we do this is we're progressing students from one grade to the next year over year. We look at those patterns. So I give you a simple example up there. If you have 100 first
graders in the 23 24 school year and they become 95 second graders, that's a survival rate of 0.95. 95 over 100. You've lost five students in the net. So we do 13 possible grade progressions. Birth to kindergarten is our first.
That's a 5-year gap all the way up through 11 through 12. So if the values are above one, you're gaining students due to inward migration. In this little fictitious example, you're losing students due to outward migration. So we then take an average of say the last
four or five years of your ratios and we multiply that times your most current enrollment to project your enrollment five years out. So, of the four and the five-year averages that we were working with, of those 13 average ratios, 12 of them were above one. So, you have steady
steady inward migration coming into the district. This is where your enrollment growth is coming from. It's a lot of people moving in, not necessarily being born here and being raised in Fairlon. The only ratio that was below 1.00 was 8
to nine. going up to the high school. And that's typical in districts such as yours that have the means to go to private high schools uh for nth grade. You had three survival ratios in the 2020 school year with the lowest in the last decade. I attribute that to the
pandemic. I have lots of anecdotal and uh mathematical research based upon what happened during that. See me later if you want to know more about that. So like I said, we use these average ratios and we apply them to the current enrollments to project future enrollments. So you have something in
the district phenomena calling kindergarten replacement and yours happens to be negative and it's happened seven in the last nine years. And what that is is when the number of entering kindergarten students is less than the number of graduating 12th grade students in the prior year. So let me give you an
example. Let's say you have 500 seniors graduating. to keep your enrollment flat, you need 500 kindergarten students coming in the next year, assuming everything in interior grades is is all equal. So maybe you're you're coming in with 400.
So you you're down a hundred out of the gate. And I'll explain what how you're going to get rid of that in a moment. So it has been increasing in the last three years because your graduating 12th grade classes are larger. So now the gap between 12th grade and kindergarten is even bigger. And here's a diagram of
what that looks like year after year after year. So here's the strange question. It's like the $64,000 question. If you're lo if you have this negative phenomena called kindergarten replacement, how in the world are you actually gaining enrollment from year after year? And here's the answer in the
next slide. This is showing the negative kindergarten replacement. Same color as the pre prior slide in gray. And you got the blue ones which is your enrollment change year after year. your enrollment, your inward migration in this district is wiping out all the negative
kindergarten replacement resulting not only in a wipeout of the negative kindergarten replacement but a gain in enrollment from year after year. You have such strong inward migration. So we use birds to project kindergarten counts five years later and we looked at data for the last 13 years.
Essentially, it was fairly stable up until 2021. Pandemic, I don't know, draw draw a conclusion there. But it was 376 Berts, which was the largest value of the historical period. In 2022, it was
three 343 BERS, which is just slightly higher than 2006. There's a graph of the BERS over time. Um, pretty stable up until the last couple years, which always means what? It's going to mean that you're gonna have bigger kindergarten classes in five years. So
if that 2021 class I mentioned, that'll be your 2026 coming in in just uh one September from this September. So we do an analysis where we look at your BERS and compare them to kindergarten counts five years later and
then we do the division kindergarten students over BERS, which is the birth to kindergarten survival ratio. If they're above one, that means that people are moving into the community from other towns where their children were born. Notice what happened after
you switched from half day to full day. The values which were below one up in the top there in the upper corner of the right are now above one or well above one because now people are not enrolling their kids in private kindergarten facilities. they're coming straight here
for registration and then some because you're getting values above one for the most part, meaning people are coming from other towns. So, we also broke down the BERS by attendance area. I'm just going to whip through this real quick, just showing that um the West Morland area had the most BERS in that
particular time frame in red way down on the the bottom there and the Linest area had the fewest. the area in the far right that says unknown. When we get the birth data from the state, they can tell us that a woman had a lived in Fairlon, but for unknown, they're saying we don't
know exactly where she is. So, I can't tell you which of the six attendance area she would belong to of that birth. So, this is just showing births over time, um the total number of birds in each zone and the difference between the endpoint years. So when we look at Berts
by attends here in 2009, um you can see there um the West Morland area has the most in the upper left. And if you fast forward to 2022, it's now the Mills area. And if we go by census block, which are smallest geographical areas by the Census Bureau, where are BERS
occurring the most? It's in the West Morland area in 2009 and kind of scattered in 2022. And then when we look at in the aggregate over that 13-year period, any place you see a dark blue is where the most BERS are occurring. So this is a really interesting analysis
for us because it shows you exactly where BS are occurring. So who are you as a community? This is where things really get interesting because when you start to work with higher SCES socioeconomic status districts such as yourself, you start to see pictures like this. Um,
this is what's called an age, sex, or population sex pyramid. It's demography 101. You got males on the left, you got females on the right, and those are percentages in the five-year age increments from 0 to four of people all the way up to 85 plus. So, in 2010, the
biggest groups for males were 45 to 49 and 50 to 50 for females. Now, watch what happens when I fast forward to 2020. Now we have the largest group for males being 40 to 44 and females being 60 to 64. I'm kind of toggling here. You're
missing some people in the 20s and 30s if you notice because they can't afford to live here between the property values, the taxes. When we start going into more um heterogeneous communities both by race and economic diversity, we
start to see those areas fill in. Okay. So that's not the case. At least it's starting to fill in a little bit, but not all the way. And when we look at the changes over time at the exact for the males and the females, there were gains all the way across for 60 to 79 age
groups, which is the aging of the population. You're graying. Um that graph up there in when you see that line in blue straight across, that's the biggest gainers, which is the 65 to 69 population. And the biggest decliners was the 50 to 54 population. But over
this 10-year period, you also had very large gains in 0 to4 and 5 to9, which is your elementary and those about to entering school. So we contacted the local planning and zoning board. Compared to the last time we met four or five years ago, the amount of housing
that's being developed here has calmed down. There's only one development before the planning board as we speak. Um, and they told me about one on Broadway, which would only have 10 one-bedroom units. You're lucky if you get one kid out of that. So, that development would not have much of an impact on the district. So, we did
compute what's called your student yields by housing type. Um, just to tell you how many students you have in different types of units. This is the the big takeaway of this slide is the third bullet for single family to four
family homes, very large yields, 758. But once you get down to town houses and apartments, the yields get much much much smaller. So if the people build developers build apartments and developments, if they make 100 units of those type versus 100 detached single
family homes, there's not going to be many children in the multif family, but there will be in detached single family, excuse me. So this just shows all the different townhouse condo developments in Fairon. We did research
on their sale price, bedroom distribution, um when they were built, and then how many units, and then we paired it to your pro your student address database, and all those up there represent students that are currently um attending the school district. So, it
shows you the yield on the very far right for each of those developments and compares it to when we last did it five years ago. For the most part, the yields were the same, but overall the very bottom corner of the screen, you can see the yields have increased in the town
houses and condos compared to five years ago. We also did that for apartments, but instead of looking at um home sale prices, we're looking at rents. And if you look at the bottom right, the yields are fairly closer this time compared to five years ago.
When you look at how much construction has happened historically, we took all the developments and we pinpointed where they were in the burrow by elementary attendance area. And you can look right straight in the middle of your screen. Radburn has gotten the most historical
residential development in this six-year period. Um, couple of the developments were the crossings at Radburn, which is 163 town homes, and another one called Barrister at Dunker Hook, which is age restricted, which wouldn't have an effect on the school district, but 190
of the 239 in the Radburn area. Keep that in mind as we go forward. And this is really hard to see, but if you look in the there's supposed to be points up on that map. If you look in the Radburn area in the far far corner, there's a bunch of yellow dots that's simulating where all those houses have been built
in the last five or six years. This is just showing home sales over time. Um, you can see that home sales in Fairlon really peaked in the mid 2000s and then plummeted around 2008 when the housing market crash and banking crisis
occurred. steadily been going up since, but you can see at the very end of the screen there been going down again as mortgage interest rates rise and inventory of homes has really dropped because who wants to put up their home and at a 7 and a half% mortgage interest rate if you got to go buy somewhere
else. So here's the the home sales in Fairlon over time at the census block level. Again, dark blue, the largest color. So let's look at the enrollment projections. We did uh two projections for you for the five-year period. One using average ratios from the last four
years and the other from the last five. The good news is they're both telling us the same thing. The numbers are a little different, but they're both saying that enrollments are projected to increase throughout the projection period. One is projecting gain of almost 350 students
and the other is 309. So when we look at it by grade configuration, this chart shows you the current enrollment up top there for elementary, middle, and high. And the enrollments by year for each of the methods and how much of the change. So each elementary, middle, and high are
projected to go up. Um, but the biggest gainer, as you can see, is the elementary due a lot of it has to do with those increasing birth rates that I was showing you earlier tonight. So we compare uh the architects are going to talk about this more in a
moment but I'll just give you a brief overview of this. This is showing the capacity of each building followed by the enrollment currently the difference between capacity and enrollment. So if you see something in blue you have a surplus seating and if you see something
in red you have something called unhoused students or inadequate seats. So right now Radburn and Thomas Jefferson have inadequate seating according to the state. But because of your increasing enrollment here in the next 5 years, if you look all the way to
the far right, you're seeing more red and some bigger values, which is a problem because of the increasing enrollment you're going to have on even more inadequate seating, particularly at Radburn and also at Mils coming up. So the last thing I'll talk about tonight and then we'll just open it up
for questions is this housing turnover analysis which was developed by two of my colleagues at Cal Berkeley. And it's a completely independent analysis where we use houses and not students to project enrollment and we only use it for one to four family homes. We take
out town houses and condos and age restricted units. The big takeaway here this is a completely completely independent analysis. You're not going to use this for facility planning. It's really a a way of looking at enrollment projections just focusing on housing
turnover. Will that or will it not cause enrollment increases in your district? Three inputs. We look at the housing turnover rates by length of ownership over time for the last 30 or so years. We study every single house that's been sold in the burrow. It's tedious beyond
tedium. Um, we also look at what the current distribution of homes by length of ownership is. And what's this business about length of ownership? Well, it's real simple. We find that more children are in homes that have lower lengths of ownership, two, three years old, as opposed to something
that's been owned 20 years. They've aged out of the system. The last thing we're looking at is how many students are at each length of ownership for houses. So what we do this this part I was explaining to you just a second ago how difficult it is. We use parcel level
data to track each house through its life cycle. Life cycle meaning um we well first of all we have data from the state that has the sale dates and prices and the year the home was built. We have data for the last 30 years. We follow each home beginning in 1994 to see when
they sell. So I give you a simple example there. If you have a home that was built in 1980, it has three separate sale dates, 2002, 8, and 12. It's now part of three separate cohorts, 2002, 8, and 12. The first length of ownership is
not between 1980 and 2002, because we only have sale date up to 94. Maybe there was a home sale in ' 87. So, we can't we can't use that data. So, the first length of ownership is six years. The next is four, and the current length of ownership is 11 from 2012 to 2023.
That was the last year we had data. So, this is showing you when we looked at all the data from the barrel, where are the greatest turnover rates for homes that are sold? It's in the first year of ownership where you have um 4.8% of the
homes selling. Why is it so much? I think people want to move up into bigger homes or but you can see over time the turnover rates decrease. So the current number of homes by length of ownership in your community, this is the distribution. This is showing you
how many homes are at each length of ownership. And I believe the greatest number right now are in the fourth year of ownership on the left hand side of the screen. This shows you how many students are in each home by length of ownership. So in other words, if a home
is owned 10 years, how many students are in that that type of length owned home? So the biggest one is at 1.08. That's a student yield at eight years of ownership. So what we're doing in this methodology, again, I'm really just making this as simple as possible.
We're taking your current length of home ownership distribution. Just showed you that two slides ago. The historical turnover rates that have been happening in your community. We're either going to advance a home to its next year of ownership. We're going to project out five years. Or we're going to sell it
and have it go back to zero years of ownership. So, we're going to create a a distribution of homes for the next five years at each length of ownership. And then we're going to multiply it by that student yield distribution I just showed you in the prior slide. And this is what
it got me. So, the top line is showing the number of students from one to four family homes. The other ones in the middle are going to be held constant. Those are students from apartments and town houses and also the prek population. But what we're seeing to
make a long story short is that if your turnover rates continue the way have been historically enrollments would actually decline. So housing turnover is not going to be the effect here that's going to drive your enrollment upward. It's certainly not if you're going to
continue to sell houses the way they have been. So what's the summary for tonight? Going back to the methodology using the cohort survivor ratio method. We're projecting enrollments to increase throughout the five-year projection period. Primarily for two reasons.
Inward migration of students and secondly increasing birth rate. So the greatest gains are projected in the elementary and high school grade configurations and to a much lesser extent the middle schools. Thanks for your time.
Questions. [Applause] Miss, thank you so much for your wonderful presentation. It was incredibly informative. My question was, you said Mils, Redburn, TJ, that slide you said
they're going to be um overpop populated based on the state. How did you determine that a particular school such as Mills can only have this amount of kids or that particular amount of kids? I will do my best, but um the architects are going to help me with this one
because that's their that's really their their belly wick. Um so the methodology that we used, this is from your long range facility plan. I don't come up with these numbers. This is I'm using the district practices method. Frank, if you want to jump in with this, you can come on up. Um so it's a methodology
based upon how you're using the building and what your number of children per classroom is for your border education policy. They want to know how capacity. So the capacity of a building is is generated by DOE in your long range
facilities. You put the building in and it's really a function of when the DOE looks at it, they look at square footage of the building, the overall square footage and then that square footage is divided by square footage per the student population. So for an elementary school, it's 125 square foot per
student. For a middle school, it's 131 square foot per student. And for a high school, it's 15 square foot. So those values are divided. Now, when you have an elementary middle school, then there's a weighted area of allowance and that number is different. So if you took
the building square footage and divided by any one of those three numbers, you'll come up with a theoretical capacity. The reason that that is flawed is because in your district you don't necessarily use every square footage of the building. You're using net classroom
space. Some of those class you may because of special ed requirements have a fullsize 800 square foot classroom that has six kids. Therefore, you lose capacity simply by the district practice by the way
you're so in order to truly analyze capacity you have to do capacity analysis by building this is based upon DOE's application and the amount of your current enrollment minus the capacity based on that gives you
broadstroke as far as how they occur at different schools that that's based on the enrollment at different schools and building which is not shown here on this slide but that's really how it's some of your buildings are bigger.
Thanks Frank. There's no way I could have gotten to that detail. Anyone else? Mr. Shabbowski, thank you for the presentation. Um, having reviewed it in our finance committee as well. I I know Miss Manuso has reviewed many of the questions with
our committee. Um, but one question that I did have was regarding the one-year turnover rates that we see that are so high and whether that is reflecting or if that's unique to Fairlon or if that's seen across the
board. Um just because as you've driven around you see these small capes that are now being completely expanded um to four or five bedroomedroom homes flippers and sold within the year flippers. Well um and I was wondering if
that calculation is going to shift that um ratio when it comes to looking at length of ownership and the number of students that that yields. So we got that's a good question. So this this is based upon the one that calculation that
you see there is the weighted average of 30 years worth of data that's looking at bad cycles, great cycles and everything in between. So to ask what really is going to happen in the future is anyone's guess, especially with interest rates being what they are and things change daily in our country it seems
like. Um so I really can't say. So, we had to sort of make some kind of assumptions in this process and and we had to say that this is what it's going to look like if that's what it's looked like in the last 30 years. That's the best we could do. Mr. Santana,
thank you for the for the presentation. I took a statistics in grad school and I don't remember anything. God bless you. Um so correct correct me if I'm wrong based on what you presented uh we we have the negative migration
like you call it that's that's the terminology inward migration inward migration. Okay. Okay. Inward migration. So we have a we have a lot of pe we have a lot of people leaving but we have a lot more coming in. Well there's always a net, right? There's always people
leaving. There's always people coming in, but for your district, the positive inward migration is always more than what's leaving out. Yes. So, uh, do you do you do any con do you consider at all
any potential redistricting to solve some of the overcrowding in TJ, uh, Mils, Radburn? Way above my pay grade. Actually, it isn't above my pay grade. We do that, but we don't do that. Just want to comment on that. So for tonight
we are only presenting factual information. At this meeting we are not going to be presenting the administration's recommendations. Okay. Um I did not see uh in in the first time I saw this presentation before the
pandemic. Uh I think we were I think there was some information about the [Music] um the demographics of the community by neighborhoods you know to ensure that we don't have any segregated school with
you know this report actually has five or six pages where we mapped the census data by race. Can the can the can the board have a copy of of of Oh, the data. Yes, we'll send that to
the board. Thank you. And it's it's it's it's not segregated at all. I mean, we have you have pockets of everything every which way. So, yeah, you can you can see it. Thank you. No further questions. Okay. Uh Dr. H, thank you. You're
welcome. Frank and Tom. Flores Yurus. Evening. Very difficult follow. Uh just to give everyone a heads up. Um Frank Menio and Tom Straer are from Solutions Architecture. They are our architecture
company for the district. All righty. I will try to make this quick. Uh but we're here to talk a little bit about our district-wide facilities audit when we do a lot of this work in a lot of districts. Want to point out a few
things that you know your district is no different than many others. And I don't mean that in a jarative way. I mean that in a good way. Every other district is experiencing all the same things that you guys are experiencing. And one of those things is how do we keep our facilities up to date? How do we expand
our facilities? How do we maintain our facilities? So, one of the ways that we have found that works best is to be proactive. And many districts are reactive. You have a 2% cap, can't possibly do all the work that needs to
be done. You put off projects to educational programs afloat. So, you know, the facilities kind of suffer a little bit, take a backseat to education, which is the probably the way it should be. But we wind up kicking that can down the road and you wind up having to catch up at some point to make
sure that everything works. And one of as architects, one of the things that we know for a fact is that our our school facilities support and enhance the educational programs that go on. Without a school to support it, without classroom space to support a growing
curriculum, you can't offer the stuff that you want to offer. So, it's really really important to maintain this. And throughout the summer of 2024, a team of architects and engineers went through every building in the district, uh, 11
facilities, the long range facilities planning and maintenance, and we looked at them from a variety of criteria, health and safety, general adequacy of the facilities. But because this report is so encompassing and so detailed,
there are ground rules for this report. I want to make sure that everybody's clear. This report represents a starting point, not an end point. And all that means is that it's a work in progress. This report doesn't finalize anything. It doesn't give you a final list of
projects. It is a starting point. It's definitely not an indictment of any district practices because we're calling out all these things that have to be uh repaired or completed. Doesn't mean that the district is not doing its very best to take care of the
buildings. This is an overall view of each facility's health and it's not a final listing of your projects. Some of the projects here are grandfathered. You don't have to do them, but they're listed because they may not meet the current code. They may not have a a
particular uh criteria that doesn't fall in line with district practice, but it's not something that you have to run out and do every single thing. We've included priorities in this report. Those priorities are our recommendation as experts, as as
architects. The board may have a different vision for what those priorities may be. You may say, "Well, that item is a hot button topic in district. It should be a priority one and we're showing it as a priority three. It's all good. We just need to finalize and and and put take the
board's input. Budgetary estimates here require some discussion because this report is a broadstroke report. We don't know when any of these projects will be done. We don't know when you plan on doing these. So the reports have contingencies, multipliers, escalators
in them so that they will withstand five years of time. They're not. If you were to do it tomorrow, that's a whole different story. But what this will do is give you a broad stroke, a broad brush on how how much work does you really have to do. And it really will
show you that you can't possibly do it in five, five years, 10 years. The budget includes the cost of, and I said this a little bit earlier, the budget also include costs of items. So, some of the scope that we've listed, uh, perfect example, your stairwells
don't have handrails that extend one foot beyond the bottom tread and they don't turn back into the wall like the new code requires. It doesn't mean you're going to run out and replace every handrail and every stair tower. It's not required by code. If I was building a new building today, I would
have to make that hand, but you don't you're not required to go back. So, a very simple answer is that that called out in the report, but it's not something that you're going to have to run out. The amount of work that's represented herein could never be completed under your annual budget under
your% cap. So, it's something that really needs to be considered long. So, let's get into the the key areas of concern for the district. Um, broad big picture, it's no different
than a lot of other other districts. Your building capacities Dr. Grip has enumerated are, you know, something that we need to consider and keep in mind uh in the coming years. The ages of your facilities is something that we need to consider. Obviously, as buildings age,
it's no different than us. Uh creeks, cracks, everything starts to to wear down. Outdated program spaces. Obviously, as I said before, in order to keep up with the educational components, uh we want to enhance those spaces. science labs, media centers, things that
need to be updated in order to be able to support a really progressive curriculum. Safety and security from a vestibule standpoint, being able to control access to the building, doors, hardware, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing infrastructure, it's always a
top top. fire protection, uh, alarm systems, making sure that panels are addressable, PA systems, making sure that you can communicate throughout the building, even if it's, uh, you know, on a regular basis or if it's in an e situation, toilets, boilers, roofing, windows, these are all things that need
to be addressed over time. And in this case, some of these are lacking. So, the report is broken down. And I when I say report, one of the other things I want to point out about this is that in the past when we did these, we gave you a binder. Probably gave you nine copies of this binder
because there's n, you know, 10 facilities, multiple copies. And what happened when we gave it to you? You looked at it, you flipped through two pages, found a lot of shelves. And when you had a question, you called us anyway. So that's the way that that's the nature of a binder and a
book that's voluminous. But what we've done is we've taken this entire system and we've transformed it. It is now all content that is in a searchable indexable website. It is a web page that you have access to. It is
a secure web page. So not everyone has access to it. It is accessed by secure uh password and username and password. And it is has the ability to do that because it is a security issue for this to be out there because it has floor
plans. It has a lot of information on school districts. So, it's not, you know, it's something that we want to control, but this website will have and we'll show you a little bit more in detail, but it breaks down every school under these categories. It evaluates
them under these categories. Categories are site improvement, building envelope, building interiors, mechanical systems, electrical systems, and plumbing systems, as well as your fire system. We've included the four priorities that you see on the right hand side.
Immediate action or remedy is required. Attention or strongly recommended. Attention is recommended as your budget allows. And then the fourth one is really educational components. Your attention and remedy is uh recommended if it will improve the
educational adequacy. The report is broken down into several components. There's an introduction. It tells you what codes we analyzed each building with. It gives you an description of the site and the building itself, when it was built, how many additions, how many square feet the
the site is. There's a virtual visual report. This is a virtual walkthrough. Many of you have gone on to real estate websites and have looked at these where you click on the dot and it walks you through the space. You see every square footage of the room. Every building in district has been scanned digitally, 3D
scanned with GPS scanners. You can walk every building from your desk. You don't need to go. Facilities audit has a written report section that goes through every code section, every every area that we noted above. There are issues floor
plans, two scale floor plans of every building that show where the issues are that we need here called out that need to be addressed. There's roof plans for every building along with a chart showing the warranties, the roof age, the roof life for each section all in
one place. Now you don't have to go and dig through the basement, the plans and all that stuff to try and find. It's all in one location. There's a room listing has every room, every corridor, every closet, square footage, where it's located and everything there. And then
probably the most important piece of this report is the budget estimate. There is a budget estimate that is included with all of our recommendations for every school, for every category, and that is something that will be used as we go through. When projects get completed, it gets crossed off that
list. When new projects get added, they get added to the list. If we change a space in the plan, we if we divide this room in half at some point, we come back with the scanner, we scan it, and that goes back into the virtual model. you will always have the exact
layout of every building, every space in the building. Just two other caveats. The information in this report should not be interpreted as saying that your facilities are inadequate or workable uh and that or implying that they're unsafe
uh or for for use or for each project that is entertained. When you decide, well, we're going to do that rooftop unit, there's a budget number in there, but that budget number has escalators and multipliers. If we're going to do a rooftop unit this summer, we're going to give you a current budget based on
today's numbers without the multipliers, without the escalators, and that's going to give you a real number. So, the numbers in here, when you look at it, it's really order. So, in what we want to do is because of the secure issues, we're going to go through the portal components, but we're going to do it in
a static mode. As you can see, when you pull up the website, you can see certain areas. So, the the area on the left, you'll see has uh um each school will have its own page. Each school has the play buttons that you see. Those are the
virtual models of each building. You can walk through each section. On the right hand side, there's a column of your report components. So, it starts with the written report. It goes to site plans. It goes to roof plans. In the middle you'll see that what looks like a
3D model of the building and that is the scanned model of the building. All of those little dots and tags that you see are issues that we called out on the plan. You can click on any one of those issues at any time. You can project yourself into any room at any time and
see what those issues are. And then there's the written report. And we're going to get to some of these other components as we walk through. So virtual visual report that's again this is an image of what that space would look like. Every space is labeled
every space is is shown. So we are here looking at the media center. Uh we are uh this is the media center at the high school. We are looking at the media center and we are able to look at various spaces. We are able to look at
that space in real time and see see what's called out. We're calling out that it has dated fixed furnishings. stated layout should be re renovated. So these are things that could be done. Again, you don't necessarily have to renovate the space if you don't have the budget or don't want to. We can dive
into any room AV storage room stairwell and see what's going on in that space. So later on when Miss Manuso calls uh Mrs. Manuso calls and says we've got to do this project or we want to look at something, we don't have to come out. We have the plan. We can measure it. We can
look at it and then verify things later. Saves time, saves money. I lost control. So again, we're going to just kind of instead of taking up a lot of time, the written report is very detailed. It covers every component of
the building from plumbing fixtures to egress to uh you know mechanical units. In this particular you know case you'll see a blowup section that shows classroom HVAC. The high school consists of classrooms throughout A-wing, Bwing,
C-wing and D-wing. The HVA is in is consistent but the system type varies based on the date of construction. It goes into a great deal of detail and then makes recommendations. You'll see the recommendation based upon the age efficiency and proper ventilation relief for issues. UV should be planned for
replacement. It's a recommendation. So that's part of the budget. That's prior listed as a priority three and mainly because of cost. It's priority three when you can do it when the budget allows it's something that can be done. So those are things that's the way things are listed. Roofing is another
big component. And you'll see that we've evaluated roof sections. We've evaluated penetrations on the roof lashings and we talked about replacement being required and that those sections are slated for replacement in summer 2025. So, it's allowing us to be more
proactive with what's going on. An example of what the site plan could look like. So, we typically do overlays of your building sites with the satellite imagery. We then mark up where we see mill and pave this parking area, replace the concrete in that area. So,
you'll have an entire listing, not just in a written report that you can't really tell what we're talking about. You can look at the plan and see exactly where we're talking about things needing to be done. Remove play area, replace with asphalt parking area, you know, mill and
pave. There's a a whole host of items that have been called out. Each floor plan is the scale as I mentioned before. So, you've got an issues floor plan. Um, zoom in on the legend. So each floor floor floor plan is colorcoded and the color codes are noted
against the legend. So when you look at certain spaces and certain colors it may be upgrading the complete room. It may be upgrading the floors or the ceilings repainting the walls, replacing the doors and the hardware, water fountains. It is very comprehensive. So it covers
every component as best flooring tile wall base mechanical equipment. You're seeing the very very detail of what this report has to offer. And each plan is two scale. Each room is current and uh the report will be obviously updated as
we go through each project. And that's the same for the first floor, second floor. We have them by floor, each building, and we go through each of those as well. There's the roof plan I was talking about. So every roof section is called out, the
square footage, when it was installed, what manufacturer it is, when the warranty ends. So, no longer are you going through file cabinets looking for warranties from these manufacturers. It's in one place. You'll also be able to tell that the one roof is going to
expire in 2026. Um, you know, it's expiring 2026. So, you'll know that that roof five five six years from now, we're going to need to do something start to allocate funds for it.
So, it makes us proactive, which in a school district, it's incredibly incredibly important. Room listing, I mentioned before, every space in the building, uh, categorized by where it is, what floor it's on, how big it is. So, you can look at a glance at any space in the building
and see how big it is and what its current room number is. And then you get into the budgetary costs. These alone are a you know spreadsheet that um you know it's very extensive. So when you look at it you'll
see that the spreadsheets are laid out in such a way that on the left you'll see the priorities. So the far left column is priorities. Some are priority one, two, three or four. The report tag that you see coincides with the written report and then that goes through the
description of all the items that need to be done. You'll see a uh in the in the next column it says include in project. This spreadsheet has the ability to put a yes or a no if you want to create a budget. So you might be able to you turn everything off and then you
start picking yeses and that's what we do with our districts that have this report. We'll come in and meet during budget time and we'll start to pick the next priorities and we'll say okay that adds up to x amount of dollars. if we were to get debt service aid or some sort of aid, that's what it would cost.
But if not, we wouldn't. So, um, but it goes through each category. Every category is broken down separately. Every school is broken down separately. And then ultimately, as we get towards the end, they're all summarized in an overall budget estimate that breaks
everything down by priorities. So, we break down the the report by priorities. So all the priority one items are listed for each school. All the priority two, three, and four are listed for each school. And then we can determine now as you see the
soft costs that are shown there. We've got 15% contingency, 15% soft cost. Those include multipliers and escalators. Those 30% would never be used for soft costs in any project that we would develop. We also include a debt service aid
column because you have the ability to get debt service aid if projects were put into a referendum. So if if that becomes there's so much work that needs to be done, if that becomes an option in the future, you would at least know which projects were eligible for debt
services. So and then that's the whole list of priorities and then we get into the next uh the next step which is what's next. So from from as I me just mentioned state aid is available for any project that's tied to maintenance andor
education through a referendum. So when the when the the district prepares their uh their budget and goes out for a referendum, they have the ability to receive up to 34% in all eligible projects. Uh and that helps pay down the
bond which lowers the tax impact of the tax. There are other items available. New Jersey clean energy grants are available. Lighting, mechanical, roofing grants are available that allow you to be able to do a bunch of these projects. Yes, I'm still working.
Uh so, um there there is a good deal of of of other funding that's available that can help us. There are state contracts that we do a lot of this work on. There's the ability to do um to to take advantage of of multiple sources. That's
the benefit of having something like this is because we can look ahead into the future and say this needs to be done next. This is our next hot topic. this is our next priority. So that's really what it comes down to when we're looking at this as a facilities report that can
be used from now into the future and it can be expanded upon. So when I said from the beginning, this is not the beginning or this is not an end. This is the beginning. So this report is is a document that will grow and change and modify as the years go on and we need to
update over time. That's about it, Frank. Thank you. You're welcome. I will open the floor to board members. Miss Savvich, thank you so much for the wonderful presentation. It was very thorough. My question is, you have it all on the
computer. Back in the day, like three years ago, when we had the budget, we have the list of priorities on a PDF. Would this be able to create a PDF with the list of priorities? Absolutely. That that Excel spreadsheet can be ex exported and it can be put sent to to um
an a PDF spreadsheet. It can be set up in a variety of different ways. Everything in this in this website is indexable. So if you wanted to search in the entire report for every school and wanted to search toilet rooms, see how many times that came up or what those
you could pull that up. But yes, this can be exported, printed. It can you can basically do everything you would normally do with it except sit it on a shelf. Awesome. I have another question. Um to piggy back from my previous question about the room capacity. Uh did
we maybe not with you but I remember we approved as a board um the cap capacity of the buildings. Was that with you? That was okay. My question is why was that not used for the demographic study the capacity? It's completely independent. There's two different
there's two different analyses that are being done. Mographer uses the DOE analysis. We do indepth analysis that actually looks at the buildings and how they're Oh, but that that cannot be used for the demographic to determine the capacities
could be compared along those lines. you've ever done it that way and use those instead of what the provided. So it could be could be it could be looked at.
Awesome. Thank you so much Dr. Bolini. Just briefly I want to thank both of you for the presentation. They'll be very helpful for us in the future. That's it. Thank you Mr. Santana. Yeah. Um, well, I was hoping to see
some some areas where we have some number one priorities. Uh, but you say there's a website where we can have access. Is that a is that a a website where we're going the board members are going to have unrestricted access to your
recommendations as far as uh where we need to uh prioritize and take care of our buildings? Yeah, I'm gonna turn that over to just to answer that question. So, Dr. Dianio and I this is a it's extremely
comprehensive tool and it does have a lot of security functions within the actual website. So, we wanted to wait until after um Frank had presented to the full board. We have taken reports from the website and I have downloaded
them and compiled a Google drive. So, for example, you'll be able to view a lot of those reports, right? That um will show you the detailed reports that I think that's primarily what the board would like access to. It'll show you um what the architects have rated as
priorities. I just want to be clear that it is a working document. Yes. So, as the administration continues to work on what we feel are the priorities and the priorities that we'd like to recommend to the board, those priorities will continue to change. But you'll see obviously the initial assessment of
everything. Yes. And just because the community is listening, uh we have to all of us as a community, we have to make sure that we maintain uh and and protect and and take good care of our board of
education on facilities which are owned by the community by all of us. It cost a lot of money to maintain these buildings. So, we have to make sure we protect them with good care and love. Thank you. Yeah. Uh Frank and Tom, thank you guys
so much. Um Muso, I just wanted to thank um Frank, Tom, and obviously Dr. Grip. It has been such an immense pleasure working with you. I've worked in a number of school districts. I've worked on a number of referendums. um the tool that Frank, you
and your team have provided, the attention to detail by working with our entire department of buildings and grounds, how thorough you were. Um every square inch of every building has been assessed. Uh this tool is going to be so incredible for our future planning and
um Dr. Grip, you are the same attention to detail. You painfully listen to all of my questions, both of you. Um, and if you saw, Frank actually gave his cell phone, so I hope you took a screenshot of that. Um, but really thank you. It's so wonderful to partner with you. Thank
you so much. Thank you everyone. Is it okay if we stay for the rest of the meeting? I'm ask. Okay. This agenda item provides an opportunity for committee chairs to present brief
summaries of proceedings from their most recent committee meetings. These reports are forformational purposes only and reflect activities that have already taken place. This is not an appropriate time to introduce due business items or engage in extended discussion on topics
that should be addressed through the proper channels. Committee chairs, please be reminded to keep those reports limited to three minutes maximum based on the written meeting minutes. Focus only on key actions and discussions from the most recent minute meeting.
Reference when the next committee meeting is scheduled. Avoid introducing new business that has not been properly vetted through committee and submit any written summary reports to the superintendent and board secretary for inclusion in the minutes. Melich.
Um so um in the beginning of the month the pedestrian safety committee met as a group and there were multiple um a lot of people attended. Um one of the things that came out of the meeting was to have
elementary schools uh in order a lot to have a better way to enter the building to have a 10 minute um drop off period meaning within 10 minutes that the students can come in. For example, in Warren Point and in Mils, for example,
they were discussing that about 400 kids have to be in the building right at the same minute. So, it creates a lot of chaos because a lot of parents have to park their cars and walk their kindergartens, their first graders, to second graders. So, I send this um
suggestion to the um personnel committee. Thank you. does. Yeah. I'm asking if anyone has anything to say from the most recent committee meetings. Dr. Berlini, is that is that three minutes per topic or three minutes
total? Just joking a little. A little. So, I'm in chair of the education committee. We have lively discussions uh every meeting and they're lengthy. Uh I'll try to keep this pretty brief. The first one was a policy that we modified of 5430 which is class rank and it
basically puts into effect in four years when the current eighth graders move up it'll go to what we currently do but it's not clearly written in our policy. So that'll be voted on tonight I believe. Uh the second topic was cell phone policy which is obviously a very
hot topic throughout New Jersey with Governor Murphy encouraging strict rules. uh the administration has Dr. Dianio and the administration has created stakeholder committees to discuss this and present to the board uh in the near future uh any feedback that
they're going to give us and a possible recommendation for a new policy uh the addition of American Sign Language for a language uh for the future. Uh we are exploring different uh languages and also asking other districts that do
offer ASL how to implement that. Uh it would be a two-year plan though because it takes time to develop it and then put it in the budget for 2627. So if we do put ASL in, it'll be for the 2627 school year, not for next year because the budget's already done as we know. But
again, we're going to explore other districts to see how uh they've implemented, how successful they are with it. Uh the next topic was gifted and and gifted and talented criteria. And there's a little a question on that because uh we've had a lot of discussion
over the past years in regard to gifted and talented criteria and then we had the audit recently and we're following that policy. So um nothing is done nothing is being done to change what we've agreed upon from the audit but the administration is working with the committee to revise the handbook uh and
to aim improve clarity throughout the document. A couple of other topics, two of them I'm going to combine here. wireless headphones and movies at recess. Uh there was a request to discuss it and based on the information that we received from our administrative team uh and from anecdotal information
from our PTAs uh who are providing opportunities for our students at recess besides movies. Uh it's not a major issue and and the committee felt at this time not to do anything because we want to focus on more important topics than the ones that were discussed here since there was not a concern at this point
from the administrators. And let's see. Okay, the next one is a uh nine period high school and middle school day instead of the current eight per period day. And as previously discussed at prior committee meetings, the administration has been working on this uh and they were going to present something to us in near future. Uh
whether we go to a um modified rotating block, continue what we have now or other different options that we have. And this is a multi-year initiative that we are going to continue to work on uh through the efforts of our central office administration, Dr. Disio and our high school
and middle school administration. And then last but not least, I'm completing one sentence. I'm going to complete one sentence. It's a long meeting as the other committees know because they wait outside for us. Uh the cost for summer school. We've talked about uh having a cost for the summer school because we
feel that uh the student needs a skin in the game. So there is a a topic for discussion tonight. I believe that we're going to ask for an agenda item tonight. I'm sorry. agenda item tonight uh to have each student uh if unless they're on free and reduced lunch, that'll be a
$25 fee. But for anyone not on a free and reduced lunch, uh the course will be $200 per course. It doesn't cover the full course of the uh summer school courses, but we do believe the committee as a whole believes that it should be something in there to have skin in the game. That's it. That's No, it was a lot
of long sentence was a runon sentence. Thank you, Dr. Berley. You're welcome. any other um committees that took place in the last since our last board meeting. No agenda for report on the previous meeting. Do you have anything to share?
Please join the buildings and grounds finance committee met on May 15th. Uh we discussed the professional services reappoints um that happen annually for our professional services to the board.
Uh discussed food services um the Mils window replacement which is on the agenda for tonight as well as grant uh submissions that we will be approving and the demographic study which was presented. Uh, our next meeting
is I believe it is June 6 or June 12th. 12th. June 12th. Thank you. This portion of our board meeting is specifically for comments on resolutions listed in tonight's agenda. When speaking, please state your name and
municipality of residence. Specify which resolution you are addressing, and limit your comments to three minutes. State law prohibits board members and administrators from discussing personnel matters, student discipline, or other confidential issues. Please note that
this is not a dialogue or Q&A session between speakers and the board. While we may not respond immediately or to every comment made tonight, all input is carefully considered and helps inform our decisions. Responses may come through emails, reports, board statements, website updates, or after
the comment period closes. Thank you for your participant participation in our school community's government governance. I do understand that there are several um community members here this evening that would like to speak. This comment period is for agenda items
only. So you will have to wait until the end of the board meeting. I do apologize. I understand that this was a very long meeting. However, that is our process and protocol. So I will let you know that when it's time for you to speak, but we have to get through our agenda item comments first. Um so the
floor is open for agenda items only. There's no pen. Yeah. Christine Weinstein, Maryland. I want to speak to the item that was just spoken about, the cost for summer school. I think it's really not a
fair idea to charge for uh students that we honestly don't know what the reason they're there for. There's several reasons that a child could be having struggles with learning. They might have a learning disability that we're not aware of or the parents aren't accepting. Uh I just don't feel it's
fair. It just doesn't send a good message to charge for something. I don't believe that any student wants to fail. and saying just to have skin in the game. I don't think that's a fair reason or purpose. I think Fairlon is better than that. And so I just disagree with that whole thing of charging for it.
Thank you. Anyone else? Hi, my name is Demetri and I also do want to agree upon um that that I don't feel like parents should be paying um for uh summer school programs because you don't know what the child's going
through and if there's anything going on at home or if uh someone has uh trouble paying because my mom is a single mother and I know there's a bunch of other single mothers out there who are currently struggling trying to make ends meet and I feel like it's just an unfair
advantage of a student basically trying to work their butt off just for their parents have to pay for something that they tried completing. Thank you. Dmitri, will you sign your name on our forms?
Thank you, sweetie. I have a question regarding 783. This is fulfillment promise. Oh my apologies with me. Loro leave a fair one. So this says fulfillment the principal of public education of New Jersey, Miss Monuso and it's $99. Is this the addition to the
$2500 that is on the contract or is this included in that? So, Miss Manusa's contract states that she receives $2500 per year per school year on any kind of continuous education or not continuous education, I apologize, on um attending
um things that she wants to attend. I'm not sure what it's called. So, this $99 is that in addition to the $2,500. This is on agenda. So this is item 7 A. So please clarify. Thank you. Anyone
else? It's technically not not on our agenda. So those are committee reports. So, we're not doing any board business on them. That's reporting out. So, technically, no. But I would encourage you to stay and
ask. Anyone else? Okay. Uh, Google doc. There is nothing on agenda items at this time. Thank you. The floor is closed. The $99 fee for Miss Manuso's conference is included within her contract
rights. I will open up the floor to agenda items for board members. Miss Casoy. Hi there. Um, all right. I just have a question on something that came out of the education committee which is 14A
which is the ranking. Um, I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly what the that it it looks like the new part of that says that as of the graduating class of 29, the validictorian saludiatoran is based on the student's GPA effective at the end
of the first semester of their senior year and not based on senior year final or cumulative. Does that mean literally it's exclusively just seven se Well the way I was reading it or cumulative GPA so cumulative meant
freshman sophomore junior and first semester because it says or not based on senior year or cumulative GPA to me that that just okay I just wanted to make sure that I was reading that so seven semesters not the okay thank you that
was all Miss Fabelovich. Um, the first thing I wanted to thank the Mils PTA and I'm sorry I pulled it up and then the Mils PTA Henry Goldberg and the
Girl Scout Troops 97769 uh for their donations this month. Um, the next thing I wanted to say is it's cool that we're we are um doing a tree grant. We're applying for a tree grant to get more trees in our schools. Um,
there was a couple of things I was a little confused on. They were added last minute, so I wasn't sure. 6B and 6R is the comprehensive equity plan, but nothing is attached to it. So, I'm not exactly sure what am I what am I voting
for? And one of them I think it's 6 8R is for two years or 6B is for two years but nothing is attached. I was wondering is it somewhere on the website or somewhere? So that was my first question. I see that 7F is a tuition
based um summer school and it's from grades 9 through 12. Does that mean middle school does not pay for um summer school for um for repeats uh for for students that need to repeat a class? Um the next thing I wanted to say
is that I'm going to be voting no on the calendar which is 13 and I'm going to be voting no for the bills which is 11 C. I can't vote for bills that are redacted. I don't know what I'm voting for. Thank you. [Music]
Mr. Valdowski, thank you. I will keep this quick again. Um, just wanted to highlight a few items. Uh, 8P. Uh, we will be approving a new club at the high school. Um Leah
Sophia was here last month talking about it and she was here earlier um but with her grandmother and I do recognize that they left but I just wanted to recognize the good work that the students are doing to bring a club that they're passionate about to the high school. So eager to approve that tonight. Um 11 I
the tree grant with sustainable New Jersey. Thank you to um Miss Bey and her team and the Browns team for putting that together. We are applying for over 70 trees. So hopefully we get that. We are committed about um moving forward
the sustainability of our district. Fingers crossed with that this year. And just want to highlight also 11K, our donation of tables to Caucus uh school district that are no longer useful for our district, but they can find a use
somewhere else. And I love those type of initiatives where we can give it to other surrounding districts that may use things that we just don't have a need anymore or a use or we get newer things. So, thank you for doing that. Dr. Bolini, just briefly, I want to also
thank Joe for his efforts on the the trees. I know he's uh very it's very important to him as it is to the member of the boards, but Joe is putting a strong effort into sustainable New Jersey. So, I do appreciate his efforts. Thank you, Joe. Mr. Santana.
Yes. Um, don't sell the time yet, please. Okay. Item item five. This is my personal. I know one board member stated we were we are approving something and we had to wait for for the for the votes so the the board can speak after
the votes. Um, item five, this is my personal opinion as a board member. We need to look look at redistricting, possibly expanding Edison School and utilizing the the old Washington school as a district office. We need to make
some some tough decisions for the future to um enhance and and and protect the quality of instruction being uh the challenges that we're going to have ahead with the based on the demographic studies.
Um, it's very unfair what's with the enrollment that the the enrollment issue that we have in in in certain schools. Uh, I'm going to abstain on 6C 1. I'm voting no on
6C9 7B5. I would like to wish our future business leaders of America student best of luck in California at the National Leadership Conference. This is a big honor. I I'm very proud of all of you, your your your teachers, your advisor, your parents, and I know regardless of
the uh outcome, you made our community proud. Uh in in regards to 13A, I'm voting no. And this is the reason why. Um I I do not believe that that calendar for 2026 2027 provides
uh what I was hoping which is a full break for February like our children needs to have. A lot of people think that week off is just vacation time. No, our schools need that week off to do some deep cleaning. Uh there's a lot of
viruses going on around that time and having just two days with no kids that's not enough to do a deep cleaning of the entire building and it's a wonderful tradition to be off during that week for students in our community and I'm disappointed that it we haven't had it for many years. We have too many days
off in the calendar for special interest. Yes, we are a diverse community but we cannot give a special day to everyone. I would like to have Easter Monday off. You know, we don't have it. We used to have it. We don't have it. You know, also, uh, I was
hoping we'll have Columbus Day off during the week of the election. That way, we're not open for a a a day and a half or two days, you know, so we can cut costs and and and maximize space. a lot of students and teachers take off
during that week, you know, and to maintain a building, electricity, utilities, and substitutes for such a short uh work week. I don't think it makes sense. Uh and the reason I'm saying this is because as board members,
we can say this before the vote. Uh after the vote, of course, I fully support the board decision. Thank you, Miss Brown. Uh just really quick, I wanted to um also thank our Lorax uh Mr.
Valdowski for speaking for the trees. I appreciate you. Um and I just wanted to thank uh administration for putting out a draft uh calendar two years in advance. I think it helps parents really plan ahead for what they need to do. Um,
and I appreciate you guys looking at all of the community calendars around the area to mirror what similarly they are doing. And I also appreciate you taking into account all of the diversity in our town and um, listening to those voices.
So, I just wanted to say thanks, Miss Yerman. Uh, on uh, 13, the approval of the 26 27 district calendar. I'd like to make a motion to table uh as there are um some
religious um observances that have been um past practice being been given um that is not shown in this this calendar that we're uh approving. That's uh two years in advance.
Second I'll open the floor for discussion. Um motion to table um the approval of the 2627 district calendar. um where we got plenty of time to
um have a second look at it. Um yeah, floor's open. M Brown, um I just want to point of clarity. If we approve this calendar tonight, this does not stop us from
amending the calendar in the future should we deem it necessary. I just wanted clarification on that. That's correct, Mr. Belowski. And just to highlight Miss Brown's comments from earlier, I think it's great to have a calendar out earlier for
families to start planning vacations and child care that may be necessary during the year. Um the board has had this calendar I think for at least a month to review and provide feedback and everything. So I I'd like to move forward with this and if changes are
necessary in a year from now uh they can be made then. But let's move it forward. Mr. Santana, it's a calendar for 2026, 2027. Let's not rush
this. We're not in any rush. There's no one is is is asking us to that they need to book a vac a vacation uh for 2026 27 27. They haven't done it because we haven't approved this. We are like ahead of the game. We are way way way ahead of
the game which is wonderful. We have thanks to our our our wonderful and great superintendent. However, we need some community input into this. We need some board input into this. Um our children are ending the school year very
very late during the year. We're getting too close to July. We're getting the the the the weather is too hot at the end of the year. And a lot of people uh would like to have their their school year to end
earlier. Okay. And you know there are some like Miss Yorman stated there are some religious holidays that people would like to see there that are very special in our community and I don't think is
inclusive not to include them and just because we can do it later. Let's approve it. No, I don't think that's the right thing to do. I think the right thing to do is to do it right, not do it fast. Patient is a virtue.
Let's table this so we can all be included. Religious holidays have to be under consideration. Let's not ignore this, please. We are diverse community. So, let's not rush it. No one is planning a vacation in 2027 that we have
to that we have to vote for this. This is a board decision. Dr. Berlini, I'm being repetitive here from my previous comments about uh the celebration of Diwali. I know Diwali is on a Sunday. The first day the first day
of Diwali this year is on a Sunday. However, there are other religious holy days that if it's a two or three day holiday, we celebrate one day. I thought the Wall-E was on the schedule for 2627 and I'm seeing now it's not on. So if I misread it last time I apologize. Uh but
I do not believe that we are showing um respect to our all our different communities when we don't celebrate Diwali during the school day. Thank you. Anyone else? Floor is cold.
You I have a guy. Yeah. Okay. Uh floor is closed. Dr. Disio. So, uh, of course to just kind of piggyback and echo some of the things that were said, um, and just to provide some clarification before the board makes a vote. Um, and yes, the board can approve tonight and
they could always modify and edit later. The board chooses to table it tonight. That's entirely up to the board. But just some clarification, this calendar was shared with the board on February 20th, 2025. There was also an opportunity for discussion through Google form and feedback. Um all of
those questions were answered and provided. Um all of the this calendar mimics the last three years calendar that we have. Um if a holiday has been celebrated and recognized here in Ferlon
uh to embrace and include be inclusive of our diversity as our strength. Those are included in this calendar. The only time it would not be included as a day off would be if it falls on a weekend, which has been consistently our district
practice. Um, so this is consistent with what we've done in the past. So I just give that as some context and then the board could decide what they would like to do moving forward. Floor's closed. Floor is closed. The floor is closed. Um, can I get a roll call?
You would be voting. It's a vote of yes to table, a vote of no to vote tonight. Mr. Baldowski, no. Miss Brown, no. Mr. Aaliyah, no. Miss
Favllovich, yes. Miss Casoy, no. Mr. Santana, yes. Ms. Yur. Yes. Mrs. Maym. No.
Can I vote? Sorry about that. I am going to vote yes. Motion passes. I'm sorry. It's Yes, it's to the motion. to not table the agenda
item. Lisa, you still have some time. Would you like to go back to your comments on agenda items? Oh, okay. Okay. Anyone else? Julie? Um, sorry. One more quick
question on item number 12, the general category of the the reorganization for any of the appointments. If anybody who is listed here were to um go on leave or or something else where they were not um able to fulfill
the role of this position, what happens at that time? Does a new person get appointed? Does the person who fills that role then step into that appointment? If you could just clarify that, that would be great. Yes. So for any position, whether it's any of the items for these specific
titles for the reorganization with specific additional roles within the district or any role in the district that's a full-time or part-time position. If there's a a resignation or a retirement or a leave of absence, then we would put on a resolution to approve
that resignation, retirement, leave of absence, and then we would appoint make a recommendation for the board to be able to appoint um somebody new to replace those roles. Okay, the floor is closed. So, there was a question regarding the comprehensive equity plan. There's a
resolution on this evening. Um, that resolution is one that's required for the board to actually authorize the district administration to submit to the county superintendent on behalf of the Department of Education. That due date
is June 23rd. So, as a result of that, um, that will be ready to be submitted by June 23rd and then that will be presented to the board once it's been submitted. So, you can see the comprehensive equity plan, but it's not it's not quite ready yet in order to be able to submit and to have the approval.
So that's all it does is it's authorizing it's authorizing the superintendent's office in order to submit it to the department of the summer learning academy is specific to Fairlon High School. Uh and the summer we also have summer learning
academy as well that we've had for years in the middle school. Oh understood. um point of information. Um the the item about the the um the equity plan, can we
amend that item so he can stay? The motion the the motion is to authorize the superintendent to create the plan since we don't have a plan to vote on. So that's actually what it says. So this
is required for CQAC purposes. So if we don't have it written appropriately, we wouldn't get the appropriate points for it in the future. So it says be it resolved that the Ferlone Board of Education authorizes the submission of the proposed comprehensive equity plan for the school years for 2526 through
2728. I understand Dr. Donio, but the I guess I'm not reading it the way you're reading it. It it leaves to the interpretation that there is one already, but there isn't. It needs to be put together. Correct. No, there is one. But we we up we have to update it um
every every year and every every three years there's a a renewal of the comprehensive equity plan that we have to submit. So it's it's going to be updated. That's what we're doing. We're updating it. So can we can we amend the motion so it can stay that it's that we are approving the update of the current
plan? No, because this is what we need for QAC. Okay. Noted. Can I get a motion for 4 A? So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Baldovski? Yes. Dr. Bolini? Yes. Miss Brown? Yes. Mr.
Aaliyah? Yes. Miss Favllovich? No. Miss Casoy? Yes. Mr. Santana? Yes, Miss Yerman. Yes, Mrs. Maym. Yes. Motion passes. And I get a motion for 6A
through C. So moved. Roll call. Mr. Baldovski? Yes. Dr. Berdellini? Yes. Miss Brown? Yes. Mr. Aaliyah? Yes. Miss Favllovich? So, I'm going to vote no for
6C9 and 6C number one. And then I'm going to abstain on the rest of 6C and the rest is yes. Does that make sense? Um I have no 69 uh 6C number one
and then I don't know what the rest is and then abstain on uh the rest of the six C's. Oh, rest of C's and then everything else is yes. Yes. Thank you. Point of information. I thought we were on five. No.
Okay. So, I misheard. I'd like to amend my vote. Okay. Um, no on 6C9. Yes. On everything else. No on
6C9. Miss Casoy. Yes. Mr. Santana. Abstain on 6C1 and no on 6C9. Yes on everything else.
Miss German. No on 6C1 and 6C9 and abstain on the rest of the six C's and yes on everything else. Mrs. Mayhem. Yes,
I need to amend mine as well. Sorry, I thought we were on five. Yes, for everything at just 6C9 is a no. Motion 6C9 does not pass. And
I might just have you 61. I just have I have two nos and one abstension. Rest of these six A and B D through F. Can I get a motion? Yes.
Second. Second. Roll call. Mr. Baldski? No. On 7F. Dr. Bolini? Yes. Miss Brown? No. on 7F. Yes on everything else. Mr. Aaliyah,
same thing. No on F. Yes on everything. Miss Favllovich. Yes. Miss Casoy, I will be abstaining on 7B5 for conflict of interest and yes on everything else. Thank you. Mr. Santana,
abstain on 7B3. Yes. On everything else, Miss German. Yes. Mrs. Maym. Um, I'm going to vote no on 7 F and yes to everything else. No, that was her extension was on
Y. Can I get a motion for 8 A through E and G through R? So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Baldowski. Yes. Dr. Berdellini. Yes. Ms. Brown. No. On
8Q. Yes. On everything else. Mr. Aaliyah. Yes. Miss Favllovich. Can you come back to me because I I had it and somehow it was changed. I'm sorry. Miss Casoy. Yes. Mr. Santana.
Yes, Ms. Yur. Yes, Mrs. Maym and abstain on 8Q. Yes to everything else. And Miss Felvich, I don't know what number it is. It's the ESY like the the one the 20% in uh
markup. I It was there. Somehow it just disappeared. Or did I pick the wrong? It's No, it's the maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's the nine. It's the markup where you do with the substitutes, the 28%. I don't know. I'm going to look for
it and then I will revise my vote. I'm going to look for it right now. by the end of the uh by the end of the board meeting. I can do it right. I'm trying to find Okay, I'm going to vote yes. Motion passes.
Can I get a motion for a 9 A through E? So moved. Roll call. Mr. Baldovski? Yes. Dr. Berlini? Yes. Miss Brown? Yes. Mr. Aaliyah? Yes. Miss
Favllovich? Yes. Miss Casoy? Yes. Mr. Santana? Yes. Miss Yerman, yes. Mrs. Maym, yes. Motion passes.
Can I get a motion for 10 A through C? So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Baldovski? Yes. Dr. Berlin? Yes. Ms. Brown? Yes. Mr.
Aliyah? Yes. Miss Fabelovich? We are on 10. Correct. Yes. Miss Casoy, yes. Mr. Santana, yes. Miss Yerman, yes. Mrs. Maym, yes. Motion passes.
Now I get a motion for 11 A through Q. So second. Roll call. Mr. Bodovski? Yes. Dr. Bolini? Yes. Miss Brown? Yes. Mr. Aaliyah? Yes. Miss Fabelovich? No. On 11
C. Miss Casoy, yes. Mr. Santana, yes. Miss Yerman, yes. Mrs. Maym, yes. Motion passes. Can I get a motion for This one's really long.
Sorry. 12 A through 12 VV. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Baldski? Yes. Dr. Bolini? Yes. Ms. Brown? Yes. Mr.
Aaliyah? Yes. Miss Favllovich? Oh, that's where it is. Okay. It's VV. It's 12 VV. I'm going to vote no. Miss Casoy. Yes. Mr. Santana. Yes. Miss Yerman,
vote no on 12V and yes on anything else. Mrs. Mayan, yes. Motion passes. Can I get a motion for 13A? So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Baddovski? Yes. Dr.
Berdellini? No. Ms. Brown? Yes. Mr. Aaliyah? Yes. Miss Favvelich, no. Miss Casoy, yes. Mr. Santana, no. Miss Yur, no. Mrs. Maym, yes. Motion passes.
Can I get a motion for 14A? So moved. Mr. Bodski? Yes. Dr. Bolini? Yes. Miss Brown? Yes. Mr. Mr. Aliyah, yes. Miss Fabelovich, yes. Miss Casoy, yes. Mr. Santana,
yes. Miss Yerman, yes. Mrs. Maym, yes. Motion passes. This portion of our board meeting is specifically for comments on any matter. When speaking, please state your name and municipality of residents. Limit your remarks to three minutes. State law
prohibits board members and administrators from discussing personnel matters, student discipline, or other confidential issues. Please know that this is not a dialogue or a Q&A session between speaker and the board. While we may not respond immediately or to every comment made tonight, all input is
carefully considered and ple helps inform our decisions. Responses may come through emails, reports, board statements, website updates, or after the comment period closes. Thank you for your participation in our school community's governance. Floor is open.
Oh my three minutes. Um, just like a comment on the cell phone real quick. I know you guys don't make like know the decision, but I wanted to get on here and just say that I think as a veteran
wife, I think that if a child is in the military, their parent is in the military, they are allowed to have the cell phone, not like sound on, but to have it because I don't know how many
children are actually military here in Fereralon. Um, but it is really important when a soldier calls your child because I don't know if many know there's still soldiers overseas. We're still fighting wars that
maybe we don't talk about and we have special teams out there that are still at war and when they need to call home, they should be able to. And I'm not saying everyone. I'm not I'm saying you guys know who the military families
are in school. Um, and I think that military children should be allowed to have their phone for that phone call. Now, I'm not saying all the time, but it's, hey, my dad's calling. Can I be excused? And it could be monitored. They
can go to somebody that can, you know, make sure it's not their friends from wherever. But I do think it's super important that we we allow that. Good evening everyone. So, my name is Anna Kamuk. You may have
um seen me on the news that I unfortunately had to go through. I did not know that I was going to be on on the news. My son um basically cried for help when I was
victimized and silenced by believing the administration of TJ. So, I'm not really good at public speaking. Um I know I'm going to be timed out and I I respect that. Um I really hope that you all can
take some time and just listen to my plea. um because we have a huge problem here. I come before you today with a heavy heart and a determined um spirit. My name is Anna Kamuk and I stand before
you not just as a concerned parent but as a voice for my son Dmitri Figurore and countless other children who feel unheard and and unprotected in our school system in Fairone. I speak not just as a mother, but as a fighter. I
wish I wish I wish this were a feel-good meeting, and it's not. We're here because the very in um the very institution that promised to protect our children have broken that promise and and I am done um staying silent. My son
is 12 years old and he is kind, he's giving, and he's respectful. this type of kid um the type of kid who makes you proud to be a parent. He made a best friend at TJ and spent the entire um summer building a bond only to have it turned
into betrayal when he stepped away from the unhealthy behavior the same child spreading rumors harassing him and and eventually physically assaulting him at the park. On March 10th, I got a call.
No, no mother ever wanted. My son had been attacked, choked, and slammed in into concrete. The cameras failed. The witnesses stayed silent. And still, no one was held accountable. Not
the child, not the school, no apology, no justice, just silence. I trusted this, excuse me, I trusted this
district. I believed the school and the police. When they said that they will keep my son safe, I was wrong. The bullying didn't stop. It got worse. Daily harassment, no no
intervention. HIV uh reports went nowhere. My son lost lost his trust, lost his joy, and lost his safety. I made a choice to pull him out of school last week because the staff started to target
him. And when I met with the school, I was told we can't watch every kid. Imagine hearing that. Miss Kamok, I have to stop you and then if there is time within the 30 minute time limit, you can come back up for an additional 3 minutes. Good evening board members and everyone
else present here today. My name is Dmitri Figurore and that is my mother Anna Kamuk. And as some of you may know why I'm here if you have seen me on the news. I'm here to discuss bullying prevention and safety concerns because honestly I'm utterly exhausted. I also understand my time is limited, but I
request that you respect me as I need to be heard and not silenced once again. We must act now to improve safety measures in our school as the current situation is unacceptable. Now please give me respect as I begin my story. I started my friendship with a student at the
beginning of fifth grade in Thomas Jefferson Middle School. We attended family gatherings together, biked together and spent lots of time together. We were there for each other. We would spend every day and minute together. We would even play video games together. I also tried bringing in
bringing also tried bringing him into boy scouts to grow as a person. However, this all changed after an incident on Wednesday, February 19th of this year. The student whom I won't name for privacy reasons told me that he had lost his watch in a gated icy area. I felt
unsafe going in there, but I wanted to be a good friend. So, I went to go look for it, checking every nook and cranny. Unfortunately, I slipped into the ice and I was soaked. And I lost my phone in the process. To clarify, my single mother, who is present here today, had
spent a significant portion of her paycheck on that phone, which I only had for a week. This made me devastated. After I fell into the icy water, the student casually mentioned that he found the found his watch on his wrist the whole time. Then I noticed before this
entire incident arose, he started putting me in a few unsafe and questionable circumstances and I was just too loyable and gullible to see it. My mother was right. This wasn't just a silly mistake. It marked the end of our friendship. Furthermore, this incident
on there was another incident before this on February 17th. The student and I hung out on the weekend. He was on the back of the newest scooter I had received on Christmas and we were heading to Thomas Jeffston Middle School to go hang out. I had my headphones on and I was enjoying the day. But then we
passed two other students that I didn't recognize. But shortly after I heard this student yell something, but I couldn't recognize it because I had my music blasting. So I wasn't able to hear anything. So I paused my music and questioned what he had said. He claimed that he hadn't said
anything, making me feel like I was going crazy. So, I hopped back on my scooter and we both began to drive off until one of the kids shouted, "I'm going to jump you." Which felt off, but nonetheless, I just ignored it. After hanging out at Thomas Jefferson Middle
School, we scootered to CVS because I was looking for a gift for my aunt Diane. We encountered those kids again on our way there, but we thought nothing of it. While continuing to go to CVS, I noticed they were following us, which made me feel highly uncomfortable. Upon
arrival, the students came in shortly after us. One of the students began yelling threats such as, "I'm going to kill you," and challenging, "Thank you, Dimmitri. If long as everybody else um doesn't finish that time, I'm going to have you come back up." Okay, sweetie.
Anyone else? [Music] Unfortunately, these what Anna and her son is describing is not isolated. I've been here. I've told you this happened to my voter. Pardon me. Your name? Oh, I'm
sorry. Mila Coral Fairone. So, I stood before you saying that there is a problem in these schools. There's continuous problems that TJ, you know this because I email you and I include every single one of you. You decided to drown me in 10 gigs of data. I'm going
through every single paper that you sent to me with the Opra request. I am terrified to send my son back to school. Yes, it's redacted, but I'm well I'm I could read it. Like I was going to read something that you guys send it to me, but I'm embarrassed to read that because the decision that you
made. So what I'm afraid for Dimmitri, I'm afraid for my son and I'm afraid for every other child in this district that was attacked and you turned a blind eye. You know exactly what's happening in this district. You've been told I sat
behind closed doors with you when you know what recently my child's body and Adammy was violated and what did you do? The individual in the building basically told them that he's a liar. When my
child was watched in the bathroom doing his private business, instead of counseling him, you told him that he's a liar. So that is unacceptable. You're failing our children. As a board, it is your job to protect them. It is your job
to protect Dimmitri. It is your job to protect my son and every single other child in this district. We did not vote you in to just sit here to look pretty. We voted you in to protect our children. Another thing I find that extremely
disheartening for a member of this board running for an office that is politically affiliated. I think it's even though it's legal, it's completely unethical. Sir, I salute you for your
ambitions and more power to you, but at the end of the day, I questions your decisions. You are now affiliated with a political party sitting at nonpartisan position. I find that completely unethical. I do not. And you know what? You're gonna have an amazing You're
young. You're going to have a career in politics. I would never believe you. My son would never believe you. And every other person because you made a decision to sit in a nonpartisan position and run for an office that is politically affiliated. So every decision that you
make, I question why and who is supporting it. Thank you. And when I met with the school, I was told, "We can't watch every kid." Imagine hearing that after your child has been assaulted. Even worse, I was
reminded of the holiday gifts when I was struggling last year that the when I asked the school for help. Um, as it as if I'm sorry, as if a wrapped present erases the trauma of a child. As if
gratitude should silence me. Let me be crystal clear. Kindness is not weakness. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness. I forgive, but I give I forgive because I'm human, but I will not forget because I'm a mother. This isn't the first time that this this district has failed my
child. It happened at Warren Point Elementary 2 where he was physically hit in his private in his private area multiple occasions and nothing was done. Instead of instead of investing in in protection, this the district chose to
invest a $20,000 logo redesign while the cameras that could have that could have protected my son point to that cars instead of children. How are we spending more on an image than on safety? Are our children worth less than a mascot? We
are raising a generation in chaos. A generation learning that bullies walk free and and victims walk away broken. That cruelty has that cruelty has no cost and and kindness is something to fear. I'm I'm standing here today to say
not not anymore. This is a peaceful fight. But don't miss but don't mistake that for weakness. We're not screaming. We're standing. and we will keep standing until until change comes. Also, I wanted to take a a moment and thank
Paula for hearing for hearing my cries, stepping up to advocate for my son and pressing the transfer to to Memorial. And whoever is it is here that did allow that after I had to go to the news, I
appreciate you because everyone else ignored us. Thank you for moving mountains for us while we were in the dark. We need we need more than HIV reports. We need real real policies,
working cameras, trained staff, stronger consequences, and honest communication. We need schools and and parents working working together, not pass the blame like a hot potato. We're going to keep HIV policies in place. And we need better procedures, real investigations
with parents involve it, not just paperwork to check a box. You're not just protecting a school's reputation. You're protecting someone else's child. That should never be taken lightly. Every report is about a real a real
child, someone's baby, someone who goes home crying, someone who starts to to believe they don't matter. We need real action. As I continue, I left off on Upon arrival, the kids shortly came in after
us. One of them began yelling threat threats such as, "I'm going to kill you," and challenging us to a fight in the bathroom. I asked both of the kids who they were and why they were acting this way, but one of them just shrugged and admitted that they simply just didn't know, which I found very odd. The
student and I attempted to ignore them, but the CVS employees and concerned parents and teachers had to intervene. I stepped outside to call the police and provided them with a description of the children involved. After the incident was reported to Thomas Jefferson Middle
School, juvenile detective Miss Mercedes from the Fairon Police Department contacted one of the students mothers. Then juvenile detective Miss Mercedes contacted my mom suggesting a meeting with the other child's mother at a public place such as McDonald's to discuss the situation. The eighth grader
from TJ claimed that the eighth grader from TJ claimed that the student standing on the back of my scooter had threatened to jump them while I was preoccupied with my headphones, which had explained everything. I uncovered this shortly after the watch incident, which only intensified the situation.
That's when my mom and I agreed that it was time to end his friendship and to not rethink it. I was on board with that decision, but I also had felt deeply betrayed because I always been loyal to him, but I but it seemed like he was just trying to set me up instead and tr
and breaking my trust with others. Meanwhile, he didn't seem too happy about the situation, but I just focused on my own life. I also didn't want those type of people around me since he would try hurting my life instead of motivating it. A month later, on Monday, March 10th, the student was upset that I no longer wanted to be his friend. So,
he began hurling insults at me at Berdan Grove Park. I ignored him since I was too busy hanging out with my friends and focused on enjoying my day and taking a break from reality rather than paying to a time waster. Then, shortly after, one of the kids mentioned that the students
that the student dared to ask him how to fight a skinny kid, referring to me, which only made my break any better. But I still managed to ignore him. With my mom at work about a half hour away and my grandmother at home, I felt uncertain
about what what to do. So, I kept ignoring him, hoping for the best. But then he started approaching me. I was getting ready to leave because I didn't want to engage with any combat. Please note, I have a three warning rule when someone touches me that my mother has
taught me. Warning one is a verbal warning. Warning two is another verbal warning. And warning three is the last strike. At that point, I played defense rather than the offense. First, he pushed me, indicating warning one. Then, he pushed me again, indicating warning
two. The last strike was him punching me on my left shoulder, which was warning three. He bodys slammed me onto the ground, bashing my head against the hard concrete floor of the basketball court. I then proceeded to put me in a choke hold, which which left me gasping for
air. Finally, he let go and I was able to breathe again. Cororal Eva Fairon. Unfortunately, the responsibility lies with the adults, not the children. It is of the adults responsibility to ensure that our children are protected and it also your
responsibility as a board. I've been at this meeting where you did not protect my child. At this point, you decide to ignore me. So, I'm going to say it straight up. Miss Mahan, at one of the publicly recorded meetings, you decided to name my child
his first and last name. Attorney to your you could tell you that is illegal. You broke the law. You named my son's name, which you know what, at this point, I blame the board for all of the bullying that's going on because I do not know who's watching these videos. I
do not know what is going on because at the end of the day for all I know you are directing the administrator in school to you know at their own discretion as a board president you should have reached out and said you know what I made a mistake I made a slip
you called my minor's child at the public recorded who is watching this video how many people watch that video not the point I also did an open public record um recently you buried me in 10 gigs of data. Great. Um, my child's
information is wide open. Who else did you provide that information to? My child's first and last name is right there for everybody to see. That is not protecting my child's identity. I with even that, how are you protecting our children while they're in school? Am I
sending my child to school tomorrow so he could get attacked? Because I don't know what's going on in these schools at this point. This is not the town that I grew up here. I graduated. I went to this school. I got a great education. I did not feel threatened. I'm terrified
for my child. I'm terrified for Dimmitri and every other child. And I don't see you doing anything. You're talking about things that at this point doesn't matter. Why don't you talk about things that will help our children? Our childrens are terrified. Dimmitri is not the first person. Yes, there are parents
maybe they're afraid to file charges because I know of a lot of parents who come up with concussion, broken teeth, and you did absolutely nothing. The administrator on TJ does absolutely nothing. Oh, it happened after school. It happened on school grounds. I sat through those meetings. I know you heard
about this yet nothing was done about it. The child was suspended that was attacked. Congratulations. I think you're failing our children. And I'm going to keep on repeating it. What will take you to make an actual change? Are you waiting for class action suits? What are you waiting for to make a change?
Our children are scared to be in those schools. those schools become I don't know what's happening to these schools. It's not the school that I was in. It's not the school that I don't know at the end of the day every single not day I wake up and think do I send my child to
school because first of all you cannot protect a child who's allergic on contact because you are teaching them responsibility. My child is eating food in an auditorium that Mr. Weaver decided to children who were vomited from the
thing. So Demetri, I um apologize, but we do put a cap on six minutes for our commentary per person who speaks. Um, information board president. Uh, may may
we uh um give a courtesy a special consideration courtesy to give them um uh three minutes each to the the kind mother and the young the young man. Just three minute more each so they can
conclude their remarks. Per policy. You would have to make a motion. Make a motion to grant them three final minutes to each second. Open the floor for discussion. I'm sorry. Can you
repeat them, Granton? Just three minutes each so you can finish finish their remarks. I don't know their last the full name. Demetri Figuro. I just need it for the record. Mute your
figures. Miss Coral as well. Correct. Okay. Yes. As as noted, just a as a courtesy to them. Thank you. Okay. Uh, it's a motion to grant five
additional minutes for three each. Oh, three each. Sorry. Additional minutes each for Dimmitri Figureroa and Anna. I'm sorry. I don't want to misspell your name. K H O M U
K. Oh, thank you. Open for discussion. Roll call. Dr. Berlini. Yes. Miss Brown. Yes. Mr. Kalia. Yes.
Miss Favllovich. Yes. Miss Casoy. Yes. Mr. Santana. Yes. Miss Yerman. Yes. Mrs. Maym. Yes. Mr. Bodovski? Yes. Motion passes.
All right. Thank you. Um, so since I have only have three minutes now and I won't be able to finish this, I do want to What's your name again, ma'am? Miss Milan. Um, I also do want to uh mention how um I was doing my research
this weekend and I do notice that naming uh a child a minor's first name and last name under 13 is breaking FURPA um privacy laws. um which is a federal law to protect student privacy. And um
regarding that fact, I also do want to add how um the principal at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, Michael Weaver, um while I was having a private conversation with him, he recorded me um breaking FURPA discuss names of staff members. All
right, sounds good. So, the principal at Tom Shepson Middle School um broke uh FURPA, COPA, and New Jersey wiretape law. Uh meaning parents must provide consent for recording. Uh because while I was having a private conversation with
him, um he decided to try utilizing the one consent uh the one party consent law. and uh minors under 13 must have a parent or a guardian um sign uh permission for them to utilize that. And
it's troubling to see how administration seems to bypass these laws and policies, acting how they're above the law. And um I also do find it kind of rude how um a few board members were smiling um while we're speaking about this, showing no
care nor respect for students nor anyone um who's struggling with this. And um I also want to start with Alexander Atran's comment word for word. Um my son has been bullied by an athicare counselor at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Feron, New Jersey for months.
Multiple complaints and ultimately an HIV report were submitted to the school administration and the board of ed. Although they agreed there was a problem, the person still employed in the school district and no action um was taken to stop the bullying. It became worse now as the counselor now added
relatory reaction to a regular bullying practice which I find kind of interesting. um how there's other parents, multiple actually, reaching out to my mother as well, who encountered the same situation
of first something happening and then the school just to go file HIV or go elsewhere, basically leaving the parents to go fight for themsel, which I find kind of funny as um I also want to add how Miss Kelly, the reading and writing
teacher in Tom Chefson Middle School, I'm going to ask you not to name names. Thank you. All right. I'm uh I also want to mention how uh a reading and writing teacher also yelled out my uh grading class at a D at the time uh breaking fur federal law um that protects students
privacy as well. And uh when she uh announced it, everyone started laughing. And once my mom inquired about it uh through email, she's basically calling me a liar. Thank you. Have a good rest of your night. allowing us to be able to finish and the
rest of the board meters, board um folks that uh voted yes. Um board of education committee, let's lead by example. The world may have grown cold, but that doesn't mean that we have to. We have the power to choose
compassion to show our kids that empathy still exists. The world may have gone cold, but that doesn't mean that we have to freeze with it. We still have a choice to care, to fight, to protect. Our kids are looking to us for hope in a system that that keeps letting them
down. Parents, too. We'll be the first. We'll be the fire that that breaks through the silence. And we won't stop burning until every child is protected by parents, school, community. Not not next year, not someday, now because waiting costs lives, and
we've already lost so much. We need school clubs, assemblies, peer mentorships, emotional safety nets. We need we need compassion structure and faith, not just in religion, but in but in each other. Faith in doing what's
right. Faith in our kids. You can't you can't claim to to honor diversity while turning a blind eye to division. You can't preach zero tolerance and deliver zero action. Fairon can be the town that leads change. Let it be the let it be
the place where we draw the line not anger but injustice. I don't want this paint to follow my son to memorial. I want I want this transfer to be a fresh start not just for him but for this entire community. I found the strength to to forgive how how this how this
district uh failed me as a child here. But I will never forgive how it's breaking my son and countless others today. Our lives begin to end to end the day we become silent about things that matter by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I don't know if any of you live in
Fairland, but if you check the the Fair Moms and Dads group, you'll see how many parents are crying out about their own their own stories. This isn't just about my son. This is a communitywide wound. So hear me, not just as a mother, but of
a voice of justice. If my words make you feel uncomfortable or angry, I am sorry. I'm so sorry for whoever hurt you. But pain should never be our our normal. This cycle has gone on for decades and it needs to end and it needs to end now.
As adults, we forget what it's like to be a child. When I was told by the school um member, Dmitri acts like a class as a class clown. How can he be afraid to be in school? I responded, "Do you remember Robin Williams? He brought joy with laughter, but inside he was in
pain. He masters trauma by by making others smile. You can't judge a a child's fear based on how they act. Everyone copes differently. I've told my son, never show weakness to other kids. They can be cruel, but always show a vulnerability to adults because adults are supposed to
listen. Okay, the floor is closed. We have a regular monthly meeting at the Eugene MBA public meeting room, room 19 in Edison School on June 26th at 7:30 p.m. We have a regular monthly meeting for July. On July 24th, 2025 at Edison
School, Eugene Mbanta public meeting room, room 19. And then we have our August meeting. August 28th is the regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. at Eugene and Bant public meeting room. Can I get a motion to recess into close? So
moved. Second. There will be no board action. Can I get a motion? Second. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Thank you so much. Yes. take a five minute break and then we'll meet back in the room that we
were in earlier for closed. With all due respect, I did not I did not read this just to tell you a story or talk you in at night. I'm really desperately asking you guys for help to
make change the system. My son is suffering. I had to pull him out of TJ. I'm trying to find a psychiatrist to be able to evaluate him so he can be um for the remainder of the time for him to be
homeschooled. I'm I'm for you. So uh I'd like to say thank for speaking tonight. Um as as stated earlier this evening the board
administration is prohibited from speaking about staff matters in public. We do have process processes in place communication. I encourage you to continue to follow up to be able to schedule that time to be able to address
your concerns privately through the appropriate channels. I do need to [Music] um open back up for board comment. That's it. This is not this is not an
attack. I I don't know if you guys are parents. Unfortunately, unfortunately, just like Dr. said, we can't comment on personnel and on specific student situations. You have to defer back to Dr. Dianio and he and he will provide a
time and space for that. I also, as noted, we can't public comments are closed and then we can't have a back and forth. This is not the time or the place. I do understand where you're coming from. That being said, this is not the time or the place for that. So, I am going to ask that both um Dr.
Berlini and Miss Brown um pull back their motions so that I can open back the floor for board comments. Sure. Okay. I am going to open the floor for board comment. Seeing none, I'm closing the floor.
Um, can I get a motion to go into closed? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Five minute break. I have to wake up in five hours. I need to get up at the Lord.