will you lead us in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the New Jersey open public meetings law
is enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the act the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published on January 10th 2025 and posted on the
district website at www.fle.com published in the board's designated online media outlet newspapers the record of the star ledger filed with the clerk of the bur le and mailed to all persons if any who have requested notice please be advised this meeting is being recorded and may be
broadcasted on local TV and online at a future date public meeting act allows for remote participation at board meetings and it defines meeting as any gathering whether corporal or by means of communication equipment which is attended by or to all of the members of the public body held with the intent on the part of the members of the bodies
present to discuss or access unit upon the specific public goodness of that body roll call please here curry here miss Cotang here mr lopez Mr vino here
Reco here the board will be convening to executive session to discuss legal personnel and other confidential matters the board will reconvene to public session at approximately 7:30 p.m i have a motion to go into executive session
motion Curry second col all in favor any opposed ready 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 the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies in which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the
act before the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published on January 10 2025 and posted on the district website at www.flu.com lb.com published in the board's designated online media outlet newspaper the record of star ledger file clerk at
the burly and all persons if any who have requested said notice advisor this meeting is being recorded and may be broadcasted on mobile TV and online at a future date the open public meeting act allows for remote participation at board meetings and defines meeting as any gathering whetheral or by means of
communication equipment which is attended by or open to all of the members of a public body held with the intent on the part of the members The body present is assess or act of a unit upon the specific public visit of that body roll call please
miss Bars K here here m curry here mr knight here motang here mr lopez here miss Morell Mr lino here
and Miss Rtor here the board convened the executive session at 6:30 p.m to discuss legal personnel and other confidential matters dr travis will you begin by sharing the superintendent report yes good evening thank you for joining us this evening we are happy to announce that we have our open house for
all we have 85 RSVPs coming tomorrow for our first open house at Tom Hunter Road which is about 47 students that we're looking at who will be attending tomorrow hopefully they'll all be attending preschool building uh we have 31 parents who have signed up for our
adult ESL program this is the second year of the program thank you to Miss Kyaso who has been putting this together it's a great thing when we have our our parents coming and learning in our buildings we also have happy happy to update that our vocational trades building is being finished and within the next two weeks will be complete
minus of course a little bit of tables and the students but once again this is a great opportunity for our students we will be working with Eastwick College if you are not aware or haven't heard students who enter and complete our 4-year program will be awarded a scholarship at Easter College for a portion of their additional year tuition
at the end of the additional year students will have the apprenticeship license this is a great opportunity for students who want to study electrical building management and plumbing um for this meeting we do have three HIV two were unfounded and one was founded and I
am assuming that we do not have any high school students who attended this evening so that's it happy spring everybody thank you do we have any committee reports yeah the finance committee met on
Tuesday on March 18th to discuss the desire to put forth an RF for our banking services that approval is on the um agenda for this evening uh under 13F thank you
are there any committee reports do board members have questions or comments on tonight's agenda or any other topic i have a question so a question about clarity we're we're approving a um an
open bid basically we're not approving anything to to to take action just allowing the business administrator to put a request for proposals for banking got it thank you which I'm sure Ke was going to be asking about later and that is I see it's about
a bus contract and I'm wondering if the tracking is I looked at the contract I didn't see anything specifically about tracking I know that's something that the public's concerned about wondering if that's thank [Music] you this is for
the be from July to August even though it's the uh 2025 to 2026 school year we have different plans planned to have tracking uh in place for the first day of school in September but this is for
the ESY and this is also south can provide us a backup bus if needed or if needed so AP we have uh six period stipens um when we migrate to a block schedule will
we still have those six period stipens or will all of those go away can I answer that we've run some block schedules so we're we're working on it we would probably our goal is to reduce some six period stipens but I can't guarantee that right now we don't have all the information and and um I meant
to ask on our budget presentation is there any any money in there dedicated to moving over to a new schedule so in in the cost right now associated with immediate cost is through the cafeteria fund to make some expansion
and some address some needs for furniture for the cafeteria as well as other areas of the school and some warming stations and and serving stations throughout the building um other than that you don't see specific costs associated with that and we like I
said we've run some sample schedules through Genesis so I'm not sure if staffing these will change that much and then one last one under 15F we're going out to bid on the afterare program that's correct is that just routine to see what's out in the marketplace or is
there an issue no we want to see what's out there in the marketplace another one of the things we look at also is the quality of the programs as well as what return the district can get and how it can assist with all the students and all of the needs of our students so we like to see what every other program has
districts do every two to three years 6f and 7F how would those two contract if it wasn't company contract the um South Bur does transportation related to the
wheelchair and specifically the smaller vehicles the northern region does the H54 passenger buses and normally we use them field trips and some athletics um and we use them right now for one other
route um going to um themies that's the only route that they have everything else related to the Northern Valley is for field trips and athletics and that's unchanged from our current arrangement correct that we only call them if our
current drivers are available this year we Yeah this year this year we Yeah this got um AF this is only when one of our own buses work for example correct correct that are if that is something to shop how are
they able to do it at $150 a day an hour's average $750 if you divide it by 365 days and 10 times if you divide it by 180 because our budget in our budget last week each bus is about
$275,000 how are they able to do it at $150 they they're only charging that price for the cost of the vehicle we still have to provide the labor we still have to provide the fuel gotcha um and then we still have to provide the tolls
or anything else we have oh that is okay that makes a lot of sense um 3c is that an annual professional development that we provide to our district is that for the supervisors or for the teachers no that's for teachers
um in our upper elementary intermediate grades to provide teachers with uh professional development on how to service the needs of students that may need additional um help with foundational literacy skills so this is one time as of right now I mean we would
like to provide the professional development again next year but for a different group of teachers thank you how many teacher do we provide for this round um this is for fifth fifth and sixth grade over the
course of several days all fifth and sixth grade anybody that is responsible for English instruction thank you i wanted to give an update for building and grounds um I'm the building and grounds chairperson and we had scheduled
a building and grounds meeting but we're going to reschedu it because we're waiting for the long range facility plan to come out so I didn't want uh anyone in the public to think that we weren't meeting as a building and grounds committee i know that um building and grounds is very important and there's
always a lot of questions about updating our facilities and what we're going to do so it's not that we're not looking into it it's just we're waiting for information so that we can move forward with having a meeting to talk about it thank you and I also wanted to say u
thank you to um the theater department for an amazing written production it was incredible um tearful amazing production the students that that worked on it the faculty it was enjoyed by so many friday
night was a packed house i don't even think there was an empty seat anywhere um it was was fantastic so thank you thank you anyone else have questions or comments okay may I have a motion to open the
floor to the public motion second motion second knight all in favor i any opposed or abstensions okay we will hear first from members of the public that are physically located in the captor then we will take questions or comments from those participating remotely
participants are limited to three minutes in which to make their statement for remote participants please select the raise hand button mr roger will recognize each community member in the order of raised hands please unmute your microphone everyone please state your name and home address for the record and
begin your comments anyone here in person wishes to speak good evening my name is Rebecca my name is Josh and Good evening my name is Rebecca in the job today and I live on Westview Place
for Lee and we both attends um LFCMS and firstly I'd like to say thank you to the board of education for your time and dedication to our schools raising the cost of school busing will create serious safety risks and negatively impact students education
currently around 250 out of 1,600 total students rely on the bus in both the in the intermediate school and middle school which is about 16% of the student body as a bus student myself I know firsthand how essential the service is for getting to school safety and on time
if busing becomes too expensive many of these students would be forced to walk to school if their parents cannot drive them even through dangerous weather or along the busy streets putting them at risk of accidents or harm this risk is even greater because our community is
near the George Washington Bridge when heavy traffic and rush hour congestion create dangerous condition pedestrians additionally students who have to wake up earlier to walk long distances such as those who live in the Quicksville area will arrive at school already exhausted making it harder to focus and
perform well in class to ensure students safety and academic success I strongly suggest that the board of education should keep busing and make stuff very modern thank you again for your time and consideration and as we breathe
again thank you uh good evening keith Goslin 2185 Flam Moy Avenue thought that was going to fall over um um president of the CPAG uh special education parents advisory group and I just have a few things and forgive
me I'm going to flip from a few screens um so for the next meeting I'm sorry about the flashlight um for the next meeting on April 9th we have um Carrie Magro and I don't know if anybody knows who he is i
know some people do um we're pretty excited he's like the Michael Jordan of disability and special needs advocacy and what makes him special is he was nonverbal himself now he's a national best-selling author um he does social marketing for Autism Speaks and um he
does a lot of speaking during the month of April and he's coming to our CPAG meeting and he has also agreed to allow us to record it so we're going to make it a webinar so we can be presentable to others who want to see it in the future and learn all about him and hope I mean
how he's overcome stuff um and I've watched a lot of his videos on TikTok and he's pretty amazing and uh very inspired um so the next CPAC meeting is April 9th and Andrew I'm sure we'll mention it again he's on Zoom when I see him so that's great um we just wanted to
also talk the the meeting before this last one and this one are for CPAG kind of started taking on a board of ed type atmosphere and we kind of don't want that parents come to our CPAC meetings for a safe space so we just ask guests
that come to kind of respect that safe space um like we don't need to be lectured about food and us causing our kids autism we're really not into that that's not why we go to these meetings so we want everybody to be respectful of that stuff
um thanks for the bus tracking thank you evening everyone my name is Freedy and I live at 429 Northern Avenue um I'm here today to share the sentiments expressed by several members of the Seback community as many of you know I
lead a support group for our district called Friends of Diverse Learners and recently I've received a significant amount of feedback regarding the direction of our CPAT meetings and I wanted to address that today in our community of over 800 families only a handful of parents actually come and
voice their concerns publicly however many others attend these meetings with the intent to find solutions raise concerns directly or privately that help shape our school community we deeply value fostering an environment where every voice is heard and information is
exchanged respectfully and that's why we ensure that every meeting has a clear agenda we kindly ask parents that who do not have children with an IEP for a 504 plan or who are not currently part of our district to refrain from sharing
their comments that deviate from the purpose of that meeting instead we encourage you to communicate your thoughts perspectives directly with our leadership team who can include them in our future discussions as all voices are important separately we have a board of
board of ed who's responsible to relay feedback to about our meetings to the board as our meetings are limited to just one hour each month we ask for your understanding and cooperation in helping us use this time as constructively as possible to best support our district's
children thank you for your question jason hello Michelle Perez i live at 555 North Avenue wrong page that's not really going to help me with my time is it last week some of you insisted that a public retreat video be posted online that something may have been hidden from
the public because videos are always made available right away since there hasn't been a retreat since May 20th 2018 it's been a while and it wasn't reported at the time and nothing can be hidden even if it wasn't posted because at least one of you keeps trumping the district by leaking that information to
Facebook before the district makes contact through official avenues as a mom with two kids in our schools I now better understand your individual priorities and how Matley the expert from New Jersey School Board Association explained how a school board is expected to run here's what I learned state
standards are not debatable by this board state legislative decisions are not debatable by this board your customers are our students the ultimate goal is to improve student outcomes this board is not in charge of the school district dr kavitz is follow the chain
of command always for social media don't answer school district related questions from parents and the public on Facebook that breaks the chain of command it makes the public think this board is above the administration which isn't true and it sells the reputation of our schools and teachers which ultimately
hurts our students and everyone views each of you as an official voice from the district since you are board members even with a disclaimer the perception is reality public board meetings should be pretty straightforward the main intention is to pass the agenda i also learned that Dr kravitz and Mrs baker
are doing their very best even though the central office is understaffed mrs baker is a variable expert in standards mandates and curriculum her patience and professionalism is unmatched when confronted with the same questions repeatedly even when her expertise goes
ignored i have a funny story to share i was talking to a cousin of mine he's a Navy vet ex-volunteer fireman and recently retired New Jersey cop he's what you call good people our politics don't usually match up but we do like each other so when he asked recently how things are in our schools I told him
about political influence in curriculum and policy arguments and the overall tenor of the positives and complaints among parents i mentioned Dr kravit's strategic changes like introducing the teaching academy and particularly the vocational trades academy at this point he got very animated and exclaimed "He's
the guy you have the guy he gets it he's exactly what you should have he understands academics and the real world he's looking to the future everyone on that board should get behind him i have to agree with my husband so thank you to Dr kravitz Mrs baker and the rest of the
administration for doing their best in light of many challenges i have a lot more topics to comment on from the board retreat video aren't you so glad you've insisted on making it public but tonight I'll end with this thank you to those of you here who do your job well and respect the boundaries
in the chain of command and to all of our teachers and staff I appreciate you thank you for t Thank you is there anyone else here who would like to speak okay Mr garro you're up
nancy excuse me nancy you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes hi everyone my name is Nancy Hatter and I live on Lynwood Avenue i'm here to
reiterate what Keith and my f fellow special needs parents have been feeling i've attended CPAG meetings since last year when it was just the same eight parents we shared our stories our concerns our ideas in a way that has
always been respectful our main goal is to come together as parents as a village and community to improve the lives and educations of our children not once have I ever felt uncomfortable
frustrated or sad things have changed the last few CPAD meetings the atmosphere is no longer a safe space for parents i have watched Monica and other members get attacked and I won't stand for it i will not allow my safe space to
become as hostile as the board of education meetings what was once our little support system has become tarnished a special needs parent has enough to worry about we do not need the added stress i have no problem with the community attending however I do have a
problem with people ruining what has been built for parents of active students i am pleading with you all to reiterate that non- voting CPAD members or board of ed members speak to the leadership team directly if they have any issues and not take away the one
hour a month that we have to address ours thank you leonid you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes
hi it's going to be very quick so um what you just need your name and address for the record so uh we need 458 West Place 14 uh there was um a lice outbreak small lice outbreak in middle
school and uh my concern is that the parents were not informed what is the policy i believe when you have such things parents should be informed thank you thank you Dr sure there was a few
students that we did lice tracking and we were identifying where the source was it was a sleepover from my understanding and we identified the the few students who pay lights we were able to detain within the first two hours that we were told and were aware of it so the nurse
did all the protocols that are listed in our policy manual in our reg in our regulations we identified the individual did the tracking of it and determined where it came from and all those who were affected those parents were notified immediately
andrew you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes hi good evening my name is Andrew Gumman 326 Bridge Plaza
North i am the vice president of the special ed parents parents advisory group um I just want to first of all thank uh everybody so last Wednesday we had our special ed parents advisory group meeting um I'd just like to
publicly thank uh Rachel Healey she is the teacher of the 18 to 21 year old program over at Tom Tom Hun Hunter Road she gave a overview of the program and we also showed the uh ribbon cutting
ceremony that was held earlier this school year so I want to thank everyone for making that happen we was very very well shared we're able to get the information out to everyone also on the agenda tonight it's
4C so I'm very very excited about that because Dr carrie Margot is a motivational speaker he was uh has a he has autism and for those you don't know April is autismware autism awareness
month for the month of April so we are very very excited that we're able to arrange him to come virtually the meeting will be on zoom so I am encouraging all the board of education members to please vote yes on
4C in addition we do have our upcoming elections coming up for the special parents advisory group nominations are still open until the end of May thank you all and again thank you for all for getting this great great uh guest
speaker so please vote yes on 4CR thank you thank you Jeff Katso you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address
for the record you have three minutes hi um good evening Steph Cotto 281 Damont Road i just wanted to ask two questions one is there were names last week on the
agenda of teachers that were being moved or leaving and they were written like XX52 or XX49 i have to go and see hold on i have it here just so I can be specific i was
wondering why it was done that way and also um XX24 and XX94 I don't know exactly why a teacher would be named that way if there's any
reason behind that and also with the meeting I was wondering what is going on it says that we are getting an extra school bus so I wasn't clear about that also uh a leasing rate of $150 for the
calendar year 2025 to 2026 that's it questions uh as far as the XXS that is it's personnel matter and we do that in some cases and as far as the school bus what's on the agenda is that we will be
um we have the we are signing an agreement with the only public schools that if we do need a school bus we'll have access to one that is just the bus itself and we will use one of our drivers who will be driving the bus thank you m you've been promoted to panelist
please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes uh hi Mihal Konesco 254 Tom Hunter Road so I have a question about u the
presentation that we were given for the uh Savas curriculum so somebody from the company demoed their online platform and it was communicated that kids actually spent time and uh spent quite a lot of
time online uh doing reading or having the platform read back to them and uh going through the book that way uh based on the demo one problem that we saw was that the voice is fully robotic i mean it's like
you you you're listening to something from 95 that has zero tonality and um I'm not sure how that one plays with kids with special needs in particular now the other question that I have if the overemphasizes is to
use this platform where each and every kid goes on the computer for stuff they don't understand they click a button computer reads back to them how would that compensate with them learning how to write responses and such that was another point that wasn't addressed i
mean what's expected for a first grader to write back as a response so that's kind of the questions that I had about that curriculum presentation thank you hi good evening so while our programs
typically come with a readalong feature most of them do these days that doesn't necessarily mean that that's the primary way in which the instruction is delivered in the classroom that's just another um I guess support that the teacher can utilize if needed uh so
while that was part of the presentation it's not necessarily um it's not necessarily you know our assumption that the teacher will rely on that um most of the time our teachers typically teach directed instruction particularly when the content is new in
the classroom there are no more raised hands i have a motion to close the floor to the public motion second motion Curry second pullback all in favor any opposed or abstensions okay moving to resolutions may I have a motion to approve items 1B
through 3B motion second active lotion potenti yes I abstain from my name on 3B noted Miss Hobb yes Miss Curry yes yes and I abstain from my name on 3B
as well mr knight yes and get abain on my [Music] name Scott yes and I abstain my name on three mr lopez yes and I say my name on
three mr mr and yes I stand for my name on 3B motion passes i have a motion to approve items one cur through 5 C motion second motion second uh second by K sorry roll
call please miss Bars K yes miss Goldath yes and a big yes to 4C looking forward to hearing Dr margar April 9th
miss Curry yes mr knight yes miss Kang yes mr lopez yes and same excited to hear what uh about the port Dr noted and Miss Rtor
yes may I have a motion to approve items 1 F through 17F motion second motion curry second potang roll call please miss Byers Kang yes miss Colbeath yes
miss Curry yes mr knight yes miss Coang yes mr lopez yes and Miss Rford yes may I have a motion to approve items 1 P through 8P
motion second motion curry second potang roll call please miss Kang yes miss yes miss Curry yes mr knight yes miss Coang yes mr lopez
yes coming virtually yes okay moving on is there any old business any new business yes great uh first of all I wanted to mention the virtual math night which I thought was very helpful as far as uh
informing parents about platforms that are available um I was however a bit disappointed that the methodology was explained uh and I'm hoping that um some subsequent uh programs can be offered that might coach the parents sort of how to do the homework more that's u sort of
like a assisting parents in getting homework with kids i think that's something that could be helpful um and then the other thing I wanted to mention was had the opportunity of checking Brent out on Friday um you know everyone here knows what a prude I am and you know I kind of walked in there with some concerns about the the subject matter
but I just wanted to say that was absolutely one way i mean these kids they put their hearts and their souls and all their might into the show uh it was high energy show that lasted hours and they didn't they didn't slow down for even a second um I was so moved by these kids and uh they kind of made me
realize that maybe maybe we're not prepared to discuss some of these things and they might be so I just want to share that thank you it's not necessarily related to uh board of ed but I do want to give a huge shout out to everyone involved in the
fully girls basketball recite um you know the the theme for women's history month this year is moving forward together and this past Saturday we had a celebration closing ceremonies for all the divisions um and it was wonderful to see the community come together and celebrate these young ladies who've been
working really hard all season um we saw some surprises in our rec program and then our travel division went out there and won three championships uh this past week and over the past 12 months we brought home 12 championship I'm sorry excuse me exaggerated six championships
to Fort and I think it's uh testament to the hard work that these young ladies have put uh uh into basketball and the hard work and commitment that the coaches have um place in the program so thank you all
one last thing I just wanted to mention is that um block scheduling um the the district will be hosting a breakfast for businesses uh to deal with block scheduling uh to help them prepare for block scheduling and discuss some of the challenges that might uh they might face
and some of the opportunities as well um as far as I know that's happening at 9:00 a.m at the media center in the high school is that correct i believe so yes go ahead thank you just want to let the local businesses know about that thank you go ahead uh I I just want to request
a policy committee meeting to look at any updates that you've received from Strauss Esme um I'd like to discuss a cell phone policy there's going to be something coming out of Trenton that's going to require um us to have some policy in place and um like to try to
get out in front of that um we've had a lot of questions and confusion i'm not sure it's it's legitimate but with our excused absences policy and I know we've spent a lot of time on that and so I'd like to revisit that to see if there might be some fine tuning that would
make it more uh unambiguous um for the community and then if anyone has any other policies that they think we should be reviewing we're happy to take them up whenever we get the meeting scheduled thanks um I just want to wish safe travels to
the varsity softball and baseball fans who are leaving for spring training and thank you to all their coaches who are taking that test ongoing with them uh anything else um I just wanted to thank u Miss Baker um Mr petar and the
district staff for supervisor for being open to parent feedback um it is precisely this type of collaboration that give parents confidence and for you to hear from them what their concerns
are so thank you so much for that preparation um there were over 100 parents I believe who signed on and and my presentation is also available um on our website so thank you um I want to
also thank um Miss Madame Petra her crew her performers theater has I was never a theater kids but it was clear to me for those who are involved with theater that it provide them with a safe space a
place where they can feel they feel they belong that they belong there so thank you so much for creating that space and and and and that show was just over the top um lastly I want to thank Miss Stevenson for working with our students
we had three middle school students who are accepted to the all state orchestra last weekend um so it's an incredible incredible honor um this is these are 45 kids who who are now at the state
level all around the state of New Jersey so thank you so much i attended the math that was it canvas was the name of the company seventh um and so just in the future um maybe that we can make it a little bit more robust
I was a little disappointed because there was no opportunity during the presentation for a parent to put a question in the chat or to ask a question really I start to put a parent in the chat parents put questions in the chat and Mr was actually answering
replying to them okay like out loud he was he you know he was actually responding in the chat okay i don't know i tried to put something in maybe it was too early because I I was actually the first person to sign in um and and I'm
just curious i know we go in like fiveyear I think curriculum cycles yes and so that was very helpful even though I'm not signing on and I don't have the three workbooks and the clever and and all of those things but there was definitely tons of resources you know to
to navigate the math um when are we up though if we wanted to you know I think one of the things is the parents don't like the the the method by which you teach that resources are there they just can't figure out how to do a worksheet with their with their fourth grader so
when when is that timely coming up where you will be looking at either changing or staying with the current um system or or company that we're using i believe we have a six-year license but I have to check that how far are we into it do you
know this is our year one oh this is year one well that's probably part Yeah I have to check that at this point we have so many programs that I have to see where where we are but we are as was stated when we met in our curriculum committee meeting the teachers are
sending home at the start of every unit a family um engagement packet which walks parents through step by step the lesson and the unit sometimes it's hard to tweak the methodology because that
methodology is based on a specific standard and that's why in one of the um updates I gave you one sample of of a question that appears on the practice at JSLA for third grade um so while there
may be some instances where methods can be tweaked if a particular math standard calls for a topic to be taught in a certain way and that topic has to be taught in that way but along the way over the 5year cycle we can make tweaks that the more familiar we become with
the resource may I have a motion to adjurnn motion second motion Kobach second Curry all in favor any oppose okay thank you everyone