##VIDEO ID:h-gWwwlxt0Q## United States of amerce 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 interest 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.foe.com published in the board's designated online media Outlet newspapers the record and the Star Ledger fil with the clerk of the burough of Fort Lee and mail to all persons if 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 Caporal 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 m vyers k m k Miss Curry here Mr Knight here miss kotang here Mr Lopez M Morel here Mr Rino here M RoR here six person 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 have a motion to go into executive session motion motion Rabino second Curry all in favor I any oppos okay to the flag of the United States of America the stands Nation indivisible andice 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.foe.com published in the board's designated online media Outlet newspaper the reford in the Star Ledger filed with the clerk of the Bure of Fort Lee and mailed to all persons if 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 Caporal or by means of communication equipment which is attended by or open to all of them 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 Paul please m v k m Kat here M Curry here Mr n here M Kang here Mr Lopez here M Morel here Mr Rino here M RI here the board convened executive session at 6:30 pm to discuss legal personnel and other confidential matters Dr Kravitz We Begin by sharing the superintendent report yes good evening everyone and thank you for joining us on zoom and in person a few updates just to remind everyone of our district goals and our action plan of where we are one of our our first goal was comprehensively assess District facilities and grounds with the intent of developing a long range facilities plan to provide the best environment possible student learning and activities so so far we have um convened the architect who will be making his he started some walkthroughs already and developing the long range facilities plan which will also include projections on future enrollment they do an assessment of all the demographics of the area uh including construction sites and anything else we're also looking at our square footage of our faciliity and interestingly enough I tell you we have been looking at the old last one that was done for the referendum in 2014 and the projections for 2019 which were done back then were almost exactly where they are today so we have hit those marks um the second goal that the district is working on is address disproportionality of performance on standardized testing among the district's demographic group um as you know we have engaged with rers Center for Education Dr ferus um he has been meeting with our student with our staff specifically our inrs team looking at how we identify kids and how do we take stigmas away from ourselves when we looking at the cell this will develop an equity literacy lens to help identify and interrupt practices in at least correct areas of curriculum design discipline gifted and talented AP honors special education and academic interventions that leads to Equitable outcom so so far we've had three meetings different subgroups have met with them from within our district third goal for the district for this year has been leveraged District technology and other appropriate resources to increase Community engagement and perception of foring public schools we actually did our second mailing in a long time in the uh in the fall we will be doing another one within the next month and a half as We Gather our data we know that the Bley high school has a social media club that they have been working with our principls to get some videos out there and we have increased our social media presence specifically from the high school but we hope to add Elementary EXP quickly those are our three District goals that we have been working um additionally a big congratulations to Willie Lee I know students are going to talk about willly Lee and I'll tell you how great he's doing as one of our students to be proud of we also received an email recently regarding the outstanding performance for the high school marching band in the 20204 US bands National Championship which we all know and celebrated but that allowed us now to Mo to be promoted the open class for the 2025 season so congratulations again for Michael the only tomorrow night at our high school at 6 p.m. we are discussing our block scheduling uh please feel free to join us we'll hopefully answer all your questions and do the best we can to move that in positive direction tonight we have two students from our high school they are Chloe song and Sydney Kim who can reporting some positive news from our high school so um students from P High School The Fortress and the pure Outreach service team met to celebrate the colle last month students made gratitude CH craft and helped prepare apple pie and brownies for the Thanksgiving Fe students also made sugaries and joined our holiday seon these events Foster strong bonds between students whose path may not simp the get cross in addition these collaborations help build social skills promote inclusions and increase awareness of both neurodiversity and Shar experience we are so excited to share our time together we hosted the annual Jack Riley Holiday Basketball Tournament where eight teams competed did in three games each this tournament has been hosted by Fort Le for over 30 years willly Lee grade 11 audition and was accepted into the njsma region one L Ensemble on cleet Willie will now be auditioning for All State band on Saturday January 18 at K St High School in Mrs aosta Spanish class students created useful things that can help create less waste of recyclable reusable materials or art of any kind to represent responsible consumers ISM and then had to explain its uses in Spanish boys and girls went to track teams by the big North conference American League champion this is the fifth consecutive title for the boys and the first time the girls have W since 2018 Junior BL Jenna y broke the girls School record with a high game of 279 the year Emilia Vasquez won the Cy wrestling tournament and was voted most outstanding wrestler of the ter on January 15th ply High School post peer Outreach service team students made a positive impact at school number two by hosting an engaging and educational workshop for the fourth grade students the workshop focused on crucial topics such as digital citizenship cyber safety anti-bullying and respect equipping for younger students with the knowledge and tools to navigate both online and offline interaction to this event is a shining example of how forly high school students are taking the lead in creating a positive and supportive Community both within their own school and Beyond the post program continues to demonstrate the power of PE Le education in fostering growth understanding and respect among students of all ages so just as an update to Willie Lee he did compete over the weekend at JP Stevens High School and he was accepting to the New Jersey music educators Association All State Wind Ensemble and Orchestra on clarinet this is the top Honors group in the state and will is now recognized as one of the top high school musicians in New Jersey in CL we do have 13 HIV cases of which six were founded there are I wish everyone because we will not see anyone for the next two weeks a very happy Lunar New Year and we do have a few administrative changes on 5p under transfers the name Tiffany pazi I'm removing that name and under 6p Michelle Marciano she is extending that leave until February so on the unpaid leave no benefits column It should read 92524 to now 22825 with the return date of March 3rd 2025 the two administrations as well as the two walk-ins that we discussed thank you thank you um before we continue I'll just read the should I read the walk-ins so that if anyone um has questions about it you can ask during board questions um so 6B and 7B will be walk-in residency resolutions 6B reads therefore be resolve the portly Board of Education hereby dis enrolls the following non-resident student from portly schools and that is student 857 358 8058 portly High School grade 12 and 7 therefore be it resolved that portly Board of Education hereby dis enrolls the following non-resident student from portly Public Schools student 358 316 9578 Lewis F Co Intermediate School grade 6 uh I don't believe there are any committee reports but are there any that we missed at the last meeting okay moving on to board members having questions or comments on the agenda or any other topic questions on the agenda we'll go with those first just some clarification on 3B the 3B one student in middle school that's marked sixth grade that's an error right we have a student marked sixth grade under so that's probably an error um is there any EMP to the jump in the intermediate school that's almost a 10% jump when everywhere else in the district was so the nextn is 318 by the way I like the I really appreciate the year over-year comparison because it gives us a context on the enrollment level so is appear at the intermediate school was a jum so I don't have the the specific we see bubbles um and that's you know that's that's a common thing in any school district that you'll have more I think our next group is the third grade or fourth grade coming fourth grade going into fourth grade next year you see bigger classes same is it maybe the fifth grade coming in with a group of student it yes question um and then the next page in school suspension versus out of school suspension you Define those two categories in school suspension um could be detention um yeah and then out of school me you're out of school for and based on the the student handbook that you find every category also matches some of our policies so is that just for the month of December the number that's reported here or is it year-to date number that's the month of December just month going for I know that we don't have the data from last year but again going forward if we have a context to compare previous year it give us a sense of the trend in the district um same goes for the HIV um if we can just label that as month is that also month until month to date number until January 21st if we can just clearly label the period that this these numbers I think that would be helpful y as you saw we're changing so the state is asking more more that you list your suspensions and also enrollment so that's why we're playing with u you know the the U the report so that gives more access to information because we want it's very it's much better than previous report on just two Commons if we can add year over year to the extent that we can do it going forward and just uh daily labeling from period on that item okay under 2C can you talk about how the program of studies how is that um revised each year the time frame for it so that if parents wouldn't want to have any input how would they go about providing input it would come so students so so the process usually comes from the guance director who leads the based on selection of classes so if there's a constant demand for a class at high school we'll start to make sure that we're running in that class um if we had no requests for a period of time then that class would be replaced we have to look at teacher energy meaning the ability to how the teacher teach that class if we had so if there was let's say a science class someone wanted to offer and we were at maxed with our science classes that might hinder that decision to open up a new science class because obviously we have to look to to hire someone um in the program of studies if you looked at the update what we sent out to the board members there was a sheet that indicated the changes that made uh some of those changes for classes that haven't been no students have registered for them in several years we added our shop classes and I would like to say that April 1st is our opening day for our shop and if you'd like to come see it let me know we'll show you where we're at they're painting it it's a really nice orange and white building on that track it looks great um but those classes are now in there as well so as we add programs and that has been one of my dreams to add more of those Academy type programs to our our district um but we have to make sure we have teacher energy to do that so that's how we'll add those classes as you saw with the teacher Academy the same way and now the shop classes under 6 F can you talk about what is the the the purpose behind um this proximity learning for foreign language sure we have a need for Spanish teacher we don't have a Spanish teacher so the class that we could support now with the online learning that we've seen with our biology class at the high school has worked well um students are engaged I know we have visited I have personally visited that classroom and it seems to be working one of the things that i' I've shared publicly is that our problem specifically middle school and high school students it's hard to find the specialized teachers in certain areas of content areas so when we're looking at long-term how do we solve the problem of leave replacement and the reason why leave Replacements are difficult to maintain is you have a teacher who is certified who is is looking to come in knowing that they will have a certain amount of time so we made a change in a date today for example on one of my um administrative changes so the person who's in that classroom currently their contract usually ends today or will be ending but now we told them oh no we need you for two more weeks now they could have committed somewhere else to another District where they'll be looking for a long-term permanent position so it's very hard so the reason why we're looking at proximity they are State Certified teachers they offer an opportunity to jump into a class right away um and as we look to the Future for leave Replacements that might be an option for us to not uh we so far since I've been here chemistry was a problem physics was a problem biology is a problem the hard ones like that and they have these certified teachers who can do it virtually So currently we have a Spanish teacher who is on Le corre this is to replace that correct thank you any other board members have questions I have one you and I love that we have the shop and everything so 3C and I probably totally misunderstand what the public notice is supposed to be about but it's Career and Technical education so I'm thinking we have our nursing we have our teacher program we have our hbic the shop why is aof the only one that's being public because I would want to put out to the public all these amazing things that we're doing so that's the per so that's the Perkins Grant um the Perkins Grant falls into the CTE that is more of a it's required once a year to have the approval of that the Perkin Grant the aof fits into that category perfectly and it's not a lot of money it's approximately $23,000 I think we receive from federal funding under the Perkins Grant so there's certain criteria the shop would not fit into that criteria um it's every year that money has been earmarked for the aof Academy okay maybe maybe for in the future we just put pursuant to Perkins because we have so much more career in technical education and it looks like well the only thing is the aof and that's what I thought when I looked at it no it's because the the Perkins Grant is specific to what you can use okay and that a fits perfectly to that and as I understand from our discussion 7f which relates to a Consulting agreement despite the language in the contract um that we're approving that that the role of that consultant is strictly limited to assisting our human resources operation in central office correct that's that's that's it okay if I have one quick question regarding 9f is that an annual remind if you can remind me is that an annual allocation that we receive from this program Isa so what happened here was the they had an original allocation of salaries and you'll see type of the Personnel agenda there Sal that shifted so then the grant is there's there's your original allocation and here's your carryover so this is the amendment and when they did the amendment each of the allian is there for you and I have so the numbers might not be the same every year but as a okay it is a grand and does it fluctuate from year to year that we have to change of we have to anticipate the change because the hiring before this so traditionally you never you really don't want to put too many salaries into your Any Grant because you you know that that number fluctuates you have to pay a certain percentage of your fight and things like that so what you really want to do with any Grant or any type of money that you receive specifically is use it for onetime cost that can take away from your operating budget so you know example if you were to buy a bus with some of the money I mean that's what happen with a lot of the rvest funds right people were buying things at a one time instead of the annual cost so they can save the money so that's why grants are very hard you wouldn't really want to put too many we have some salaries in our Title One grants but we try to really not budget too many salar that way all the grants that we get are based upon our data you give them which is in your Assa um and your demographics that we send over and then from there then then you get your funding notice around June so from the data we submit in October we'll get whatever our fund notice M and and for what we qualify for June and and just two points in case people don't know as I say what that that's your number of students every year that's the most important um report that we run in schools by October 15 you will tell you will tell what to the state of New Jersey how many students you have on your role that's what they ask that's number one that's important another data point that I think is really going to come up in the future when we talk about what Public Schools is that in the past when we calculate free and reduced lunch we would ask for parents to fill out the forms and then that number gets you know checked and evaluated and then we make a determination and we've been running if we watch the numbers between in 10 to 133% of our free and reduced lunch well this year the state has changed the way it's been handled so any student who qualifies for Medicare in the district automatically gets put into that Medicaid I'm sorry gets put into the um into the numerical value so in essence this year you will see our number drop go over 23% so the number of students now who qualify based on that new calculation went from about 12 to 13 to 23% and that's and and that's from the state the state send sending us the list correct because now it's done by them which is a very different you know when we ask about the who is a 40 student just remember that now it's different can you just tell the public what Esa because they might not be familiar and I was very remiss I wanted to thank the board for being very accommodating to my personal schedule since October 22 um I've tried like to make it here in person as many times as possible which hasn't been a lot and I'm returning very soon um to New Hampshire but I really appreciate everyone and their good wishes and and emails and and support especially from superintendent Robert do so the elementary the elementary and secondary Education Act um that's what the school that's what SS the name es Esa replac Title One funds so if you heard title one that's what that is the same thing it's just different acronym same thing just want to highlight that we have public retirement this at this meeting um they both serve over 25 years one 29 years um I don't know either of them but I want to thank them for their service and it's incredible to imagine that spend 25 years and9 years of with any organization or with any Community um for p Miss pante um I was hoping my kids would get you at some point but um didn't get a chance and and and now you are leaving our district I want to thank you for your service and and to theate school and also at school any other board members before we move on to public comment okay may have a motion to open the floor to the public motion Rino second um n sorry uh all in favor any opposed or extensions okay we will hear first from any members of the public physically located in the cetorum and we will take questions from those participating remotely participants are limited to three minutes additional uh sorry excuse me participants are limited to 3 minutes in which to make their statement for remote public participants please select the raiseed hand button Mr rero will recognize each Community member in the order of raised hands please unmute your microphone and everyone please state your name and address for the record limit your comment to three minutes anyone here public in person who wishes to make a comment by come on up by hey can you guys hear me yes so I have a kid with an i for cancer diagnosis and one of the accommodation is that get SE um in my case for example today this morning we sent out an email to the teacher I know that he's sick today we pull the school the number on the website press one bunch of times cuz it's busy usually and we talk with whoever's on the other side of the line and let them know that they're sick right so later today I log into Genesis right and what I see is that my kid is unexcused for today and all the other times that he was sick last semester when they didn't have a teacher in the class so the question that I have for me as a parent what does it take to get the child excuse first of all the second question that I have how do we correct this issue because I called in I wrote emails and I ask the school to accommodate thep and mark the child sick as it is and the third question is where's your policy in regards to treny and how do you enroll unenroll kids when comes to absences because I wasn't able to find it once I walk into Genesis and I saw the unexcused absences I first thing I wanted to know is like what does that mean so I started Google I started searching on the website for unexcused abesses I couldn't find anything then I started Googling for it and it turned out that you on a rits for after a number of unexcused absences so then go back to the website and try to figure out what's the policy in this District I couldn't find anything so this is the problem that I'm having that I would like to resolve thank you thank you for your question so the policy that we have that we that discuss the student attendance is 5200 if you go to our website Board of Education and it says board policies and regulations you look at pull down and it will uh list everything and you can type in the word attendance student attendance and will come up a list of them and 40 5200 is the policy that's related to that 5200 okay regarding your child and um I would just say with any student whether you have an IEP or not have an IEP best form of action is always to contact your teacher first specifically with IEP students there's a chain of command that we always recommend you would speak to the teacher if not the teacher your case manager if it's indicated anything is indicated in the IEP then it clearly should be an adjustment if that's the case for attendance so I did speak with the teacher I spoke with the person that takes attendance and they both said okay they didn't tell me that the is an excused and this comes as a surprise for me as a parent so there's a board policy regarding attendance is 5200 and that uh it will explain everything if you click on regulations it gives you specifics as to what council unexcused what councils are verified what councils are unverified because there are different categories that the state recognizes and we have a policy that the board has voted on and created that says after two days if there's a doctor's note then those would be counted excused only excuse me sir if I may um Dr kabitz is I'll say intentionally being B in response to your question because while you have every right uh to publicly speak about your child uh the Board of Education and the Administration has a legal obligation not to communicate publicly regarding any particular student situation um and so so as Dr kravit indicated uh you can review the policy 5200 um also reach out to the building principal and or teacher um to further review this matter but Dr krabit and the board cannot respond about the particulars of your child situation also Public public comment generally speaking isn't a back and forth um you make your comments and questions the board can respond if possible Dr kravit says again responded on two occasions trying to give you some more insight and direction um but again he can't go into any further detail regarding specifics of your child's situation but the points are noted I'm sure he will refer them to his STA and you have been it's been suggested that you reach out to the principal any questions I'm sure you can contact Dr Cav's office tomorrow and they can help points in right direction and and I'll have your case manager look look into it as well I do yes well I just want to say I didn't think our superintendent was being intentionally V I thought he actually did a very good job of answering it so I disagree with the lawyer and and I stand by our superintendent's effort to answer the question asked agreed anyone else in the public want to speak sorry that's okay do the rest I can I'm back sorry go ahead Andrew so my name is Andrew 326 so I assume talk about my fav subject which is C which is special education parents advisory Council um we had our monthly meeting um this past Wednesday actually and we had a guest speaker his name was con griffi he is the director of the of director of healthare advocacy for the author of for the auor of New Jersey he was amazing um he gave an overview of SSI and Medicaid for individuals with intellectual and development developmental disabilities um several parents did have 25 or so um parents on the meeting was virtual um several parents uh requested that the presentation uh be posted on the website which it is the homepage of the quot education website so who have did it thank you very much um also for any reason any by parent whatever they can access access it you can email to CP at se P a.com okay our next meeting will be in person which will be on February 19 right here in this room at 7 p.m. so we invite all the parents to please come and also board please things thank you very much thank all support thank you than good evening Keith go uh 2185 L Mo Avenue um couple questions um I see there's a speaker series for 4f and I know in the past Dr K this is my first question for you we've talked about speaker series possibly for the month of April Autism Awareness um is there anything been discussed about that subject um at all or is there something planned um the other things I wanted to speak about um is uh this is kind of an announcement to the town out have 800 families that got our uh cpag survey we only had a 4% response we have seen a lot of new faces probably over different families I imagine at each different meeting but we'd like to increase participation so um please tell your friends and bring them to the meetings as well um and in May um we're going to be holding our cpag elections as well so there will be a need for new leadership too so um if you all want to uh move this thing along and Andrew cynthy and I and all the other parents working you want to be a part of leading in U please do join us uh next month and moving forward um I think that's it yeah okay I'll get um so as far as more don't know where I'm supposed to go you can go wherever you go there you so traditionally uh the department heads will come and present an idea so it come from the director special Services we present for a speaker series so I can speak with her tomorrow morning and see what we can do for Autism Awareness but this one comes from the director of guidance talking about that so as we get these departments that present our speaker series that's how we get them the same way that the superintendent sometimes creates them so uh as I said I will speak to the director of special service and see what we have planned for April to make sure that we do have something in every building regarding autism awar cool and I don't mean to start it back and forth but um B I forgot that question so just so we we are evalua we are actually looking you might see in the near future some things that we're trying to do to make sure that we are using our buses um so we have a scan card we're looking we're speaking about this this morning so students have a scan card that allow us to track where that student is on when they scan on a bus and when they get off a bus we're having a difficulty with some of the students not using the scan card for the bus that's the first part the tracking component is something different but we've notice also that some of our routes that we Outsource with southb and jointure if you're not familiar with southb and jointure it is a district that's made up of several districts actually in South Bergen they get together they are they deal with a lot of special needs students and they also do what's called well Outsourcing for the buses so they will create the bus routes um when we set out for bid to them they V the company they that the bid specification and then they go and receive those bids um they accept the bids and then say this the company that won that particular bid in the conversations we had with them they even though they put in the bid specs that they want tracking the companies such as first student or John Ley will not honor the bid if they they they are not capable of doing Bus tracking so in our conversations today um we're doing budgets and how we plan our our future bus routes and things like that to be efficient the conversation was based on if we wanted that type of tracking would have to be our buses currently on nine buses and see how we can utilize them to do the special education routs right now they are not doing all the special education routs actually think they're only doing in District building to building but not out of District so that's what we're trying to do Dr but we actually own a program that does it um that actually helped us with mileage last year and we they so it has the capability of doing it it's just assigning someone to do that but we're on it still discussing it on a regular basis and TR we never quit you know that that's how we started CPAC we don't either okay all right thank you can I a question it's up to um I would bring it up under new business or old business or whatever old business because we've talked about it for a while anyone else in public wish to say anything okay Mr rero please online you JF 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 my name is fat and youf I live on Kingsland Lane I've been here can you hear me yes oh good I've been here a couple of times online I just want to say that my children attend fortly public school in all their years of attendance school has never been closed on the Muslim holiday of Eid this is the first year however that Eid alfit was acknowledged on the academic calendar it states observed next to Eid alfit and we thank you for that we are very very grateful for that uh some members who I will not name have told me look it says observed insinuating that we should be grateful and another member has stated something else insinuating that we can't have a holiday for off for everything and I understand but we're asking for you to just please be fair for all people who observe this religion if school is closed for lunar year Russia Shana Christmas Good Friday then let it be closed for Eid as well honestly not closing school for this holiday isolates the Muslim Students it creates anxiety low self-esteem makes them feel less than I'm not going to go into explain all the details but I wanted to make this short as I've been asking for the board to honor this holiday as they honor other religious holidays for a few New Years now lastly many many many towns too many to be read right now although I was planning to name the towns but too many towns closed their schools on this uh Muslim holiday um I want to thank you for your time I'd like to thank you for allowing Zoom to continue because it's freezing outside thank you for showing up and I wanted to know if you what the plans are for this holiday so we can plan accordingly thank you thank you for your comments um so we are looking at the calendar now what usually happens you know I present the calendar I start to build it I run it by the uh the union and discuss the number of days and where we're at the number of days Days in a contractual calendar is limited by that contract we us usually build into snow days I know there has been some talk and people believe that snow days are are no longer um accepted you can go virtual that's not correct the state has not recognized that so we do build into snow days there are some districts that don't once we do that we come up with as Fair as we can with everyone and we recognize all of the people and we are a diverse community and continually changing and we want to make sure we are inclusive of everyone's needs so but I will tell you it's very limited when we talk about the number number of days that we have and you know statutorily you cannot start school before September 1st and you must end it by June 30th so that's one of the things we always look at but thank you again and we will we take everyone's look at it it's very interesting because we do we have to check everything two or three times four times we have multiple eyes on it and yet we still make mistakes I just wanted to I'm sorry I just wanted to say it's just one day in comparison to the other days I know lunar year has one day um Rashia Shana has one day um juneth is one um there's a whole week uh for other holidays I'm I'm just asking for one day and I know there there are Muslim Students in high school middle school and elementary school so please I'd like to you to consider it I know this can't be for this year but please for this coming year as like I said it's um like you said let's just try to be Equitable let's just try to be fair I don't think one day is uh too much to ask thank you Nancy you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes hello Nancy Hatter 2100 Lynwood Avenue um so I'm going to piggyback off of what Keith said about the speaker series just from um my perspective my son's on the Spectrum he's 6 years old we attended attended an event um last week he overstimulated crying um and a girl around 12 double his size laughing and making fun of him as I stand there so you know Autism Awareness Month comes in April and I want to see what we can do to get a speaker to get anything you guys can do for that just to raise awareness acceptance because I'm doing my part taking into all of these therapies instead of activities he's doing his part doing all of these therapies occupational therapy um speech all this extra private stuff we fight for to fit into society but you know it would be nice for parents to teach their kids how to be kind how just to be nice but some parents don't do that and it would be helpful if during that month um the schools can kind of help us out also because he doing his part to fit in but we also need the kids who are who are not nice to also do their part and I think if we start bringing more awareness that month from a younger age maybe things will change maybe they won't but you know there's no harm in trying thank you I thank you thank you there are no more raised hands I have a motion to close the floor to the public motion motion morale second Kath all in favor I any opposed or extensions okay moving on to resolutions may have a motion to approve items 1B through Walkin resolution 7B motion second motion Morel second Kang roll call please this Co back yes Miss Curry yes Mr Knight yes M K Cen Yes except for myself and 5 Ved Mr Lopez yes morain on my name on Mr Rino yes m r yes and I same for my name on 5B as well and and not name is on as well iate [Music] not waiting for to finish making his not okay may have a motion to approve items one C through three C motion second motion Rabino second Kang roll call please Miss K yes Miss Curry yes Mr Knight yes M K yes Mr Lopez yes M Morel yes Mr Rino yes M Rick yes may have a motion to approve items onef through 9f motion second motion Curry second Morel roll call please let's go by yes and thank you for everyone in 2f amazing amounts and Don ations and keep them coming and we'll continue to try to stretch every dollar tooed Miss Curry yes Mr Knight yes M Kang yes Mr Lopez yes M Morel yes Mr Rino yes M rickord yes may have a motion to approve items 1 p through 12p with the administrative changes on 5p and 6p as noted with Dr Kitz at the beginning of the meeting motion second motion Morel second Curry roll call please M back yes and a huge shout out and thank you to Christine laor an amazing amazing bizette CH teacher 25 years and 3p Miss caval 54 years total there that can't be replicated overnight thank you for your service yes thank you Miss Curry yes Mr Knight yes and on 11p I'd just like to congratulate the great gu it's great to see him bringing his expertise to our district thank you this coang yes Mr Lopez yes M Morel yes Mr Rino yes M recor yes okay um any old business I know miss kotang you wanted to ask a question uh before we do that I sense committees to everyone there are some that still need a few people to fill in so um if you can respond preferably by the end of the week if time allows let us know if you're willing um and then we'll send out a final draft once everyone has responded if you're interested if you're not interested in any others then you don't have to respond Amy you had a question yeah regarding the uh the bus tracking system we had in the past started looking at transponder yeah transponder transfinder I'm sorry transfinder we still have that is that still happening or where are we with that is so transfinder is a program that that offers yes tracking of the buses it also allows us to calulate the actual mileage from point to point and that's what we were doing at the end of last year so it has those two components to the program that we own um so that that's that's the part we wanted to implement this year but we're still going through a lot of other things with with the management so what we're recognizing as I said is that those special education students who are getting bust out of District that people are looking for the the actual tracking we don't run many of those routes we are running I believe two routes I don't have the exact say two to two to three in school inhouse two to three District special education buses meaning if you're a student at school number three and you qualify for special education the program that you need at school to we will bust you um those are what we're running the rest are running being run by outsourced agencies by way of this outb and Joint right and that they won't have transfinder on them no matter what we did so what about our inhouse proces can we Implement that or what is the time frame for Implement I was under the impression that we were going to implement we were going to the assistant business administrator the previous assistant business administrator was going to be doing that um we have a new one who will be working on a lot of programs including that as she's only begun 3 weeks four weeks roughly a month maybe a month so that she has to get acclimated to the programs because the other one was working on it's not up and running yet but it will be our goal is to have it by the end of the year the reason I ask is for those of us who don't have my kids doesn't have a phone and um and when they're home 45 minutes late and I found out after they get home the bus was 45 minutes late it gives you know it just makes us worri and that would really be helpful I know keeps asking about it as well and we are looking into it absolutely we are absolutely looking into it um the second question I have is on the calendar timeline when does the district start looking at the calendar for the following year and when can parents expect that calendar so I have the C I have a draft uh I usually wait for Burton Burton County Schools first because I'm try to match it up to see where Bergen Academy Bergen Tech we have a lot of students who go there as well and if you have a sibling in this District you want it to match as close as possible uh so we're doing that and you know taking the notes of parents who call up or make statements like that so we can be accommodating um so we I have a draft we'll be reviewing it again for a second set of eyes because I just want to make sure and then I'll present it to the union to make sure and then usually with the board I send it several copies and say these are some options depending on how far into June you'd like to go these are the options by what March April hopefully by March it's done um but we do you know sometimes there's Corrections that have to be made but hopefully by March 1st we'll have a leave I know a lot of districts are starting to adop them now so within the month and I know that there there was there was a um voicemail that just hit my phone I I imagine that has to do with the black uh the block schedule meeting tomorrow yes um you mentioned earlier there will be language support can you just elaborate language support there will be for parents there there will be language support in Spanish um Japanese Korean Chinese Russian and Arabic there to assist and explain some things to the parents who have questions and this would be the final meeting for parents to come as a grou to as a group to a presentation so we will be you know we'll be accepting some questions and we answer as many as we can we'll also be producing a fact sheet that will be sent out and if there is Need for another meeting we'll do another meeting as well we want to make sure it's a SM transition if we're learn you know how we do things and what we need to do we're learning every day and and we meet regularly every week a team of special education buildings and grounds the police department I know I've spoken to the mayor about it because it impacts our community as well crossing guards um teachers students parents um administratively the food service company has been involved with conversations um who else I know Mr Simons has been there represent Security's been there security has been there I mean we have everybody we want to see if we can cover as much as possible so tomorrow when parents come in they'll have a QR code the QR code will be able to download all those questions that they put in but we'll be doing them when we start the meeting in Translation so everyone is aware of how to access information and how to ask those questions in any languages will we report this meeting so that parents who cannot join have has the opportunity to Le view it this would be the last opportunity for a large group we we'll try to record we actually didn't discuss that but we can do that we'll try to get someone to record it but the slideshow will be translated into all those languages as well so when it gets posted it will be in all the languages that I just mentioned I think many parents would appreciate that option if they can't make it small night it is 6:00 and many parents you know to get caught up in the Comm so thank you so much for considering that um so I have one more one more business um there have been there was some inaccurate information Shar on social media regarding our District's math curriculum so I just want to clear this up um a member of the community and a board member Shar earlier um a member of the community share a video that demonstrate a math lesson and um and and subsequent conversation happened online um and there were comment um from the community as as well as from the board member that that the methodology was unacceptable and I thought it would be important that we correct the record um obviously the video that was shown shown a me methodology that's called goat um and it is demonstrated by teacher that is not from our district and that we do not currently teach this methodology in our district so to reiterate this video that was shown shared on social media is not a methodology that we are teaching in our district more is the the teacher from our district it's important to know that the our board actually supported uh back in June 2024 to replace the previous B math curriculum with Savvy realized math program for k to4 um after after we received updates from the state to update our math standards and curriculum we also voted in in um subsequently in April in August last year to approve the district's fiveyear cicor cycle so we wanted to um just remind parents that if they have any concerns um to we urge you to continue to check with um the staff member as well as um District um supervisors to get correct information uh after all they they do have the most current and updated information and I wanted to just commend our staff and administration including the Math teachers who are working extra hard to implement and update our math curriculum that we we as a v voted unanimously to support um and thanks for making our math program Stand Out program an excellent program um thank you for all our teachers and staff excuse me yeah did you say a board member put up false information on social media did I hear correct no no it was the the the member of a community who share a video uh it was then it was then discussed in the comments that this is an unacceptable curriculum or math teaching by member yeah yes I'd like to and and and that's inaccurate right that is not a methodology with teaching so the focus here is that we are not teaching this methodology okay yeah so I'm the board member I'm the the mystery board member uh and I'd like to just address it since you've decided to do so so somebody posted a video of methodology as you stated um how to how to solve a subtraction problem so back in the day when when I was taking math we would take the number that we were going to subtract from and we put on the top and then we would take the other number and we just put it like right under it right and then we would do the math two sides do the math and we'd be left with the answer the video that someone posted not me but they posted in my group where I allow the community to post because it's free speech I allow them to post whatever they want pretty much are other people um somebody did post a video suggesting that the methodology used in the video was being taught here in Le turns out it is okay so let's just get let's dig a little deep into what you just had to say since you're the math exper you're on the curriculum uh policy committee and everything else you're obviously the expert here so please please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that we're using a system called B is that correct those we're using that turns out he uses the same exact methodology I actually have pages and pages of of math from both my child okay so I've seen that personally in my home and then also there's actually a member of the community um present now who uh has also spoken about this uh and has also shared some sence with me so I understand like we want to pretend like our Math teachers great we voted on this curriculum everything else but I just I just want to be clear if somebody at any point in the community doesn't feel comfortable about something they should feel comfortable coming forward I don't think that I should be creating an environment on my page where people feel uncomfortable coming forward the things that they are concerned about as far as the board memb comments I did make a comment and I said that as far as I'm concerned as a parent of a special needs second grade student that as far as I'm concerned it's it's not acceptable that specific methodology now I had a conversation with Dr pic last meeting very brief on the like sidebar where I addressed my concerns my concerns are I want to teach subtraction like subtraction like how all the parents know it how how we all learned it right I asked why are we doing this weird table and we're doing 100 gra and I got a great answer the answer is because we're trying to align with with the with the law with the with the stand with the standard right we're trying to the standard and I understand that I agree with that had a conversation with Dr KV Dr KV please stop me I'm sure Lester will tackle me right now if I say wrong thing um I believe you said that you were in the process of discussing way that those standards could be met in other ways is that correct that's correct okay so just to just to wrap all this up yes I did on my Facebook page my personal Facebook page say that I I do not like that specific methodology of teaching math I stand by that I also encourage anyone from the community who wants to share their Ops about things to continue doing so on my page and not to let uh someone from the board of bed bully you into thinking that you don't have a right to do that thank you okay any no oh sorry I thought you were go ahead but I believe 24 - 12 is to4 with a little negative sign in 12 and you draw line underneath it and you get 12 we don't have to do 24 is 21 plus four ones and and all of that well according to the state standards you do so moving on any new business no no that is I just wanted to say that that that's the quickest easiest and and like for my simple mind to learn it I'm also the parent of an artistic child who successfully navigated and was supported in the in the portly public school system from a three and up and so whatever we could do I don't think it's a one day kind of thing for autism or one week Autism Awareness I'm I've lived and breathed like lots of what was described and I think we need to make it a very high priority like schools should be blue blue blue and and and seminars and and and assemblies and everything else um it doesn't have to be limited to autism but what was described at this point in time is is like kind of very disturbing to me and there's still a lot of work to be done and I think um some of our budget whatever it takes to culturally and attitudinally change children and make them more receptive should absolutely be done um I'm delighted I just looked very quickly on the committee assignments and I see that I'm on policy as all of this stuff was brewing about excuse days and midterms and everything else I went back to the Poli I find it you need to have a PhD and outside Council in order to understand it and I think that the policy committee should meet and make it more user friendly the 1520 that was referenced I think we could do a better job so parents don't have to come and scratch their heads and wonder what's happening I also think the uh policy committee should be taking up I raised it last year the cell phone policy our legislature is seriously looking at this other districts Ramsey and others are way ahead they're going to have influence on the ultimate policy that the legislature and acts and I think we should be weighing in as a board as to what we think is appropriate in our community otherwise we're going to be have a policy crammed down on us that people might not be happy about so I would ask that um the policy committee we have a meeting as soon as possible and then lastly on block scheduling I understand it has a lot of tractions people think it's a feda complete I I would just ask right now I've heard from a number of parents that during midterms and we do midterms and we do finals and we approved I think the early dismiss maybe something was on where and so there are students who actually don't have to show up for school certain days because of their their personal schedules and I just want to make sure I would think that that would impacted even more as if if right now if you have a class on Monday Tuesday Wednesday and you the class doesn't meet one Monday Tuesday Wednesday and you don't have to show up I want to make sure that our new program is not going to run a foul of the requirement that every student show up for 180 days because I know students right now because of the midterm schedule that are not showing up for at least four days I don't know if they're not showing up how they get the attendance and how they meet the 180 days so as we look at changing the schedule I would just like to have you focus and make sure from a statutory standpoint our students will meet the 180 days so it's I'm not looking for an answer I'm just sensitizing and putting it on your radar screen if I can make the meeting to learn more about block scheduling I wasn't in any committee meeting where it was discussed I understand it's 12 minutes being added or something I I've learned from other people I was I don't think I was ever on invited to a committee meeting where it was but that's okay I can do my homework and learn that the amount of time for each class is not substantial what it what is though is how it's going to impact like you said custodians all kids except maybe freshmen are going to be like running you know I don't want to say running wild but we've got to clean those rooms after they sit in them all at once and we're already you know I think we've trimmed our custodial staff to like the Bare Bones it seems so I just want to make sure that the 1280 days and students who don't have to show up for three or four or five days during finals and midterms still meet the the statutory requirements that's it and I see offline on so yeah I just have two things for uh so one the young lady who mentioned the holiday the E uh recognizing that I just think it's really important that we do that and we've discussed it um a couple years and I know there's seems to be appetite here I think it' be a really great thing I'd like to make that one of our goals this year um I think it would be a really really really nice thing the other thing I wanted to address and I know that uh you know this is the policy so I've heard some quotes uh complaining about the fact that after two days of an absence the doctor's come fired um and that's something that I have some concerns about and and I think my primary concern isn't so much of folks like me who' got insurance and I can get my kids Dr Al here in about 30 seconds she here um that's not a problem a lot of people just don't have an access to Medicine you know a lot of people um and and and that concerns me and I think two days is a little it's a little short period of time to to require someone to take off the work go to the doctor get all that stuff done so I'd like to request that our policy committee might bring that up in a future meeting uh to see if we could I would feel comfortable with like three or four days but um it's something that the is talking about and I think it's something that we can make both slides a lot easier okay um I just want to point out it was it was brought to the policy committee last year by the administration at the high school because attendance was an issue um and everyone in this room with the exception of Miss Morell and Mr Lopez voted on that policy to go through so I think we need input from the administration on the ab issues because that's why it was brought to us to begin with well at the committee level it was hotly contested I was not in favor as everyone will recall of a note after two days but once I was out voted at the committee level I wasn't going to make some like put mistake in the ground at a public meeting I had the reservations that the public is expressing I do think to have to get a note you have a sick child so you either have a choice you have to go get a doctor's note or bring him to school that is not what I view as um a a policy that we should have if a child is sick they should stay home we want them to stay home and we shouldn't require parents who might be the only parents also drag the child like to get a note I think two days is too short of a period of time I expressed it at the committee my position Remains the Same and that's why I asked that the committee meeting be uh scheduled for 5220 and anything else new business okay motion to adjourn motion Rino second Morel all in favor any opposed okay good night