Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Law was 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 interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of the act, the Fortle board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published on January 10th, 2025 and
posted on the district website at www.flbbo.com, published in the board's designated online media outlet newspapers, the record in the star ledger, filed with the clerk of the burough of Fort Lee and mailed to all persons of any who have requested said notice. Please be advised, this meeting
is being recorded and may be broadcasted on local 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 whether corporal 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 of the body present to discuss or act as a unit on the specific public business of that body. Roll call please. Miss Kang present. Miss Kovac here. Miss Curry
here. Mr. tonight. Miss Coten here. Mr. Lopez here. Miss Barrell here. Mr. Rubino. Mr. What? I'm sorry. Yes. Here. Mr.
Confused with the P. The board will be convening to executive session to discuss legal personnel and other confidential matters. The board will reconvene into public session at approximately 7:30 p.m. May I have a motion to go into executive session? Motion. Motion Morell. Second, Rabbino.
All in favor? Any opposed? To the flag of the United States of America and to the 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 to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of the act, the forly board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be
published on January 10th, 2025 and posted on the district website at www.floe.com, published in the board's designated online media outlet newspaper, the record in the Star Ledger, filed with the clerk of the Burough Fort Lee, and mailed to all persons of any who have requested said
notice. Please be advised, this meeting is being recorded and may be broadcasted on local 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 whether caporeal 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 of the body present to discuss or act as a unit upon the specific public business of that body. Roll call please. Buyers K here. Miss Kath here. Miss Curry here.
Mr. Knight here. Mr. Coten here. Mr. Lopez here. Miss Morell here. Mr. Rino here. Miss Rtor here. The board convened executive session at 6:30 p.m. to discuss legal
personnel and other confidential matters. Dr. Kravitz, will you begin by sharing the superintendent report? Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us in person and also online. Uh tonight we have a very special presentation, so keep my report a little short. Um, just to announce our usual, we have three HI
and two were founded and we have two students from our high school, Jessica Hong and Isabel Lyn. We'll talk about what's happening in our high school. Yes. Our incredible robotics team was finished at AIS Institute for
Practical Robotics Regional Competition. From precision, passionate. Our students welcome the judges with detailed documentation delivered a dynamic presentation basically engineered program that it brings with phenomenal achievement
services. On Tuesday, May 20th, the FLHS environmental National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook where members assisted park rangers and volunteers in the beach cleanup. Students learned about the natural history of the area and the life cycle of the many portion
inhabit. On May 20th, students and grades 10 participated in chemistry Olympics at NJ. The competition is open to students who participate or currently enrolled in chemistry pointers or AP chemistry. This year's theme was the
chemistry of the plastic. Participants conducted research on how microplastics impact the environment. They also completed lab including determining the percentage of being and building microscopes to detect microplastics
and our students competed against 14 other high schools within. It was an invention experiment where students had great time launch. On Saturday, May 31st is the Fort Le police defeated Fort Le faculty and second annual FP versus
Fortley High School charity softball. June 4th with nursing prom. Also on Wednesday, June 4th, the police, the Fort Police, and the staff club will host a drum driving presentation for the senior class. The presentation will include a reenactment, guest speakers,
and other activities. The boys and girls statu competed in the NJSIA North one group three state championship in May. Senior Jaylen and junior Frankie Vero were crowned state sectional champions in the
long jump and high jump respectively. Jaylen's incredible job is not only a new school record but also a neat benefit of the state. The girls 4x 100 consisting of senior Alexi Castro, junior Ellis Marcus, and sophomores um
Maddie Eastman and Malia also broke astanding Whartley school record. Four athletes moved to the next round of the state tournament. Jaylen Bweno, Frankie Vera, Amayor, and Asa.
The prestigious Burken County Wing of Champions is truly the show this event of the most needy athlete in Berkeley County. Congratulations to Jam Trayor, Dmitri Bman, John Walsh, Frankie Perta, Asa, and Christian for
qualifying for this game. Several of our athletes placed, but James Long earned him the honor of being named Bergen County an incredible feat. Boys golf, boys tennis, baseball, and boys and girls have for big North Conference
American Division Championship teams. 26 sportly student athletes earned first team all league honors and three earned all Bergen County honors. And congratulations to baseball coach Peter Project and being voted Bergen County coach of the year.
Thank you for your comments. Wonderful. Appreciate it. Now we'd like to shift to our strategic planning. Um so thank you. I'm going to introduce TLD group who will give them about in a minute to set up. We have three representatives tonight uh who will be presenting the
strategic plan and what that means. Uh we'll do a state of the school address so you'll see all of that in about one minutes. And I appreciate if everyone could prepare themselves with the cell phone because you will have a QR code where you can participate. It does not work. Okay. It does not work. I would just say I'm so sorry. I was trying to
do it but it does not work. We'll try it tonight. See if it works. Okay. It's help. Right. Okay. So, I turn to Michelle from TL Group. Thank you and it's a pleasure to be here just to introduce ourselves. My name is
Dr. Michelle Dr. So, we're going to begin with our agenda for this evening and thank you once again to the board and to the district administration and engaging us in this important process. Uh, we believe the
computation plan process is critical for school districts because it really sets path for where the district is right now and where we'd like to be in the future. Uh, it allows everyone to be on the same page and to move forward with common goals and to work towards those goals.
So uh tonight we'll be talking a little bit about the strategic plan process. Uh we are also going to be engaging uh the group that's here tonight both in person and virtually uh in the thought exchange process which is a a way that we can
interact and gather input uh and also uh see uh from that input what the commonalities of the uh community is in terms of where they feel the priorities lie for the strategic plan and for the goals that will be put together. Uh
there'll be a state of the schools uh which is provided by the district leadership uh which gives a baseline to what we are uh engaging in and where we're moving from. The sore analysis is actually the four questions in the uh thought exchange that we'll be engaging
in this evening and then we'll discuss next steps in the process. So why a strategic plan? As I've mentioned before, it aligns the vision and the mission and the values of the school district and it combines it
with action. So that uh you know as we all know many entities have uh a philosophy they have uh beliefs that they state but we want to make sure that uh those beliefs are um first of all up to date and current with the uh state of
the schools and where the community feels priority should be and that it's actionable that we're actually working off of this philosophy in a way uh that we show accountability for those results. It sets clear goals and
priorities that are aimed at student success. And it always makes us think, okay, are these uh areas that we're discussing aimed towards student success? As a school district, we know that that is our primary mission always, but sometimes we can get distracted from
that. So certainly this helps us to uh refocus us on student success. It informs decisions and the resources that we uh allocate to those decisions. Uh and when we have requests that come up
or issues that arise in the district and you as a board and as a school district are making decisions about where uh to budget items uh and where to make decisions on projects, you can come back to your strategic plan and you can say,
"Does this align with where we said we wanted to work?" It builds transparency and accountability because everyone in the community not only has input into the process, but they are continually exposed to that plan, reminded of the
plan, brought back to the plan, and it engages students, staff, families, and the community in the process. Uh we began the process on Thursday. Uh some of you may have been a part of that. uh we're continuing with that tonight and we have two more forums that are
scheduled uh so that we can continue to engage all facets of the community school community in this process. So, in looking at our the strategic planning goals for Fort Lee, really establishing
that three-year shared vision that really drill down all of the work that's happening and in this effort being able to identify what the key challenges and opportunities are as the district is progressing over the next three years.
And then of course setting measurable objectives for improvement, building consensus, and then the roadmap is really the action steps. And when we had the opportunity to meet with the strategic planning committee, we really showed almost like a plan on a page where you've got some goals, objectives,
and then annual action steps. And one of the things we'll do this evening, and if there's any technological issues, we will definitely help to work through them, is to be able to make sure that the board has the opportunity to engage in the four questions that we will ask
of the community. So um in moving forward, one of the things that we wanted to be able to do was just review the key highlights of the first engagement that we had done with the Fortn I'm not sure if it it was going to
be on the website yet, but there the results with the themes and key thoughts is actually in a PowerPoint presentation that will be posted on your public website so that information is out there for everyone to see. Um, and what's interesting is it'll highlight some of
the key differences and similarities and where the participants really came together and where there was a little bit of division too on some of those priorities. But the first question that we had asked all participants is as we shape our strategic plan, what key
priorities should guide the schools to ensure our students thrive? So, we thought this was an opportunity to just give a quick overview of what you'll be able to see on the PowerPoint presentation, which will be very transparently out there for everyone to be able to see. There were 220
individual thoughts and about 6,000 ratings uh for those uh strategic planning thoughts. So just some of the key priorities that were identified through that exchange and that I think really surfaced when we did
the sore analysis uh last week with the community were safety and security making sure that there are comprehensive safety measures and increased security personnel anti-bullying um to foster a key learning environment. supportive and qualified staff not only
focusing on attracting uh but also focusing on retaining highquality staff was a priority for the community and continuous professional development for staff members that are currently here. Smaller class sizes came up as a key theme and I should say that these are
not in order. These are just the six key themes that came out of the participants that did the first survey. um making sure that they're reviewed throughout the year, adjusted as necessary. Uh mental and emotional well-being for social emotional learning for students
and making sure that there's appropriate resources, parent community involvement, uh a need and vision for enhancing communication channels and fostering partnerships. And then curriculum instruction, right? Making sure that it's rigorous, inclusive, and that the
core skills like math, reading, and STEM, right? So that was really the priorities of the first survey that we had done with the group. Before we head into the store analysis which in this environment will
build on the community analysis that was done um we wanted to pivot and provide the opportunity to give a state of the schools so that people really know uh where we're starting. So I will turn it over. So good to evening everyone again
state of the schools our agenda this even we'll discuss district making and vision district overview our data then accomplishments for the last four years from 2021 to 2025 the mission of Ford public schools
is to prepare students to be lifelong learners ensuring they achieve New Jerseys student learning standards and global skills in a safe comprehensive and supportive environment. The district's vision is to provide challenging instruction that addresses each student's individual needs,
fostering critical thinking and developing students who are prepared to be global leaders. District overview, we have a picture here of our buildings. One of them that we'll discuss in a few minutes is of course on road.
So this slide reflects our enrollment um over the last several years. And while total enrollment has remained relatively stable over the past four years, we're hovering just above 4,000 students. We've seen shifts in enrollment within
individual schools. For example, at the Louiswis F. Cole Intermediate School, um that building has experienced steady growth while enrollment at the Louiswis F. Cole Middle School right next door has declined. So these these patterns are important to note as we consider how
how to allocate staffing space and programmatic resources through the strategic planning process. So this slide um shows a breakdown of our current student population by ethnicity. Um it helps us see who we are. The chart reflects the
ethnicities represented across our school district, which is a core strength and a point of pride for the Fort Public Schools, which is the diversity of our student population. Um, we celebrate a wide range of ethnic backgrounds represented across all of our
schools. This slide adds some more context regarding the composition of our student body. Currently our student body is comprised of 52 52% male and 48% female. About 16% of our students have
IEPs. This reflects only those that attend our schools in district. And additionally roughly one in four students qualifies for free or reduced lunch. And these indicators are important as they help shape how we allocate resources and support all of
our learners. This chart breaks down the current composition of our multilingual learner population. The orange slice that you see um represents the students that are currently receiving English language services. That's approximately 13% of
our population. And that slice that you see is separated from the rest of of the chart reflects 4.8% of our students who have successfully exited um the program only within the last year. So together those two slices represent nearly one in
five of our students. This trend line is important to note as it presents a clear and steady increase in multilingual learners over the past 5 years from just 138 students in 2020 to over 500 this school year. And during the same period, our
non multilingual learner population enrollment has declined. So this growth highlights why multilingual learner programming and staff training continues to be a district's priority. So now we will shift to taking a look at our student achievement data. So these will these slides will
appear familiar to some of you who have seen them before. Um this slide reflects our student performance on the NJSLA in the spring of 2024 in language arts. Um across this chart we can see strong literacy results in grades four, 6, 8,
and 9 with positive cohort load overall. This slide reflects student performance on our spring 2024 NJSLA math for grades 3 through six. As you can see, most students in grades three through six are meeting or exceeding expectations with cohorts showing
progress over time. and we continue to work to address areas um of some decline while supporting effective instructional practices. We continue to show our NJSLA performance um in math in our middle and high school math courses. You can see
that in advanced math achievement in middle school is a strength with students in algebra and geometry performing at very high levels. Our focus in the future will be to strengthen our grade level middle school math courses as well as algebra 1 and algebra 2 outcomes in high
school. This slide reflects our student performance on the NJSLA science in the spring of 2024. Um our science data overall as a district shows encouraging progress um as our overall district progress rose to 44% which is our
highest in three years. And so now we will um take a look at our AP scores as of um the 2024 school year. We see a three-year comparison um on this chart. Our AP scores in math and
science remain strong with calculus, computer science, and environmental science exceeding state averages. We have a perfect 5.0 O in calculus AV and will continue to support consistent performance while targeting road areas like statistics and
physics. This slide reflects our AP performance in our humanities languages and art courses. They outperformed um the state and areas like United State, US history, world history and Chinese as well as Spanish. And so as enrollment in
these courses grows, we're going to continue to focus on improving all around academic performance. As you discuss our accomplishments, you talk about our program. We have opened up the teacher academy. We're in the second year of our teacher academy with
William Patterson University where students are receiving credit at that university or work towards their degree with the idea that when they leave by our high school they will have between 15 and 30 college credits available to them at William Madison. That's a great opportunity for our students to come
back as substitute teachers which we do have a shortage of because they will be halfway there. We've opened up our vocational trainings by offering electronics currently and we have a brand new building on North Avenue right behind the high school and will be fully operational by September 1st. It's
actually done. We're just waiting for some furniture and that is a partnership with Eastwick College. Students who complete the 4-year program will then have a scholarship provided by Eastwood College allow them to study one year at Eastwick and receive their apprenticeship license from the state of
New Jersey either electrical line or general maintenance. The Fortress 18 to 21 year old program located at 308 Tom Hunter Road has been a fantastic program where we are finally able to keep our students in our district and they are not only part of
our district but they're part of our community with jobs offered throughout our our town and it's a wonderful opportunity. They're showing that building represents a preschool program where students from the fortress go in and work with our youngest students. Our Bridgemond Believe program
um is currently at Fort Lee High School. It is a mentor program for our students. It provides our high school students with one-on-one long and short-term support. Students have the opportunity to connect with and learn from faculty members who with the students focus on
promoting positive um family and peer relationships, decision-m, study skills, time management, all of those skills that are needed to perform well in school and outside in in the world. We're very excited that from September, we will start implementing block
schedule in our high school. that will give us more opportunity to discuss which will happen next slide some of the the great things that our teachers and our staff members will be able to do. So this slide reflects um just some of the initiatives that we have implemented
over the last few years. Initiatives such as multi-tered systems of support or MTSS win our early childhood curriculum that we've implemented in our preschool all have laid a strong foundation for our students. We've also expanded um the use of the Renaissance
learning platform, specifically programs such as Edge of Climber, Breckle, and Lelo um to enhance our database decision-making. Um our most recent curriculum revision has been focused on mathematics and English language arts. We implemented a new elementary program this year in mathematics, and we will be
implementing a new English language arts program in grades K through five next year. All of these initiatives provide us with the ability to offer meaningful um rigorous personalized learning for our students as well as the ability to closely monitor progress. For the first time in over 5
years, we will have a long range facility plan available for that will help us drive exactly what we need to get done with our all of our facilities in Fortly utilizing our resources. We'll be able to make smart decisions. We'll be not reacting, but we will be proactive as we renovate our buildings.
Obviously, we've acquired acquired the new building at 308 Tom Road, currently named school 2. In security, we were fortunate enough to receive a $500,000 cops grant. We are now increased our class 3 offices to three. We've added lockdown and intercom systems throughout
our school system. We've also acquired transponder. We'll be using utilizing that in this fall of this year which will help us identify spots for pickups tracking of the buses as well as keeping parents informed of
where and when those pickups will pick personnel fund. We've updated online for automation of our sign on the staff our recruiting as well as our time management every student and all our time sheets and all electron but updating our job description. We've
outdated our up excuse me outsourced our substitute services to pay higher bill rate in September. We've established a partnership with proximity learning to fill those long-term leaves that are con constantly happening and congratulations. We have negotiated a 5-year contract with the for
administrative excuse me education association from the finance world. We've developed standard operating procedures for the business office, engaged with TLE group to develop a strategic plan, and we've implemented a full integration using Genesis for enhanced scheduling, lesson planning,
school finance, and resources. Thank you. Well, thank you. And the importance of a state of the schools for an event like this as we're embarking on this journey is that sometimes there are just some areas that we have to make sure that the greater
community of stakeholders are aware of um to think about about it's almost a really solid foundation and benchmark for where we are and where we need to set the path for the next three years to make sure we're all on the same page. So where we're going to transition now is
picking up where we were on Thursday. So this will be a component that is of course dedicated for our board members to participate in but then when we were reflecting we thought it would also be an opportunity for anyone who wasn't able to make the community forum on Thursday night to also be a part of the
the process and there will be two ways to participate in the sewer analysis and if anyone has any tech issues we will be here to walk around and help at any point um but we will be able to utilize it through a QR code or you could utilize it through logging into a
website which we will be able to post up here as well and it allows us to really get the top rated thoughts and thematically chunk it. So when you see the engagement from the first you'll get a flavor of how we are able to pull out the priorities for the community in each
area. The four questions that we will be asking are traditional store analysis. So we'll be asking you what are the strengths of the Fort Le schools and you may come into that information or you may be thinking about the state of the schools and that might be something that will be driving your answer to this.
Also what are the opportunities meaning what are the key challenges that are facing the Fort Le public schools? What are the aspirations for the Fort Le public schools? And then how will we know we are making progress with our
strategic plan? So those are the four questions that we will be focusing on for our schools. Any questions? All right. So if you just give me one moment, I am going to
minimize and I'm going to put the first up here. So the first question is what are the strengths of the 4th public school? So, at this point, uh, individuals can take a picture of the QR
code or they can log in to tejoin.com. Um, if I know some folks are far away, if you're doing it from receipts and it doesn't pick it up, I think people ready to come right up to the laptop. What I want to know is I was
on roll and I was on my phone in case I had to be on the phone and I tried to access it. They got me back. So, I want you to do it just like I should have done that night from here because it didn't work. And it obviously didn't work because there was 400 and something
people on the call and only 200 people said something. So, 200 other people couldn't do what I couldn't do. So, we'll work with you on that. But while we're getting started, just to kind of go over the process of how this will work
is you will go in and you can provide up to four thoughts, individual thoughts so it won't confine you and then you can go in and rate thoughts and it's really important to be able to prioritize the
readers. I got it. Yeah, of course like that you can take a picture. It's gonna work. But if you were signed on to the call and you tried to do it, it did not work. It did not work. It did not. It did not work. It was not possible when you were on the
call to be able to do. Of course, if you do this, it's like walking up to a anything and doing your camera, it opens up and you click on it. There you go. Fine. But if you were on the call, it did not work that way. Did anybody mention it that day that Yeah, I did. I text him. He knows. That's why they're
doing this. And it works. Yeah. Yes. Are you able to get it? That's great. So, we're going to start. I want everyone just from a board member perspective, are you guys all able to get on? Just so that I before I hit the
play. Everyone's got cur but why didn't it work as me do I want to share one thought of star rating okay so there are two items that you'll be engaged in one will be expressing a thought and the
other will be grading the thoughts that are expressed from others as thoughts are expressed you can be asked to rate them so uh for each of the question categories that we go through. You'll have four minutes which proved to be pretty ample time uh the other night. We
can extend it or we can make it shorter if it kind of wanes. Uh but four minutes is what we had said and uh you can uh provide a thought or if you want to go right into reading the thoughts that are in there, you can uh or you can write a thought and then read. Um so we do kind
of prompt people as the uh countdown is pairing to uh to begin reading and I am going to just post the top thoughts if everyone was able to access it. Everyone able to access you can
do and we were happy that we had had over 300 ratings when we did the forum for this question on this event. And you don't even have to share a thought individually. You may just choose to rate as well.
The spirit of this is so that it's very transparent and everyone can see everyone's responses as opposed to a traditional survey where it goes And you don't get to see what your colleagues, community members, and
fellow neighbors are are saying. We will leave it open. So that then we want to go on and continue bringing after the evening as well. And hopefully our folks at home are able to also be added.
So we can see there's still ratings coming in. We're in our last minute for this first question. Sorry, this is you just me. We've got just a few seconds left. That brings our first question to a close. So just to highlight the highest rated
thoughts of anyone on this particular chase just to see what your community is rating as the strengths of your district. The highest rated thoughts that are coming in are the diversity of our district, the student body diversity. That diversity is important.
So that is clearly coming through to the community members that are engaged um as well as a variety of a diversity of students and teachers and diversity and community engagement. So those were just the highest five of this particular we
will put these results out just like in the first engagement so that you can also see the reports of site results. So we wanted to take a moment and now move into the opportunities. So this is another opportunity canvas
code and this will bring you to our second categorical question. What are the key challenges facing 4 public schools? And you can add thoughts. You can just
rate and it's completely anonymous. If you're on the web page, um, how do you how do you go back and enter that? So, you could just re-enter tejoin.com and then start fresh with this particular code.
We've created four different engagements so that we can really buck it and then when we do the staff, we will create one dedicated to that before we start the timer and show results. Is everybody able to access?
I'm glory to talk for those. the moment where I was classical music. I think I just [Music] You can see all of the participation
over 60 thoughts over 500 ratings and those with 47 participants. final minute. So people just final areas or still have time to So as this winds down and we take a look
at our top rated areas, we can see that recruiting and retaining talent is certainly um among the highest areas as well as retaining great teachers and uh in the area of safety uh that not enough rules are being enforced that uh
certainly They received a lot of ratings followed by better communication. Uh parents deserve transparency through their children's academic years, not just during their time in elementary school. Uh combined with hiring and retaining good teachers. Uh so uh again,
these are just um some of the top areas that came up here. As Michelle mentioned, we will be publishing uh the slide deck uh from tonight's meeting. you'll be able to see every area that was listed uh in the report.
So the third part of our sore analysis is really starting to do our visioning work as a community. So thinking about what are the aspirations for the Fort Le schools because we've identified strengths, we've identified opportunities, but now we really have to
think about what are our aspirations at the end of this three-year strategic plan. What do you aspire for the students in Orley? And as we've done before, just this is the new QR code or you can rejoin the
tjoy.com and express your thoughts or begin some ratings. to get on the screen. Oh yeah, this is easy peasy. It was the problem was the phone when you showed your take picture
on there. I just don't know if everyone knows how to do it. I obviously don't. So that's what I was hoping to give you an instructional on how to do that. This is easy. This is this is quite work. But I know that's because I see it
some other things too. [Music] We just come to the last minute. So if you have final thoughts or rings, this would be a good time. That's true. That's
been actually able to actually because so as this winds down we can see our top thoughts uh more communication like this uh continue to improve academic excellence as well as promoting life
skills uh opportunities which was interesting opportunities was at the top just a moment ago uh that students have opportunities that can prepare them for their future again retention of staff we've heard that several times in different ways and being wellprepared
for college. So those are some of the highest levels as this particular categorical question winds down. And then our final question as a part of histo analysis is is you've spoken to what you hope this district aspire you
to at the end of the three-year strategic plan. But now the important component is how are those results going to be measured? How will you communicate to the admin team in the board of education about how they will know
they're making progress with this new strategic plan as it's underway? So going back to those key thoughts that came out of the last whether it's communication increase uh hiring and retaining staff higher levels of
academic performance what are you as a community in a board of education looking for as far as the results about 15 20 seconds we'll kick over to the other screen so we can see the folks are Yeah.
would be okay if I link to the results. Does everyone have access? We're approaching a minute mark. This is our final uh categorical question. So just take that last minute to uh express any uh additional thoughts you may have
or supplies some additional ratings. We already have 550 plus ratings which is great uh to stay through this uh process with us and we appreciate that level of anticipation. As we wind down, take a look at the top
rated areas. And again, this is this area of accountability uh the results section of uh the the process. higher attendance of board of um attendance of board of education meetings uh with board of education being the official
channel for intake and communications reduced turnover of staff those two were in the uh work category and then mostly followed uh by reduced well turnover of staff is now also uh in
that area uh 90% retention rate um ongoing conversations with parents in the community. We we heard uh about communication several times uh in different categorical question areas uh and developing a measurable score card
uh measure measure measure. So uh again uh great uh participation in all of these questions. We truly appreciate that. uh we are going to continue to go through this process in our uh upcoming two forums and again after each of these
areas we will be publishing a synopsis of of what the results were so people can really take their time to look through it. What does success look like at the end of this journey? And it's going to have multiple tiers. We're still on a data collection phase but we really want to
help with the clear direction for the next three years. And these questions that were posed and will be posed with future groups will really be able to provide that so that we can have alignment across schools, improved outcomes for students and then of course
greater stakeholder trust and engagement and it is administration. So hope that this is really a beginning of that work because you can see what everyone is saying is a priority. viewers see what's aligning people, but then also what
might be some outlier thoughts still important for administration and the board of education to hear, but might just be something uh to keep in the back of the mind and developing u a culture of continuous improvement. So, what are our next steps on this uh on this
highway of gathering feedback from stakeholders? we will be hosting a forum with the staff where we will have a sore analysis dedicated with staff and do a very similar process right because bringing all of these perspectives to the table is really critical then and it
will be of a very similar fashion um then on June 9th we'll have the opportunity to come together with the administrative team and also not only participate in s analysis but really be able to unpack some of the aspects then all of the feedback will be analyzed and
goals and objectives will be created based on the first uh feedback survey as well as the sore analysis that that will be presented to the board for acceptance of the goals and the objectives and then the next step once that's complete the
administrative team will take this feedback take the measurable outcomes the visioning and really now create annual action steps to be able to carry out the goals and the objectives ives that the community will see annually what is going to be achieved and then
how it was achieved with the intention of the end of three years getting the community thoughts to go. So thank you for adding to the community component of this and having the opportunity to be with all of you here and to see such
great partition on your board of education meeting by your community. So we look forward to meeting with staff on Thursday. TLA appreciate. Thank you. Can I make a comment? Sure. I really enjoy this exercise.
There's I missed it on Thursday. Um so I'm happy that I've got to join. Um if you would be open to working with two of our language groups in our district, our Korean parents and our Hispanic parents.
They are over half of pretty much half of the district. And I just saw that you can actually do this survey in Spanish and in Korean. So I hope that I know you don't have that in your plan, but please
consider that because I think a lot of the feedback would be would not be included without including their voice. Okay. Thank you. That's that's a great uh piece of input for us and we'll work with the administration on that. We can make that happen. And if I may highlight that some of your
parent population um the two languages that showed up after English was Korean and Japanese. So there was the it will tell us on the thought exchange any of the responses that are translated and then the most popular languages. So um
it's a really good not to say. Thank you. Yeah, we do have a lot of Japanese students, but not nearly as many as the Hay. I think only one of our school has top Japanese sleep. But thank you.
Thank you again. Thank you. We'll see you later in the week. Absolutely. Have a great night. And for those out there participating in person, we appreciate it. Great opportunity again to start. So that is my superintendent report. I'm the longest I think I've ever given on
test scores. test for presentation from this. I asked much longer. I felt offense and but this one Thank you. Do we have any committee reports? Personnel committee had a meeting on uh
May 29th. Um we talked about several issues uh that were ongoing. Um it was a very productive meeting, very effective meeting. Um and we will
be having uh another one within the next uh two to three weeks. The policy committee met immediately before this meeting. Um we now have uh a finalized uh use of electronic
communication devices um policy. Uh we have added um permitted use for a true emergency and fine-tuned where devices need to be kept at each of the grade levels during the day. Um that
policy will be circulated soon to the entire board and will appear on our next agenda for a first read. Um we also discussed changes in our testing policies for teachers and our support
staff. Um there are options available to the district to include psychological assessments, fitness exams, drug testing, and mandatory TB screening. Um, we have asked for additional information
on other Burton County districts and the state of the law on drug testing. Um, I think the uh majority consensus of the committee is that we don't want to impose and require any type of psychological assessment or fitness um
especially in these times of difficulty in recruiting staff. Um, we discussed some changes in our service animal policy. Small horses are now uh available um and required and that will
uh be on the agenda for a first read on um I think it's the 23rd. Um we also discussed um the excused absences policy. We've had a number of instances over the last few years and requests to
consider um making excused absences for things like sports that we don't offer here when the sport is being uh undertaken at a high level. Um we are assembling additional information. Um if
we move forward with a change the policy will not be limited to sports. it will include other academic or theater um just by way of example only type um situations and so uh stay tuned for
that. Um we're still in a formative stage but um we are looking on potentially making some changes. Thank you. Are there any other committee reports? Right. Do board members have questions or comments on tonight's
agenda or any other topic? Thank you. Um, one asks, is it an annual RP process? If not, is it favoring events that um require us to look at our security services
is um if a multi-year contract, we felt it is best to just take a to look at take a look, see what's out there for other services. We did obviously see some concerns and we'd like to see what other companies could be offering the services regarding outsource security at our schools. And generally, how long
have three years? Um and then on on 8F and 9F we have enlisted two separate agenda items are
different type of agreement. Um so one uh 9F is for employees of the district and 8F is just non-resident students randomly. Um in terms of that enrollment
we have uh 5T. So from K to 4 and 5 to 8 there's a huge drop in in terms of number of enrollment. That's correct. Is that expected or what's what's the underlying
factors? So there was a document that was working out as part of a long race facility plan. haven't seen the enrollment numbers and projections. Um some of the things that are affecting numbers throughout the the district that out the state actually is number of ch number of adults having children. So we're seeing a reduction in that you're
talking about the youngest grades. Um so for the K4 as far as other grades we're just seeing reduction even though you may see more and more um you know buildings being built we aren't seeing the number when most people are having two and three now they're having one. So
that's as we look at our projections, we're we're seeing those numbers. Got it. Um we also have more programs being offered post 8 grade to students. For example, the Northern Valley program that just opened a year or two ago. What is our sense of that type of
the expansion of post 8ighth grade program? Are there more coming? that they ex is a plan for that to expand further and therefore we we will be bringing more students to these county level school. So the Burton County is obviously has more programs coming
there. There's another building coming up to bring more programs to the the uh the area. More students are interested in those the fine program that give the students a trade. We've created our own. So we hope to actually increase and keep some of our students. Uh but it's a very
diff different scenario. So the Durham County schools I bet they come budget they they pull from and they get a lot more funding from the state even when there is a local program that is homegrown for an academy type program money usually has to flow through the districts that's why you'll see districts like Northern Valley and even
Bergenfield having county programs at their subs and they look for specific districts throughout the the county uh to to run those programs. So currently it's really up to each family sirly it's up to each family and really each
student to do their research at that level in seventh grade to get a get a sense of what's offered beyond the four school district and in some sense it creates some inequity some family with
more resources will obviously be able to connect with these opportunities more if they find programs that more fitting for their children and there's a cost to the district. There's significant cost. Yeah. Is it
can something to consider going forward is to create a a presentation for our students of the programs that are that we pay for um that are made available. I just I know that you know this year it's not possible but something to consider.
We do a program uh where they show the academy of finance the international balorate. I'm talking about outside of Fort Le district. So they usually come in and speak to the students in the eighth grade if I'm not mistaken. I believe they come out. But again, we remind everyone that there's a cost
associated with it. So as students leave the district, we have to pay for their busing. We have to pay roughly $9,000 per student if they go into one of those or county programs. So just like every other district, we make a decision that says, you know, we can present, but we necessarily don't want to encourage
students to go. We want them to see what we have here. And in many cases, we do have programs that are different and offer other things such as marching band, right? So, we're very proud of our music department here and our marching band, but B County Schools does not have a marching band program. So, we want to
highlight our programs and say, here's an opportunity to go to your local school. Thank you. So, congratulations to Joey Pizza Capalini uh who's on the agenda reluctantly to PE after 25 years. We
love you and hope you enjoy your retirement. Also, Elizabeth Inomada um who amazingly has been in the district for 37.5 years. Um so congratulations to you and thank you both um for your amazing
contributions um to our district. Um also um on 9P and 10p which I'll be supporting I I do hope that the board um as a whole moves forward in a more expeditious fashion to identify whoever
it's going to be at the end of the day for our permanent superintendent. I know our community um with having enacting and and I would you know hope Diane applies. I haven't spoken to her. Have no idea what her long-term intentions
are. Um but uh we've been you know we've known since March 31 um that Dr. Kravitz reluctantly is leaving. And so I would just implore us all to make the time that's necessary and make it a very high priority so that
um we will have someone permanent and hopefully you know obviously it'll be for 3 to 5 years um that we will lock someone in. Um and then I think we were going to have a walk-in that was identified as 15P. If we could have that
read to us that would appreciate it. I need to move on. Okay. For public comments. Are there any other questions from board members or comments? I just want to say um as far as uh Joe Cavalini goes, thank you very much for your service. Here's that you were here
helping us clean up messes and put everything together and and barbecue and make things fun. You will definitely be missed. I'm really sorry that um this is how your last year has ended, but um I want to say that I hope that the
students have a wonderful prom this week. Um, I hope that our eighth graders that are uh in Philadelphia right now have a good time. I know they're really tired. They had a really busy day. Um, I heard the hotel was really nice and spacious and they're excited about it.
That's what I was on the phone. So, I don't want to see any ne negative comments on Facebook that I use my phone. My daughter's on a trip and I answered the phone. So, that it is what it is. Um, I wish everybody the best. I know we're coming upon a lot of fun events
happening and I think all in all that the school has done a great job on all levels. Um I'm really happy and proud of Fort Lee and the students that we have and the teachers and the staff. I'm happy to be part of Fort Lee
and I I want it to continue to be a good place. I want us to be nice to each other and um you know that's that's about it. I just want to be so I am part of and I I looked at the numbers up there um for the the minorities and the I mean the
what we have so white and Hispanic we're getting very close we're 20 and then 23 or white is 23 and Hispanic is 20 so it's it's
getting the the it's changing like our demographics are changing the way that it is before because I remember when I moved to 4 about 17 years ago, I think the the white was much smaller. So, it's it's different. But anyway, thanks a
lot. I just had a question on one on the spectator code of conduct um for inter intercolastic events. Is that a policy that we're just adopting now or or is it
working in conjunction with another um policy? Just just curious. It's new. It is new. So, did we have something in the past or or never did? No, this is brand new. Well, then I applaud you for doing it. I think it's I think it's very fast, but it depends.
Um then on the food services, the ver I see that there's a lot of changes verbage is just following state guidelines or adhering to. Yeah. So a lot of the verbiage is related to definitions. Most of the pages are just definitions. Um the main changes are is
that um as for an update in the legislation, the criteria for um being eligible for subsidized meals has been widened. Um and also just how parents are notified regarding um our food services has changed. So hard copies are
now avail. Those are the main changes. Got understood. Thank you. Um, also want to congratulate and thank Elizabeth for 37 and a half years since I said um all the best. Um, also want to give
two shout outs uh to the robotics team. It's the uh students we have for the team track team um who's attracted near and dear to my heart. So, I'm happy to hear that doing well. Um, and that we're
u um that uh that we're we're champions here. Awesome. Also, shout out the tennis baseball team as well. And also the marching band who participated in the Memorial Day parade. They did an awesome job as a thanks.
Any other question? Yeah, I'd like to say something. Um, I just wanted to shout out uh Chris Delave and uh the future business leaders of America. They uh they brought back Shark Tank, which I guess uh they had been running for a couple years, but they stopped because of co uh but Paul and I had an
opportunity to uh to to judge it and it was just incredible. The kids all had really great ideas. They were it was very well thought out and I just wanted to you know congratulate them on on an uh you know on a good event and uh you know kudos to Chris Del for making it
happen. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay before we go into public comments we have two walk-in resolutions. One is 6B and it reads, "Therefore, be it resolved before the board of education hereby affirms HIV
investigation number 28997 LH_031 9205. findings for student ID number six ending in 6915 and
15B reads, "Therefore be it resolved for the board of education upon recommendation of the superintendent. I accept the resignation of employee number 1475 effective July 14th, 2025. May I have a motion to open the
floor to the public?" Motion second. Motion Kovat, second quotang. All in favor? I. Any opposed or abstensions? Okay. We will hear first from members of the public physically located here with us tonight. Then we will take questions and comments from those participating
remotely. Participants are limited to three minutes in which to make their statement. For remote participants, please select the raised hand button. Sir Rogerro will recognize each community member in the order of raised hands. Please unmute your microphone. Then everyone state your name and
address for the record and begin your comments? Please limit them to three. Is there anyone in the public with us this evening who wishes to speak? Good evening north. So going to talk about my favorite subject. I'm sure everybody
here knows what it is. I'm just going to announce that the next uh special appearance advisory group meeting is going to be held on Zoom. It's going to be on Wednesday, June 11th at 700 p.m. Uh the information will be on the full
POE website probably by tomorrow, I believe. Correct. Okay. Also, notifications will be sent out to the uh to the community um the uh messenger where Monica does handle school messenger. school messenger. Thank you.
Um so we have a very exciting agenda. So just so you know the agenda also be posted. We're going to have work for the year review for CPAC. So we have a lot of really great things happening. So the year review we're going to hear from new
leadership which takes over on Thank you. Joy first leadership will be taking over. We'll also have comments from the outgoing leadership and we will also have what we like to call PG time which is parent guard time. I just want
to on CPAC just want to express my thanks to board Dr. Par and of course Monica Kly and all the people right behind the scenes for all their support you know they had a great great year and just you know thank you very much.
Thank you. Hi, my name is Ja Antage. I live on Faj. I have five kids in the district. I have two things I wanted to talk about. The first one is about uh I had a request about Zoom participants. Um, is it possible for Zoom participants to either
stay as panelists while they hear the answer or be able to uh address the second time because there's no way to clarify a question. For instance, if you're a Zoom participant, if you're demoted immediately after you ask the question and the answer does actually
answer the question. So, that's my first question and I was wondering if you could address that before I go on. agriculture. So we only actually we ask for everyone to ask all their questions and then I respond. Okay. Um the second
uh is just follow up on my request on um u counting sports related absences as excuse and thank you so much Paul for putting that into motion. I have a quick comment. A lot of the people on today's survey, so our survey, they said send
more students to Ivy League schools. So just an FYI, my oldest is attending University of Pennsylvania. He was recruited uh through the rowing team. And Ford uh high school gets some credit, but they say I graduated for the high school. Uh he's going to University
of Pennsylvania, but he's getting four excused absences for going to the national rowing competition in Florida, which I think is unfair. we feel like we're be punished uh to be honest. Um so that's and again thank you Paul for putting that into motion. The question
is what is the timeline and how do I find out about this tax agenda in the agenda? So those are the two questions. So as far as the first question um and thank you for your comment. So zoom participation or any participation is
public comment there may not be a response at that given moment. Um, so you can always email me or anybody along the chain of commanding your building level principles or anyone. So the reason best practice here has been there's no dialogue. Like I said, it's public comment. That's what is defined
on the on the board agenda. So we wait till after all the questions are asked and we're respond accordingly. As far as the absences, I know that the board has now had two meetings discussing it. The process for anything to come become a policy is there's two readings publicly
after those two readings. If if the board votes affirmative way after the two readings both times then it becomes part of the the normal business act practice that we follow in the district. So it has not been a formal vote on that yet. So yeah so we actually as um Miss
Kobath announced um the policy can be met prior to this board meeting to discuss many policies one being the attendance policy. Um there are as per um board council there are certain parameters that we have to discuss that we have to put in place to ensure that
making that type of provision for student for student athletes doesn't necessarily discriminate against other um types of of interests that students may have outside of school. So it's going to take another conversation. Hopefully by mid July um the goal is to
have something ready to go for June 23rd, but if not the first reading will take place in the meeting. um in our public board meeting in July, second meeting August. So hopefully by the time school opens, we will have an updated policy with appropriate progress in place. Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Um so as a a person who is here in the public, I'm able to say something after I get response. So I'm asking if the Zoom will are not demoted right after asking a question, but are left as panelists until they hear the answer. Is
that possible? Because right now I'm able to comment. Yes. But but that's the point. You're not supposed to comment a back and forth. So being left up as panelist would allow you to continue to speak after your time has expired. And that's the point of public comment is for you to say what you want. Not to
have a back and forth because you don't necessarily like the response you got or agree with the response you got. Like right now you're going to say something to me which is the point of you taking your seat when your time expires. It's not to have the back and forth. Well, my point is that last time on Zoom, I asked
a question to the board, but the question was not answered by the board and it was not answered. It doesn't have to be answered. It's public comment. Okay. Thank you. Uh, good evening. Keith Goslin, 2185 Le Moy Avenue. Um, president of CPAD for
another 28 days or so. Um, so I wanted to talk tonight about a few things. Um, first I just wanted to start out and praise the parents of the special education parents group. Um, and
congratulate the new leadership of the new president Priy um, vice president Smeita and uh, returning secretary uh, Cynthia Hannah. Um, honestly Priy probably should have been the first president of CPAC. I don't know if you
all know that but my kind of filled in I think um, because I have a big mouth. Um, but it worked well. Um, we got a lot of ideas from the parents and I know I was the voice up here, but none of this was my idea. I've had maybe one good
idea. The town's working on that, which I'm very proud of. You know, Casey knows about that as well. Um, but the bus tracking and everything, some people won't give them credit. Um, but briefly started all this with friends of diverse learners, so she
deserves a lot of credit. Um, what I did want to add is just kind of list a few things we've done. Number one, we've had two successful CPAG elections. We have a CPAC that meets once a month. Um, which was never happening in this district before. We brought Dr. Carrie Mangrell,
an autism acceptance advocate who had autism, who has autism himself, and he was nonverbal as a child. And now he's the public speaker. People pay him to speak. It's amazing. Um, we had countless presentations for social services for new families new to the
district or with a newly diagnosed child to receive services. Um, we brought in Fort Le fire prevention to talk about um their registration program for people who need assistance when fire departments going to their home. We brought in um Chief Hansy and uh Deputy
Chief Ricky Murkovic and Deputy Chief Ed Young to talk about the Blue Envelope program. Um just recently we um created a yearly meet and greet um for parents uh who are new to the district and um are new to the system of
special needs and um to meet their case workers. Yeah, that part is making me nervous. Um a few mentors of mine taught me um throughout the years if you're going to do anything just leave it better than you found it. Um, and I
think we did that um, under my supposed watch. Um, but we didn't do that because of me. It had nothing to do with me. It had to do with Andrew and Cynthia and all the parents participating. So, thank you all for that. I'm also um, running
um, in a 5K for the fourth day PBA and I get an email that there's signups for those. So, it's June 22nd uh, and it's running for the youth. Um, so please join us for that. Uh just Google fourth lady PBA 5K. Thank
you. Next up okay Mr. That's why I'm asking checking these numbers. I don't Hi Stephanie Budo Heather Hunter Road. We're late. Um, I I I do believe there
has to be some more open communication with it back and forth. Like if I say you said in 2020 we had 138, was it Spanish or Spanish speakers? Multilingual. Multilingual. No, that was
just multilingual. Is there a breakdown between were they Spanish, Korean, Japanese? I think we need a clarification on that. And now from 2020 to 2024 basically we have
500. That is a huge jump in a specific population. So I want I would like to know the breakdown more specifically from the 138 to 500. Is it Spanish? Is it Korean? Is it Japanese? Is it Chinese? We need to know what those
numbers are at a more specific level. Um because it seems that I guess potentially the white students next year are going to be marginalized. We seem to be growing kind
of in that direction. So, I I don't know what's going on or I Oh, and the other thing I wanted to ask about was a few months ago or maybe it was six months ago, there were so many Spanish kids that
triggered something for the state where we had to have a specialist come in for language because they were getting too they were getting sent, I guess, to special education at a higher rate than other students. And my
question was, are they being sent there because it's a language thing or are they just being sent there because they have a special education need? Like, how do we differentiate between that in the district? Because what was the number
for the the English as a second language? That's the one I didn't get in the district. I'm trying to figure out. You have any other questions? No. Yeah. I want to know is it who made this rule where you if you ask a question you can't have a contestation
back because you do at CPAD you do in a private meeting in the high school it seems like the stakeholders that are brought here are not able to do a back and forth I mean the time could be paused you could answer the question and then if there's another question you can answer back so just ma'am are you
finished with your comments and questions all right so thank you if I may just in advance your last comment is exactly why um the public comment period is conducted the way it is pursuant to board policy but I'll back up a second I want to back up the open public meetings
act I believe is NJSA 104-6 okay um it affords the public the right to attend public meetings in particular as pertains to school districts it gives the and also other public entities city council county
commissioners etc also gives the public the right to speak, to make comments, to ask questions at board meetings um or county commissioner meetings or council meetings. The council responds the the council is a separate legal entity from
the board less public schools. Um the reason why not all but a majority of public entities uh set a reasonable time limit for public comment as for the does in accordance with the law. Um it doesn't engage or allow the back and forth is number one to maintain the
orderly operation of the board meeting. Not accusing you because you would never I can tell from your personality but others may devolve into more argumentative type exchange versus a civil and professional dialogue and exchange. In addition, um, in order to maintain the length of the meeting be
reasonable for the citizens who are elected and volunteer their time here this evening, um, as you said, you can ask a question, but then you want your time paused for an answer. We can be here for an hour with just you. If we pause for each answer to be given,
that's why like this legitimate thing is going to be I'm trying to answer your question, ma'am. Have a good night. You as well. Thank you. I was trying to answer your question. Thank you. Jesus. Just want to do a shout out for the Fort League Friday match hosted by our high school prism club that will be
this weekend to mate 112. Um that would be awesome. Question about your spectator policies. Will that include the conduct in our fort recreational? Should it not
match or should I be eventually any other questions? Thank you. It pertains to our our infrastructure sports any any sports events governed by
the Portland schools. Am I allowed to say? Um but I so in reading that the reason why I was really interested in that was because we adopted this is something similar in girls program um a couple
years ago and it's just So I I find this great and I really look to align with what you have submitted as well. So in the girls program to answer u question we would look to align with
what for sure. Thank you. Is there anyone else in present that wishes to speak before I go? Mr. Roger. And Mr. Roger, you're up. Nail 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 hello. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Yes. Cool. So, Mel Kinesco for Tom Hunter Road for Lee. So I cut on the fact that um
um Dian mentioned that the school started experimenting with online curriculum like Lio and I think the other one was freckles. Um we weren't quite notified that this would be you know assigned to
our kids and my kid is one of those early let's say adopters of the curriculum. So I got uh familiar with the curriculum with with this program sometimes in January and my honest thought on that you know I started looking at sample lessons. They were as
exciting as my HR lessons that my company makes me go through when you know the year comes by and you got to redo your HR training and u you just click through them you know you read the text you answer something and you move
on and you forget them. That's kind of the same vibe that I got from Lio. And with that in mind, you know, I asked my kid multiple times about the curriculum that he's clicking through. It does he doesn't remember much. That's one thing. And it seems like even if he
completes something, he might just be clicking at random. Third to say that I don't think it really helped him in any way because this year after we had the IP meeting, the staff
involved figured out that it's good for everyone that he's going to have an increase in his English private tutoring offered by the school through the English as a second language program. And um with that in mind, I think that
many parents like me would prefer the kids to spend more time talking with people rather than just pretend reading or trying to read stuff on the computer and just clicking because the computer doesn't provide the same feedback look as you would have
when um the kid talks with the person and we see him learning English well when he actually talks with somebody that's actually responding to his communication and guides the dialogue. So I overall I'm not happy that you know
we were enrolled in this program without being consulted first and as an early feedback I don't think that the program help my kid in any way whatsoever granted the fact that now you got to provide for him more private tutoring in
English. Thank you. Thank you. Um so the curriculum is not the program. The program is a resource. The curriculum is available online. If you go to the forlyfl.com, you look at the word curriculum, you can see exactly what we teach, which indicates the standards
that are recommended or required by the state of New Jersey. And then there are resources that are available to support the curriculum. Meaning, there may be a book, there may be a computer program. uh in most districts that I'm familiar with and around the state they use
various resources to help reinforce programs or difficulties sorry difficulties that students are having so such as blood or freckle is another program where this district has used in the past and we use those programs to enforce the standards that we've determined our weaknesses in our
students there is an 85% correlation with the programs that we're using to identify those standards and those deficiencies with the students and these are the record ranked programs that help those students achieve the standards that they're lacking. So that's the reason why we use those programs just to
clarify. Thank you. Amina O Hassan, 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. Uh my name is Ashley Fats. I'm using
somebody else's email. Um I'm in Fort Lee Kingsland Lane. Um I want to say thank you for the opportunity to give uh my opinion uh with the exercise at the and collecting the data. Hopefully the exercise will be taken seriously and positive change can happen for the
benefit of our children and also for the teachers because we want the teachers to be happy. Um if they're happy, they'll take care of our children like their own. Um something that I was not going to say but I am I feel like I have to. Mr. Richtor and Mr. Taylor, I'm not sure
that your statement to the lady um was sufficient. You said that her question doesn't have to be answered. Um if that's and it's a public comment. Um there's a per the reason why we're waiting since 7:30 is to get feedback. Uh if I wanted just to make a comment, I
would share my political views with you. So I would like some feedback. Um so that didn't make sense to me. I'm sorry. Uh and I like you. Um the last question or hopefully you will answer this is with the statistics the grades that I saw across so for five six seven eight I
noticed the eighth was really really low. Is there a reason for that? Thank you Mrs. Richtor if I may just briefly and ma'am thank you for your comment just said Mrs. Victor, if I may um just respond to the public comment portion.
Um unfortunately, I did not get a chance to finish the answer to my question or to the question that was posed by the young lady um earlier. Um again, the open public meetings act does not require a response. Um is the board permitted through its administration or board leadership to respond? The answer
is yes. Of course, uh the Ford lead board of education is probably one of the more communicative and transparent boards of education in the state of New Jersey in terms of how it conducts its business at its public meetings um each month as well as the opportunity for the public to contact their building level
administrators and staff members up through the chain of command to the superintendent when necessary. Also, minutes are kept of every meeting in accordance with the open public meetings act. the administration that is present takes copious notes and they can and oftentimes do if they don't or otherwise
can't respond to a question at a meeting because sometimes it takes time to research and review to give an accurate answer particularly since we are on the record. We don't want to give misinformation. Some questions do require necessary research and the administration does oftentimes meet with
people in person and or respond in between board meetings and by any means in all means you do not have to wait two to four weeks in between board meetings to ask your questions. Um you can and should email the administration. They are in charge of the day-to-day
operation of the school district. They can and will be happy to respond to you individually and or publicly at a board meeting. Um, so again, just to correct the record, um, Miss RTOR did not intend to say that the board will not or cannot respond, just that they're not obligated
to. And oftentimes upon the advice of council, you sometimes see me whisper, just if you're watching the meeting, I may whisper to her, I may comment for Dr. privit upon the advice of the legal council not to respond because it may be a privilege issue, it may be a pending litigation issue, it may be a student
issue. All of which are the board is per uh prohibited, excuse me, from responding to in public. But to the extent the board and the administration can, this board more often than not does respond and they often do sometimes try to engage in some back and forth before
the person, the speaker finishes their questions. But more often than not, that kind of creates more questions andor a lengthier time frame thereby uh going longer than the three minutes which isn't fair to the other members of the public who are present in person and
or at home waiting to speak as well. So that's kind of the rationale behind everything. Um and I'll be happy to with the permission of the board president to respond further. Y respond with the eighth grade. Hi. Yes. Um the majority of our students
in in 8th grade take algebra take algebra 1 that um grade 8 math is a small population of students. Um we are happy to see that there was growth from the spring of 23 to 20 to 24 but it does
reflect a very small population of of students in our middle school in that grade that's eight that grade 8 math assessment. Thank you Stasu. 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 Julen Stassu. I live on Inwood Terrace in Fort Lee. I just want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Joey Pizza. We love you, Joey. I'm here with my kids now. Can hear them screaming in
the background. Over the years, you've not only watched my children grow, but you've looked out for them with your genuine care and kindness. You have become more than just a custodian to our family. You've become a true friend. We are just so grateful for all that you've
done and we wish you nothing but the best in this next chapter and we don't say goodbye. We just say good luck. Thank you for everything and you are truly an inspiration to all of us. Thank you for
everything you do. have a great even Ruby thinks Hudson A, 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. Hi there. Um, my name is Hudson Albanese and I live at four Horizon Road. Um, so I'm a sophomore at Fort Le High School and I'm the co-president of our school's Prism Club. I'm calling in to share that this Sunday we are hosting our third annual Pride event at the Fort
Le Center from 11 to 2:00 p.m. This event is completely studentled, made possible by our wonderful adviser, Miss Lad, and will include live talent in performances, fun activities, local organizations, food, and more. We have worked very hard to put together a
community celebration of love, kindness, and inclusion. Our event is totally family-friendly with games and activities, arts and crafts for kids. We welcome a fun and free experience for everyone, made possible by the donations from the community. Speaking of which, a
big thank you to Franco's Metro for their very generous food donations and anyone who purchased shirts online or donated. Lastly, a big big thank you to Keith Goslin from the CPAC for helping us establish a sensory friendly room. We are very thankful for the support we've
received from the community. Um, please make sure to visit our Instagram and Facebook pages to stay in the know. Um, and also please check out our newly created website which is linked in our Instagram profile. We hope to see you on Sunday. Thank you so much. There are no more raised hands.
I have a motion floor to the public. Motion Rabbino. Second. Varel. Any all in favor? I. Any opposed or extensions? There was actually still a hand raised. Victoria had her hand up.
It was after the open. I was watching it actually. We want to open that up. I'll make a motion that the last person. All right. Um Jason, just let the person speak.
Victoria, 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. Hello everyone. Long time no see. I've been very busy with a lot of things. Um
I did receive the um your name and address for the record. Oh, okay. Sorry about that. It's a Victoria Kim and I live on um 100 Park Avenue. Um I did receive an email responded uh
that let me see the strategic planning survey was it done? I joined a little later after dinner so um I might have missed it. Was there a session for to go over this
results today? Is that your only question? Uh that's one of the questions and yeah finish asking and then we'll respond. Um and um I see a lot of uh motions
about the non-resident non-resident um I was just reading through sorry I wasn't fully prepared um today but I wanted to say that there were a lot of motions for non-resident
[Music] um resident issues. So is there any uh background reason? It was icy more than other times. So just questioning about that too. That's it. Two
questions. And I I I was on cruise for two weeks. So, I as soon as I got back, I didn't really have time to res respond to the the the uh the survey, but I did
receive something like responding that I responded to it. Was it like general response to everyone or is it did the email went out to those who actually responded? Three questions.
Thank you for your questions. So the first question was the strategic planning. There was a community event uh last week and part of that was again this week as soon as we started the um during the superintendent report there was strategic planning group here and they presented some information. All of
that information will be going up in our website once it's complete. We have two more forums. One's for one for our teachers and staff members and one for our administrators who will also participate in that. As far as the um got the other two questions, right?
The res Thank you. The residency on the agenda this evening, you have non-residents who are paying tuition and non-residents paying tuition or employees, children. Those are the two we have to identify them. Maybe annual contracts. They sign a contract and they
start to pay tuition with that you'll see there. And the last part with was uh is there going to be the the email you receive? I'm not quite sure. There's usually a link that would link it to your calendar which would have uh given you the update of when to participate.
But I guess if it was missed, we we're looking at possibly others. But we'll be speaking with the TLD group once we finalize all our numbers and see what our next step will be. But I will say stay tuned because we will be sharing all that information and that will help drive all of the uh the strategic goals
in the future. her question. Her question was um did everyone receive did everyone receive a response even if they didn't do the the questionnaire because she said she did not do the questionnaire but she received a response that said thank you. So I don't know if she I don't know what she's
talking about specifically. I know if you clicked on the link it would lead you to the the calendar which would allow you to you know maybe it thinks she did it. Don't know. So I don't don't have a specific answer to that. Thank you. May I have a motion to close the floor
to the motion? Second motion second morel and fullback. All in favor? Any opposition? Okay, moving on to resolutions. We have a motion to approve items 1B through walk-in resolution 6B.
Motion. Second. Motion Morell. Second Kobach. Roll call, please. K. Yes. Math. Yes. M. Curry. Yes. Mr. Knight, yes. Mr. Coten, yes. Mr. Lopez, yes. Mr. Brown,
yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. We have a motion to approve item 1s. Motion. Second. Motion. Morell. Second. Rabbino. Roll call, please. Ken, come back.
Sure. Miss Colbath. Yes. Mr. Curry, yes. Mr. Knife, yes. M Yes. Mr. Lopez, yes. Miss Morell, yes. Mr. Rabino, yes. Miss Victor, yes.
Miss Buyers K. Yes. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve items 1 CUR through 3 CUR? Motion. Second. Motion. Morell. Second. Kobath. Roll call, please. Miss Byz Kane. Yeah.
Miss Colbath. Yes. Miss Curry. Yes. Mr. Knight. Yes. Miss Cotang. Yes. Mr. Lopez. Yes. M. Moral? Yes. Mr. Rabbino? Yes. Miss RTO? Yes. May I have a motion to approve
items 1 F through 12F? Motion. Second. Motion. Curry. Second. Farrell. Roll call, please. Miss Buyers K. Yes. Miss Colbath. Yes. Miss Curry. Yes. Mr. May. Yes. Mang.
Yes. And thank you to Jac and Prestige Institution for the nominations. Noted. Mr. Lopez. Yes. Miss Morell. Yes. Mr. Rabino. Yes. Miss Rictor. Yes. We have a motion to approve items 1 P
through walk-in resolution 15P. Motion second. Motion morale. Second. Curry. Roll call, please. As far as K. Sure. Miss Kath. Pass. Miss Curry. Yes. Mr. Knight.
Yes. this coine. We're doing I'm still we're doing P, right? Yeah. Um just want to congratulate Yes. And congratulations to two legends in 2P and
3P. You are a legend of legends. Thank you for your service. Yeah. to begin. Uh, yes. And and do Miss Bell? Yes. And Joey, I love you crazy. You're going to be soling us.
Mr. Rabino, yes. Miss Victor, yes. Miss Byus K. Yes. Miss Colbath. Yes. I have a motion to approve items 1 P and 2 P. Motion second. Motion Colon. Morell.
Roll call, please. Miss Bars K. Yes. Miss Kath, yes. Miss Clurry, yes. Mr. Knight, yes. Miss Cotang, yes. Mr. Lopez, yes. Miss Morel,
yes. Mr. Roino, yes. Yes. Is there any old business? Yeah, there actually a couple of old business. Um I just want to congratulate AAPI cultural night last week. It was
phenomenal like always. Um it's night like nervous. So I am very very grateful for Miss June and all the staff who um who worked with the students to put this event together. I also want to thank APN University. you get a chance
to send your notes for their um grant to the uh to to to the club um in support of of this uh event. Um and uh and thank you very much for for all. Um the second item that I want to raise is um
congratulations to school three. Last week um I was at a um advocacy day down in Trenton with my children. I can attend this important event at a school where my student um move on from. So I want to congratulate the staff there. Thank you
for all you do. I also want to share that um the playground um as you know that it's been closed for two years now I believe and counting two birthday candles. Um I hope that by next year it
doesn't third birthday candle. Um, I know that we're waiting for these strategic plans, but I really hope that the children have a playground by next year and also potholes. I know that right now for off area, we keep calling
off area to address the pothole. Um, before long, we're going to thank you. Just just building off of what you said, uh, this is a really exciting time of year because you said we got to celebrate so many students. Um and it's really difficult to attend them all. Um
but the one so far has been fantastic. I love celebrating student achievements. Um and uh tomorrow uh I'll be attending the perform performing arts awards which I'm I'm really excited about. Um and then the obvious the athletic awards as
well. Um so you know and I hope that more board members can join us because I it's I know that um that the students and parents um u you know love our work. So great job kids
um congratulations uh um you know for and and her son for getting to nine weeks. I think that's a fantastic achievement in getting scholarship for the world. I think that's a that's a great achieve. That's all I got. Thank you. I have something to say. Go ahead.
So, I was in Tennifly um about a week ago and it was such a beautiful experience to be around a school that had a own playground area before. This is an elementary school um right here in Tennis Flight and it it's I don't know
what the inside of the school looks like but that outside they have a really nice playground and they have basketball courts and they have no fences with box around them and then you come up to Fort Le and uh you walk around uh the area
that I live in which is by fireman's park and um school number one is literally locked like a prison. you have uh you can't walk on any part of any grass except for maybe a 3x 20 piece of grass in the front of the
school. Every else every single bit of grass is um blocked off by a brand new brand new fence, brand new chain l fence. Maybe they should have put that as three. Um,
but it's it it's it's not nice. Um, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel welcoming. Um, it doesn't create that kind of atmosphere. And especially like right now, the the town is redoing Fireman's Park. So, those children that live in that area have nowhere to go.
Um, I know that the the PTA moved the the one piece of equipment over to um the other side of not Horn, but I guess it would be Whiteman. So, Whitman. Um, but the kids can't get in there to play because it's literally locked. I mean,
like with a lock that you need a key to get into. Um, so I drove around to the other schools to see what it looked like. School number four. School number four has the same chain fence. It has a little more grass that you could uh walk on in the front. Um a substantially larger portion of grass than school
number one, but uh still the same thing. Still the same brand new shiny uh chain link fence. Um only this one doesn't have a um a lock that goes on that needs a key to get in. This one has a keypad and this door is open. So uh I guess
people could go in there if they, you know, wanted to go in and play. That would be good. But my point is that I don't feel that our schools are welcoming people. I mean, I know that Amy fought really hard. I know that she went to up to bat to be able to get the
track open and that track is used and a lot of people come and use the track and it's a community place but for our younger students our younger playgrounds to go to another town and I know we're not going to fly and I know our taxes aren't as high as tennifly but um you
know this is a is I consider it a semi nice area. I mean we try to say it's a nice area right? I mean it's not cheap cheap. I I don't I don't know. I mean, but when you look at it, it looks like we're like we're not allowing anybody to go anywhere because and if it if it's
because if I hear that it's because someone's dog defecated and they didn't pick it up, then this is a problem because that's an easy fix. We have cameras, you could watch the person that did it and they could get a ticket or a summon. I mean, if you have to pick up
after your dog, um, that's a known fact. So, um, if that's the reason, then that's not a good enough reason. I just don't feel that our playgrounds should be locked up. I think that our schools should be open and students, not
students, community members should be able to use them. Um, I do see our numbers going down. People are going to different places. Um, I don't think people are going having babies. I see babies everywhere. I see babies everywhere. I love babies. I see them
everywhere. They're adorable and I think people are just making babies like crazy. Um, but I I I don't know where those numbers came from. We'll see how it comes out. But yeah, I just wanted to mention it. And the school three, I heard it's falling apart. I mean, from
parents, from board members, um, from people who work in the district. So, I think that the money that was spent locking those schools down and should have been spent in other places. And I want that noted. Thank you. So we have two quotes. Uh one is to
regret to school three. I think one uh school one believe that will also be repaired. Um as we say the long range facility plan I keep saying it. I know the loss and bounds could be the enrollment projections all the demographic studies we sent to the board of education. You know when you open up
the facilities then recognize that they get used very quickly. And as we look at our budget and what we're trying to do, um, you know, when people would talk about this about tonight in the thought exchange, class sizes. So, we spend a lot of money. Just had a a plumbing
issue at school number four, which cost us $15,000. That is our sixth issue this year with plumbing, which is $100,000. We have spent on repairs in our plumbing that is a hundred years old. So, we have not touched the
plumbing in over a hundred years and have now spent $100,000. So, when the district speaks about we don't have enough, we have too many students in a class, well, we just spent $100,000, we haven't touched the point for 100 years. So, that's a choice that we make. So, the purpose of the
long range facility plan is to actually present the ideas so everyone is clear when a decision is made on the facilities of what's the priority. And that's the point of doing a strategic plan so that everyone makes that decision informed. So if the decision is to say we're going to have new
playgrounds, let them be open, then understand that we can't we'll have larger classes, right? You can't have everything. It's a 2% cap. That's the way it works in our district and every district in the state of New Jersey. So you're saying, let the people use a playground that's there. You can't
there's not even anywhere to walk. I mean, this is becoming a metropolitan, but that's that's a function of but that's a function of what we have, right? And how we're how we approach everything new fences. I know they're new fences and the new fences also helped us protect because, you know, we don't want people using our facilities
when no one's watching them and then we get lawsuits and things like that. So, we're trying to balance that but without we can't just randomly fix things without a plan of what's the long term. This building to this day still has a problem with, you know, with with uh
drainage. It's three over $2 million to repair. The the drainage in this building does not work for all of the air conditioning. So, you know, we have to make informed decisions that help us grow as a district in the future. And it
can't be we just want to fix something or we want to do this. There has to be that plan. when everyone who's purchased a house knows that you don't just go in and paint. You look at, well, if the roof is not working, if the walls are going to fall down, what should I do first to create that plan? That was the purpose with the strategic plan, the
long range facility plan, so that everybody in the community, and I appreciate the comments of being open with this so that everyone knows what is the plan, what are the goals moving forward so that there can be no, you know, we've decided to just do this or you decided to do that. There has to be
that plan for the safety of every child in this district, for the future of the Fort Public Schools. Where are we going with everything we do? And that's why I'm I'm proud of it that I'm going to get it done. And I think that's important. It answers the question
really about, you know, when we talk about is there enough money to staff after school programs and things like that, all of those things. So those those facilities that will be open that I know school trees field is chained and linked locked up after school. But the
more we open we just don't have all of those resources at some other town. You may look at the budget of Tennifly and say wow why is there a really small difference with ours we've been very very tight with our budget right? So an $85 million budget in Tennifly and we're
at 90 million. We have,00 or 1200 more kids than Tenif. after long babies. Somebody just said that everywhere. So, so there has to be a way to We need new
microphones. We need new microphones. I know that's we want our money back. So, so not to pile on on this, I'm not on the strategic planning committee, but my understanding of how the school funding formula works that there are components of it that are actually driven by
student enrollment. Correct. And all those districts that and there are many more in South Jersey, but I think that are experiencing uh decreased enrollment are losing a lot of state aid. So in the strategic plan as where one of
the things you have you know they did the declining enrollment the birth rates are going down people aren't having as many babies etc. um will they be taking into account that our funding will be impacted if what they predict comes to
pass? You know, are we thinking along those lines? And um you know, as I know we get our 2% but you know, we just signed contracts that that have 3.8 3.5 for 5 years. Um and so I'm just curious whether strategic planning, no,
they don't take into account the financial aspects. Where does that come in for us? Um, and then I just want to make sure that I understand that you have formed a superintendent search
committee, an ad hoc committee, and that you intend to populate it. And as I heard earlier, two people have volunteered. Did is my when I leave tonight, is my understanding of what took place accurate?
No. I didn't form the committee yet. I asked people to let me know. You're establishing a superintendent search and no a superintendent search firm RFP review committee. Yes. To review the
five RFP the five proposals from the search firms. And I asked people that by the end of the night before they leave to let me know. And you and Casey right away volunteered. And I'm still waiting before I leave this evening. you find
out if anyone else what I did too. Okay. And Holly did too. Okay. If anyone else wishes to serve on it and then I will let you all know tomorrow once I have all the names of who submitted their names. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I didn't leave with the incorrect
uh understanding of what took place. Um so anyway on on the financial added back so the three things that you have three components to to the district's goals, right? So the first component is you will have a long range facility plan that will identify everything in every
building. What the current cost is to repair or even project. So if you look at windows today, the windows right here, I'm using it as a hypothetical. These windows would cost $1,000 to repair today and they're in good shape and they have 20 years left. So that
would be at the bottom of your list. So by the time we are done with our long range facility plan, you want a book with pictures and current costs, what it will repair those items and what their life is. That's the first component. The second component is a strategic plan based on what the people have responded
and putting it all together in documents that say here are your goals for the next three years of how you should what you should do that the the community has spoken and this is where you should focus. So it's actually very helpful for the board of education come July you're going to use those as your long-term
goals right every year you take one or two of them and you identify them and say this is what action the third component of it is from a board and a fiscal management where do I find the funding to balance between a what's it critical in that long-range facility
plan and to make the long range the strategic goals make it happen right so if you're going to say that we want more communication well What tools, what resources do we have, can we utilize or do we have to purchase? And so at large
your question about enrollment, yes, we're seeing those trends and there are districts who are losing that money. There's also some equalization, if I'm not mistaken, that's still taking place in the aid. That's why we were able to end up a recalculation of the aid. So that's why you see districts in our
surrounding counts who might have lost millions. I know in Beringfield they lost $5 million, but we received about a million dollars more. So it there's an equalization going on throughout the state to determining determine what each district is properly funded. It also
goes into effect based on your uh adequacy rate of what you have been charging in the past in the current what the the municipality has been charging for taxes over the last 20 years. So all of these these things are going into
that funding formula. However, which we did this year in our funding in our our budget is when you have a drop or an increase in enrollment, you can and have the access to bank that those differences and you can use it as a waiver just like we did with our health
care costs. You can do the same with your population. So, if you were to see an increase of 500 kids, you could request for the state to give you more money and that's how you could also increase your tax, right? So when that long range plan comes out,
who who sets the priorities as to what we're going to devote the money to? They the engineers and the architects set all of the items. It is the it is the responsibility of administration to work with the board to say we've noticed that the plumbing I see has been problematic.
It's 100 years old and hasn't been touched. This is a red, right? This is your immediate priority because just like you would do with that when you lease or buy a car, You're going to say it's a collaboration. Correct. Thanks. Okay.
We're good. That concludes my superintendent report. I was taking notes. Okay. I have a motion to adjourn. Second motion Rabino. Second. Cyers Fang. All in favor? Any
opposed? Thank you. the night. So,