[Music] Yep. Are you What? Here [Music] we go. Okay, get all my papers organized and
the races here. The board met tonight in executive session. We're now ready to start the public portion of our program. Uh we did have some uh correspondence uh since our last meeting on September 9th and I'll
go in sort of reverse order. On October 6th, we had a correspondence from Rachel Bryan uh with concerns over class size at a lending at a Lynden kindergarten class. Um, Miss Keat will respond and probably in just a few minutes and we'll
respond to the email as well. Yes, I did. Okay. Um, and then on 9:29 and also on 106, we had emails from Lindsay Lane uh with questions and concerns about the superintendent search. I responded to
both of those emails and I will follow up in just a minute and during the president's report. Um, we also had um a continuation of an email chain that started back in September from Celia Adams Charles regarding a student matter at GRHS. They were referred to Miss
Kivet who responded as did um various high school personnel uh who met with the family and the student. So, those are our communications. Uh the president's report, normally it would happen in this time frame, but we're going to flip this uh time frame tonight and start with the
superintendent's report. um and uh which contains the demographic report as well and then do the president's report. So I will hand it over to you, Miss Gibbit. Okay. So we're going to start with the demographic report and we're doing something we've never done before. We're
going to have a remote speaker um and presentation. It's um Dr. Richard Grip. Uh he's from statistical forecasting and he has a report for us that we're going to see live right now.
Okay. One second. All right. You can go ahead. Good evening everyone. My name is Richard Grip from statistical forecasting and I'll be presenting the results of a demographic study that we
did for your district um in the summer. And uh full disclosure, I'm battling somewhat of a cold and a cough. So hopefully I can get through this tonight without coughing too much um and disturbing the presentation. So Andrew, if you can start the presentation, I'd
appreciate it. We're good to go. Okay. I'm not seeing anything on my end here. Okay, I'm assuming that you're just seeing the first slide which says demographic study for the Glenidge public schools.
if you could. There we go. Okay. So, if you can advance to the next slide, please. Okay. I'm still seeing the cover slide. I'm on slide two. You're on slide two. Okay. I'm only seeing slide one up here.
Okay. So, our firm statistical forecasting, we've been in business since 1998. We typically do um school districts, demographic studies in the New York, New Jersey metropolitan area. Um, and we've
actually expanded as far south as the Washington DC area and up as far north as New uh Vermont. We've probably done about 200 plus school districts in the New York metro area. And we have provided the demographic consulting
services for the New York City public schools since 2006, almost 20 years. Next, please. Go ahead. Okay. So, I'm the executive director of the company. I have a doctorate from Ruckers University in educational statistics and measurement
from the Graduate School of Ed. This is my passion. Um, I used to be a school teacher at Bridgewater or Rarian down in Somerset County teaching physics and statistics. And over the course of that process, when I was still teaching there
and going for my dissertation, the superintendent told me that I should consider um doing my dissertation in enrollment projections, which I didn't know there was such a thing. And that's how I got started on this um almost 30 years ago. And I still publish in this
field and testify as an expert witness in several uh administrative law court hearings in the state when school districts want to divorce from each other if they happen to have a sending receiving agreement. Next, please.
So, the purpose of the study is to project enrollments. Most people would realize that that's the main crux of a demographic study. And we only look out 5 years because we cannot project children who haven't been born if you want to do a 10-year study because it's
very difficult for a community as small as yours to project future births. We also looked at the community's population trends such as demographic characteristics um like soioeconomics,
poverty rates. We looked at the age structure of the community um birth counts and fertility rates for two other things we looked at from the perspective of the school district. We looked at your historical enrollments for the last 10 years both um also by grade
configuration and by school. And then taking some birth data from the the New Jersey Department of Health at the census block level, we were able to aggregate the number of births by each of your three elementary attendance
areas. We also contacted the town to find out if there's any new housing starts or developments that are planned and impact and analyze their impact on the school district. And the final thing we did was to compare school building capacities to current and projected
enrollments. Next, please. So, this slide is showing the population of Glen Ridge from 1940 all the way out to um 2050.
And what we're seeing here is that Glen Ridg's population declined like many in New Jersey in the 70s and the 80s before reversing trend. 2020, the most recent census, the population is about 7,800 people. On the far right where you see
8723, that's from a third-party agency called the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, and they're projecting your population to grow by about a thousand people in the next 25 years. Next, please.
So, who are you as a community? You're about 3/4 white and 7 and a half% Asian, 7.2% 2% Hispanic in 2020. If we look at how your population race has changed since 2010, we see that you've
had a declining white population and increasing Asian and Hispanic population. That's very common for communities around the state. Your median age is about 40, which is the same as the state. Not too many people are foreign born. Um n almost 10%
compared to the state of 24%. The two largest sources of foreignb born persons come from the United Kingdom and Colombia. Now, this is where things get interesting. You're a very affluent community, probably because you're incredibly educated. This is one of the
highest bachelor degree or higher I have seen in all the years I've worked in this field. 83% have a bachelor's degree or higher compared to about 44% at the state. Median household income is almost a4 million dollars which means that half
of the income half of the households have an income over a4 million half below. And you can see New Jersey is only about 100 grand. There's approximately 2600 housing units of which 86% are one unit homes that would
be single family attached or detached. Um not too many renters. About 10% of the housing units are renters. And the median value of an ownero occupied unit is 731,000 compared to the state at 461. So just by looking at this
I can tell it's a very affluent community. I grew up in Caucus not too far away. So I knew that even before I started this study. Next please. Okay. So this is just showing um a slide
of all your schools in the district all five of them. And uh the next slide please will show what the elementary attendance areas are for the three prek to2 schools. And if you look at the
borders of those um the schools, you'll see some areas in pink. Those are areas that the administration has decided defined as flexible attendance zones, which means that if you live in those
pockets, the district administration can assign you to one of the other schools to help balance out enrollments. Next, please. So when we look at enrollments, we always look at the date of October 15th
of what your enrollment is, which is more or less the school census day, which is coming up actually next week. So our last day or our last year of historical enrollments was 2425, which was almost a year ago. When we did this
study, the enrollment that we were dealing with was through that year and not including this current year that we're in. So the enrollment as of October 15th of last year was 1745 and a half. The half as a shared time student. So basically
enrollment has been declining in each of the last seven years. If we go back 10 years to the 1516 year the enrollment was 1897. So you basically lost about 152 students in the last decade. And to project
enrollments, we use something called the cohort survival ratio method to project 5 years out, which is the standard method in the field. And I'll talk about that in a moment. Okay, next please. This is just a bar graph showing the
historical enrollments over time. And if you can focus on roughly um the last seven bars, you can see it's trending downward. Next, please. So this graph takes the enrollments and
breaks them up into preK to 2, 3 to 6, and 7 to 12 over the 10-year period. So if you look at the bottom line, which is in blue, that's the elementary population, preK to 2, it's been generally declining over the last decade, losing 91 students. The 3 to6
population is the one in the middle in red. That's declined through 2122 before reversing trend. and the high school which is up top basically increased through the 2020 school year before
reversing trend. Okay, next please. So as I mentioned before we use something called the cohort survival ratio method to project enrollment. So I give you a simple example. If you have a 100 first graders in 2023
and the next year in 2024 there's 95 second graders, the survival rate between grade 1 and two is 95 over 100, which is 0.95, excuse me. And we do these grade progressions for all 13 grades. That
would be birth to kindergarten all the way up to 11 to 12. And we just don't do it for one year, but we do it for 10 years going back. So if the ratios are above one that means we have inward migration and if the ratios are below one like this
little fictitious example you have outward migration. So it's typical for us to compute an average of say the last four or five years um when we look at these ratios. So of the 13 ratios the
averages that we looked at 10 of the 13 were above 1.00 00 which means in general you have net inward migration coming into the school district which is not uncommon. You have a very good reputation. The three ratios that were below one
meaning outward migration all occurred at the high school grades. That is also not atypical for an affluent district when people have the means and opportunities to send their children to private high school. One phenomenon we
saw was that five of the survival ratios in the 2020 school year were the lowest value in the last decade. Uh most of which were along the elementary grades and that is also not surprising. Um in the hybrid years when
there was people coming in person and also on Zoom, we had a lot of people keeping their a lot of parents keeping their children home and not um having them go to school. So to make a long story short, we take the average survival ratios for each of these grade progressions. We apply them to the most
current enrollments that we have. We assume that they're going to be remaining constant and we roll that through the 5-year period for projecting the future enrollments. Next, please. Okay. One of the biggest drivers in our projections for kindergarten is birth
rates. So we looked at birds from 2010 to 23. Basically your birds have been fairly I won't call them stable but and with not really clearly defined trend. They've been ranging between 51 and 77. And then we look at the two endpoint
years 2010 and 2023. It's exactly the same number of birds which is 70. Next please. So there is the graph showing the number of BERS over time and as you can see there's really not much of a trend but
you can see the end points are exactly the same as 70 BS. Next please. This is very interesting. So this is a a graph showing a chart showing the number of births you have in a particular year. how many kindergarten students come five
years later and what that birth to kindergarten surve survival ratio is. And you can see that not only are they much higher than one, which means inward migration, but many of them are above two, which would tell me that you're not
getting students just from Glen Ridge coming into kindergarten. You're getting parents who are bringing their kids trying to buy a house as their kids are in preschool or just around school age to get their kids in the system. But what we see in red here, and it even
extends a little back further than that, is that the ratios have been getting lower um post pandemic. Um we can attribute this for a couple things. Um, my personal belief is probably that a lot of people can't move into town in
the last couple years and purchase homes because the home sale home inventory to purchase a home is much lower than around the pandemic or prior to. So, it's very hard for people to get in if there's no homes for sale. But those
ratios have really declined in the last three years. Next, please. So we also aggregated the birth counts as I mentioned at the outset by attendance area but we only did it up through 2021 not 2023
because the state had some erroneous birth data at the block level in 2022 and 23. But what this shows is the number of births by year as in each of the three zones plus in the flexible attendant
zones and how many births occurred in Glen Ridge. But we didn't know exactly where the mother lived and that's the unknown column. But if you look at the bottom line, the total number of births over this period has been fairly similar, not really
terribly different. So you got a pretty even distribution of BS in the three zones. Next, please. So, our GIS analysts took the number of birds in 2010 and mapped them at the census block level. And dark blue would
be the greatest number of birds, which is typically in the southern region of Glen Ridge in the Lynon air in Lynen Avenue attendance area as well as this little pocket in the central region in the western part of Glen Ridge. Now, if we advance to the next slide, which is
the same scale for 2021, you can see that the greatest number of birds are in the central zone in Lynden Avenue. And if we advance one more slide and aggregate the number of birds over this entire period, you can see that the greatest number of birds by block
have occurred in the eastern section of Glen Ridge in the central zone. So if we advance to the next slide, we are going to look at something called an age sex pyramid. In demography, this is demography 101 where we take the
percentage of males and we plot them back to back with the percentage of females which is in green. Males are in orange. So these are age classes 0 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14, all the way up to 85 plus. And what I want you to notice
about this is how few people in Glen Ridge there are in their 20s and early 30s. Probably because they can't afford housing there, can't afford the property taxes. So the biggest groups actually in
2010, this is a long time ago, was the 5 to9 age group for males and the 45 to 49 age group for females. Now if we go to the next slide for 2020 you can see that the largest group for
bulk is the 10 to 14 age group which would basically correspond with grades 5 to 9. So your age sex pyramid is helping to drive what the enrollment would look like in the school district.
Next. So this chart here shows the change in the males and females from the 2010 census to the 2020 census. The biggest gainers ironically are the 20 to 24 age
group. And before you get all excited about 20 to 24 people buying homes in Glen Ridge. I don't think that's what's happening. I truly believe that we see this in a lot of affluent communities. It's it's kids in college and just graduating college. They can't afford
the housing. the rents, they come back, they're living with mom and dad, they're living in the basement. That's typically what we're seeing in that 20 to 24 age group. We've seen big declines in the the biggest decline in red up in the top at the 5 to9 age group for males and the
40 to 44 age group for females. But there were gains if we aggregate the male and the female gains um and just collapse the age groups. There were gains in every age group from 50 and up which means that you're in
aging grain community. um the biggest declines that we I shouldn't say biggest but the size there were very sizable declines in the 0 to4 population and the 5 to9 population but halfway decent size gains in 10 to 14
and 15 to 19 which would be middle and high school next please so we did contact the local planning and zoning department in Glenn Ridge they said there's no developments currently
ly under construction or before the planning board in some kind of application. However, as you're probably aware, the fourth round of Culla or with uh the Fair Share Housing Center um
agreement has been recently released and Glenn Ridge has some developments they're going to have to build at some point to satisfy that. We only look at developments that are approved because even though you may have developments
that are um possible in the future, you they need to find they meaning the town need to find a developer that is going to say I want to build this development and um they have to submit an application with a site plan that shows
the bedroom distribution. So from our vantage point, we can't make any estimations of how that could impact the district because there's just not enough information until there's something more concrete coming before the planning board. So right now there's nothing proposed. Will there be in the future?
Most likely, but at this point in time, I can't tell you what that's going to look like. Next, please. So, as I mentioned earlier about home sales, you can see this. This may be hard to read the dates on the bottom,
but really the sales from 1995 to 2011 were say 30 to 40 a year. And then it started increasing and peaked in 2021 with 122 sales before declining in the
last 3 years due to the rise in mortgage interest rates and lack of inventory um in the market. Next, please. This is just so showing home sales by census block over the last five or six
years. And when we aggregated those sales, the greatest number are in the southern part of town in Lynen Avenue and the eastern part of town in the central attendance zone. Next, so this is what you really want to listen to for tonight. Probably what you
you're probably most interested in. What are the projections for the next 5 years? So we did two projections to give you a range. One using ratios based on the last average of four ratios and the other with an average of five historical
ratios. Um in either case, enrollments are projected to increase this current year 25.6 before reversing trend and slowly declining. So at the bottom here, we're telling you what the projected enrollment is in 2930, which is the end
year. And you can see really not much of a change from the current enrollment. In one case, 17 1.5 students and the other case 14 and a half. But that doesn't tell the whole story. So let's go to the next slide. When we look at this chart, this is
showing us the enrollment projections breaking down broken down by preK to 2, 3 to six, and 7 to 12. And what we're seeing here is that at the elementary level, we're actually projected to see enrollment gains in the next 5 years. And in the
upper level grades, enrollment declines in red. As those smaller cohorts that have been in the system and have been causing the enrollment decline for the last seven years, as they start moving through the system, there's declines projected in the middle and upper grades
as well, the high school grades. Next, please. So this last slide is showing a relation of the relationship between the current enrollment in each school with respect to each school's capacity. And basically
the capacity is from your long range facility plan from your architect on how you're currently using the building. It's not a fire code capacity. It's how you're using it with the number of general ed classes, um, special ed
classes, small groupoup instruction for gift and talented, so on and so forth. But currently all the values in blue are showing surplus seating. The only school right now that has inadequate seating, and it might feel very tight,
is Ridgewood Avenue. Fast forward 5 years, Central School is projected to have a shortage of seating. Ridgewood Avenue is projected to have shortage of seating but not as many as now due to declining enrollment and the other three
schools are still projected to have surplus seating. Next, please. So, to wrap up tonight, enrollments are projected to be lower in the next 5 years, but the decline is not projected to be uniform across the three grade
configurations. The largest decline is projected in grades 3 through six at Ridgewood Avenue as the smaller existing lower elementary school cohorts move through the system. The enrollment gains that are projected in the lower elementary grades is predominantly due
to an inward migration of students. Um people again that want to get their children from other communities moving in to the school district. So with that, that concludes my presentation for this evening.
Board members, do you have any questions? Question. My question is does the declining enrollment correspond to uh a decline in general
population? Does the declining enrollment? So there are there are people who have children that end up going to private schools for whatever reason they may choose. Um
is the population of the town um changing in lock step with that? Is the population of the town changing in lock step
with the school district? with the school district. That's a good question. Um, I think yes, in some respect you, so when you saw the 2010 census and then the 2020 census, I haven't been working with your district. This is the first time I've worked with
them with you. But I can see from the analysis that you have had increasing enrollment at the high school level uh up through around 2020. And if you go back to the age sex pyramids, we were also seeing increasing number of
children at that at that age grouping as well from 2010 to 2020 20 and declining population in the 5 to9 0 to4 population which is had the effect which we've seen at the elementary school of a declining
population. So, but you have to take part of that with a grain of salt because yes, um you know, your school district is mirroring what's happening at the community, but you're having a lot of migration coming into the community from other communities. That's
why we're seeing that birth tok ratio so high. Um so, it can be a little bit um what's the word I want to use? the the school district um distribution might be a little bit altered by the migration of people in
other communities over time. Okay, thank you. question. So it' be interesting once we get more data um on the population sex distribution, age sex distribution for Glen Ridge say we should get some
midpoint data around 2025 which is this year. If the government shutdown ever ends because the census is actually one of the data sets we're using which is down right now. Did you have Thank you.
Okay, that concludes the uh demographics uh report. Thank you so much to our demographer for being here with us tonight. Uh if if audience members or board members come up with more questions, we will uh send them along. Okay, thank you Betsy. Now I'm going to
report on our QAC scores. QAC occurred last. There were any other questions? No, there were no other questions. Thank you so much. Okay. Should I leave Andrew? Yes, I think I think we're all finished. Thank you.
I think he just like Okay, that was a fun experiment. Okay. So, um talking about QAC, we had QAC last school year and we got our um final
scores from the state. Uh we passed. This is great. And our scores were for instruction and program 90%. 60% of that 90% are based on test scores, graduation rates. Those values
are completely calculated at the state level. uh fiscal management 98% uh governance 100% operations 100% and personnel 94%. So we passed we're considered a high
achieving district and congratulations to everyone that worked on that. Thanks. Anything else for superintendent report? No. Okay. Now we'll uh flip back to the president's front unless anyone had any
questions on the CUSAC. Our CUAC scores will be certified by the state board of the uh state board of ed at one of their upcoming meetings. Uh did you want to mention the blue ribbon schools, Winnie? Um Rididgewood Avenue school is going to be recognized as a blue ribbon school at
the state board meeting in November. And when that happens, we'll send a press release out to the community. Okay. Thank you. Okay. The president's report. We have several uh topics tonight. First of all, um a constituent asked me about potential effects of the
current federal shutdown on K12 education. And while many districts will see effects, particularly if this shutdown goes on, uh in Glenidge, we've had no effects so far. Although if the shutdown continues for a longer period of time,
if anyone has field trips scheduled to federally funded museums, memorials or parks, those may be affected. So, I wanted to give you an update um on the superintendent search. We had some public correspondence on that and I was saving the answers for the president's
report because there are several of them. So, as you know, our previous superintendent, Mr. Arlington, resigned as of July 22nd. The board's first task at that time was to secure an acting or interim superintendent. An acting
superintendent is somebody that you get from inside the district. An interim superintendent is somebody that you get from outside the district. There is no distinction between the two other than where the individual came from. So uh we
appointed Mrs. Winnie Kivet uh our director of tracknowledge and curriculum as our acting superintendent. Originally that appointment was through September 30th. Uh upon consideration by the personnel committee and the full board.
We extended that appointment until June 30th, 2026. So for the entire school year. With that accomplished, uh we began the superintendent search. And um we have I will give you a little
bit of information about process, but I will say at this moment our ad for our new superintendent, our next superintendent has been posted internally and externally in national, regional, and local publications, both education specific and general interest,
as well as at professional associations and New Jersey schools of education. If you want see the ad, you can go to glenridge.org or and click on the superintendent search tab which is new on the upper left. Uh I'm pleased to say that we've already uh received the first
two resumes. Now we have put together a timeline for the superintendent search which I will read off briefly but this will also be posted on the superintendent search page so you can see it. So um we'll tell you what's happened already. September 17th through
September 30th. The board opts to use the services of the board's legal counsel, Methle, and Worble, for advice and assistance in the superintendent search. The existing superintendent job announcement is reviewed. An advertisement is placed on the glenidge.org website, as I said, as well
as in other places, excuse me. Uh, October 7th, that's tonight. Superintendent search timetable announced and posted to the website. November 10th is the closing date for applications. January 6 through January 27th, 2026,
the reorganized full board will conduct uh interviews. The final round of interview, I'm sorry, um beginning November 10th, I left out November 10th. Very important. Beginning November 10th, the personnel committee reviews applicants and selects candidates for interviews. The personnel committee will
conduct first round interviews from January 6th through the 27th. The reorganized full board will conduct the final round of interviews. The final round of interviews will include a hypothetical fact pattern asking each candidate to draft a communication to the community regarding the hypothetical
scenario. The board will select finalists. Beginning January 28th, 2026 through February 2026, the board will receive clearance from finalists for reference checks and extend an offer to a finalist. A copy of the proposed employment contract between the board
and the finalist will be submitted to the executive county superintendent of schools for Essex County and must receive final approval prior to acceptance by the board. That's a legal requirement in the state of New Jersey. March 2026, after receiving approval of
the employment contract from the Executive County Superintendent of Schools, the board will vote on the employment contract between it and the new superintendent. July 1st, 2026 is the proposed start date for the new superintendent of schools to begin work in the district. Please note that this
date and in fact all dates that I've just given you may have to be adjusted based on a number of factors. uh those may be uh at the end of the process including but not limited to contract negotiations, the review timetable by the executive county superintendent and
any notice period the candidate must provide to his or her current employer. One of the facts of life for superintendent is that most of them have a 90-day clause in their current contracts. Uh so we would want to get
somebody to have a final candidate by uh 90 days before July 1st uh so that that person could start on July 1st. So backing up just a little bit um we remember that right now uh we are
at the start of the process and some aspects of the process are still under discussion. So we welcome your questions now and going forward. Um, some of you have asked questions about why the board has opted not to use a search firm to
assist in the process at this time. So, I'll address that a little bit. Uh, in the past, Glenidge boards have used search firms as well as negotiating the process by using the personnel committee and the full board assisted by legal counsel. We have found good
superintendence both ways. In all cases, we use standard tools. Broad placement of ads, thorough review of resumeumés, community input via surveys and focus groups, and several rounds of candidate interviews. In keeping with New Jersey law, all finalists have been have been
and will be subject to criminal background checks. We and our attorney also have the ability to research intangible factors that have led candidates to success or presented challenges in previous positions. Immediately after appointing Miss Kivet as acting superintendent, the board
discussed the various possibilities for the superintendent search and the personnel committee interviewed search firms including one of the industry leaders. Firms that specialize in superintendent searches, whether they are small or large, generally use retired superintendent to work with with
districts. We evaluated the offerings of the search firms, including services offered and pricing. We also evaluated our experience in conducting that the search that led to the hiring of Mr. Arlington. In that search, we received 72 resumes and the majority were from sitting superintendent, many of whom
were wellqualified for the job. This was a record for us and a greatly increased yield over previous searches, including searches where a firm was used. While we did not consider cost as the ultimate determinant of whether or not to hire a specialized educator search firm, costs
had to be considered. When we weighed all the factors, timing, the search firm presentations, our own experiences, both occupational and per personal, and our knowledge of both the district and the parameters of the superintendent's job, we opted not to use a search firm at
this time. The market for superintendent is tight, as is the market for all education professionals and from teachers to bus drivers. New Jersey has more regulatory constraints on education than any other state with the possible exceptions of
Massachusetts and California. Glen Ridge is a unique small high-erforming district where the superintendent has to wear many hats. Our educ uh our administrative structure is lean meaning that the superintendent must have both sound educational vision, strong
communication skills, acquaintance with school finance, which is as our business administrator will attest is a nightmare in New Jersey and understanding of the complex regulatory environment and a grasp of overall school district operations. with our mix of experienced
and newer board members, including members who have or have had students in all five of our schools and members who have pre uh participated in previous searches. We believe that we can identify that person. Time is also on our side. We are starting a full month
earlier than we did in our last search that resulted in the hiring of Mr. Arlington. If for any reason the yield of résumés is disappointing or too small, we reserve the right to hire a search firm and can do so while maintaining our timeline of having a new superintendent in place by July 1st,
2025. So that is the update. Um in a moment we'll have an opportunity for public comment. Uh I welcome that. uh we will be providing regular updates all via the
um web page and also in board meetings and possibly in other communications as we go forward. So um we have much still to decide. Uh we will be reviewing the results of the surveys and focus groups
that we used only um not even two years ago in the search for Mr. Arlington. uh and we will be determining um how we go forward with further input, but you will hear more from us on that as the process continues.
And finally, um we agreed board members last time we met that each committee of the board would um submit possible goals for our board goals for 2526. The committees have met um and arrived at um
draft goals from the curriculum committee enhanced postsecary readiness exploring adding diverse coffer course offerings in the fields of business and related arts based on student data budget and staffing. That's curriculum
personnel. This one is easy to guess. Conduct a successful search for the next superintendent of the Glenidge public schools. uh communications adopt a proactive approach to district communications with the goal of streamlining communication procedures
and tools to meet the school community needs. And now a note on uh the other two committees which are negotiations and um finance. The negotiations committee has no goal this year as we've successfully concluded negotiations with the Glenidge Educational Association,
Glenidge Education Association before the June 30th, 2025 deadline and we will not be negotiating a new contract with the administrators association until next year. So therefore, we don't have a negotiations goal because we don't have negotiations. Uh the finance committee noted that our business administrator
Barbara Murphy in consultation with the committee has already met a major goal this year contracting with a new health insurer and substantially reducing the district's healthc care costs which is reflected by agenda item B8. Uh the committee and board thanks Miss Murphy
for this successful effort and uh in lie of a specific goal. We will continue working with her to ensure that the district continues on a sound financial footing whatever the challenges that confront us in this school year and oversee the construction of a
sustainable budget for the 2627 school year. And as many of you know budget construction starts in the fall almost immediately. So um those are the proposed goals and then we will also have district goals and these were
submitted by Miss Kivitt. Uh goal one deals with teaching and learning and there are several items implementation of a new English language arts curriculum concentrating on K5 uh training classroom libraries with more student engagement and student
choice. Move to a new data system link it to help drive instruction. If you haven't seen link it, it is a data aggregator, wouldn't you say, that helps drive instruction. Uh, and continue to support phonics, the phonics first program. Goal two, wellness. As you
know, we have now the capturing kids hearts courtesy of the foundation uh implemented in prek through six. We have the grow program which is separate at RAZ and the new wellness program at the high school replacing um essential
school services with our own staff. Goal three, expanding curricular choices at GRHS, which is linked with the board's goal and includes more dual credit courses, more business offerings such as accounting and also a student interest
course student interest survey to see what our students would like us to to offer within our constraints of course. So, um board members, any comments on those goals? Silence.
Okay. Uh there being no comments from the board, we will finalize the board and district goals with a a res vote by resolution at our October 28th meeting. Uh and now it is time for um public
comment on agenda items only. We've already had a number of agenda items. For those of you not familiar with our protocols, if you have a public comment or question, please step up to the lectern, sign in. Uh you will have two minutes uh for public comment. Uh if you
have additional comments, there are two minutes at the end of the uh uh meeting. Um you only get the one chance for in each at each opportunity for public comment. So two minutes at this time and two minutes at the end. Uh we will be
timing my friend Ray. Oh no, who's Ray? my friend Jocelyn will be timing. Uh and um so uh if you have a comment, please step up to the lecture. My name is Jill Engel. Hi, I'm Susie Carter. We just wanted to
um speak on behalf of the high school baseball team. Uh, we recently learned that Coach Dell was uh, let go and um, the kids and parents are all very sad about it. I don't really know what happened and I won't go into that, but
now we have to move forward. So, I guess our point is is that the kids need a coach and a real coach and we know this is a process just like anything else like the superintendent search and it's all a process, but we would like to see the job posted as soon as possible
because the kids start winter training very soon. I mean, so we would just like to put that out there. And has the job been posted? Uh, I'll take that. Baseball moms. Okay. So, um you know, looking forward to a
great spring season, of course. And we will post the job tomorrow morning because um the res uh the agenda once the board votes on it, then the job becomes open. So, that job will be posted tomorrow morning and the head
coach position will be posted for a minimum of two weeks. And then, um Rob Hill will be looking for stakeholder feedback. He will um distribute a parent and student athlete questionnaire to gather input about the qualities and
priorities the community values in the next baseball coach. Then there will be interview preparation. Feedback from these questionnaires will help guide the development of our interview questions. Then they will have candidate interviews. We will conduct interviews with prospective candidates which may
include one or two rounds of interviews. Final interview components. Um, we traditionally include practical coaching tasks and a student athlete panel to provide well-rounded insight into each candidate. So, we involve the the
student athletes in that. So, we thank you for and look forward to getting this information from Rob Hill very soon. Is there a date set on when the coach needs to be in place? I'm thinking with this timeline he wants to do it within a month or so.
Okay. Because posted for two weeks, interviews, panels. And uh are there any students or parents on the panel? Students are on the panels and parents we will gather information from for surveys on what they're looking for in a
in a head coach. And this is a new procedure that we use for all head coaches now. Okay. Um, we did this also for the head girls basketball coach. So, we'll be sent a survey. Yes. But the final say is uh Mr. Hill.
Mr. Hill and John Lawler. He will also be part of the process. Okay. Okay. Perfect. And is so there's no set date like is there any way to say it will definitely be done by a certain date like you know? Well, I think it depends on how many
resumes they get initially. Um Mr. Hill did say if they don't get a lot of resumes, sometimes they go to club um club centers, baseball club organizations, and ask if there's anybody interested in a coaching position. So there'll be an outreach
also associated with that. I think it depends on it'll get posted. Let's see um the number of resumes we get. Okay. I guess the other reason why we're here is that we want to make sure that it's, you know, like what you just said, we'll see how many resumes we get, but
we want to make sure that even if we just get a few, that the person is at a certain level of coaching, you know, that that we expect and that we want for our school and for our kids. And it's not going to be just like a placeholder
type of person. That's going to be a real coach. They are looking for a head baseball coach. Fantastic. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Other uh public comment uh Rachel Brian, town resident and I
have two kids um in the schools. Um I just wanted to thank you for the update on the superintendent search. Um I think two things came up for me that I would be curious to hear about as move forward. I think one is it occurs to me
that what happened last year might affect the number of résumés or applicants that you're getting. So I appreciated what you said about reserving the right to a search firm, but um you know that's something I would be
looking for best to leave the door open. Um, and then I'm really just curious if superintendent contracts or negotiations if you typically talk about like how
long you would like for them to stay. It's just I know last year was a unique thing, but this is a lot of work. I know you spend like a year getting a superintendent and you did it once and now we're doing it again. And I don't
know if there's any terms in the contract that that get at that. Again, just curious. I don't need an answer right now. Just Sure. Uh when you um negotiate a contract with a s with a candidate with your finalist candidate. Uh you usually
set a term. The board has the discussion and decides on a term. Frequently it's three years or four years or five years depending on a lot of different factors. The average length of stay in a district for a superintendent in New Jersey is about three years. There's a lot of
turnover. Obviously, it takes, as you said, a lot of work to select a new superintendent. We would hope that we would have somebody who would stay at least that three years. Our track record in Glenn Ridge, um Mr. Arlington was an anomaly. Uh but our track record before
that was we had lengths of stays ranging seven years, nine years, six years. So we've done very well in terms of longevity of superintendence. So it it is to be negotiated, but it is our best hope that we get somebody a visionary educator who will come in and be willing
to make a a a substantial time commitment. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Other comments? Hi, Lisa Petrusi. I just came to be an audience member, but something you said Betsy sparked a question for me. Um you mentioned focus groups.
Yes. And were GR members, teachers, parents um considered to be part of those focus groups when that comes along? We um as you know the last time around, which seems like just yesterday, uh we
did use um members of various constituencies that you mentioned in focus groups. We want to first review what we uh heard from those groups the last time around and then we'll have more information on how we're going to do it this time around, but we would um
you know, we always welcome input. So, to be determined, but but I hear you. Great. Thank you. And Winnie, I just had one question. Sure. Um you said that wellness was going to be part of one of your goals. Was that wellness for the entire staff community again like
teachers, staff members, students? Yes, that's the capturing kids hearts falls under the wellness and the ex expansion of that to the 3 to six. So that we could say that um we have the capturing kids hearts
program from prek to six. Okay. So great. We're looking forward to our October fest and I think it is vitally important to all of us that our entire school community have wellness students our professionals everyone.
I I agree a very hard job for you very hard job for us and parents have a very difficult job as well. So we all absolutely thank you. Other comments? Hi Elizabeth Morris. I just have a few questions with respect to the
superintendent search. Um, who is on the personnel committee that's leading the search? I just give you all my qu Oh, okay. That's helpful. Sure. Um, it is my colleague Jocelyn, my colleague Anthony who's the chair and our colleague Darius and me. So, it's
four people. Board committees cannot be bigger than four people because of the quorum rules. Okay. Thank you. Um, and then two two related questions. Uh do you anticipate related to the question that that was already asked as well? Do you anticipate the search being different in any way
given you the the events of last year and that this one's sort of in the aftermath of a leadership crisis for lack of better terminology and and potentially has some reputational issues associated with it? And have you considered reaching out to any of those applicants that you said there was like
a highly qualified pool during Mr. Arlington's search. Have you considered reaching out to any of those since it hasn't been so long that perhaps they're still interested? We yes, we have talked about those factors. Uh certainly you know every search is different but when you are
coming off a short duration superintendent and a challenging situation there are certain questions that you know come to mind I think in the minds of the committee that maybe we will ask either differently or in
addition to questions we asked before. Um, you know, every district in my working life, I'm an education lobbyist. So, I work with about a hundred different districts. And, um, I if I had money for every district that has had a
crisis in the past year, I would be a wealthy woman. And they've all been different. Every district has different crises. But so, we will be looking for a leader who has dealt with challenges and asking how that leader has dealt with those challenges. And we also have the
capability to find out about factors like that from other sources. Uh obviously candidate will always put the best spin on the way that they dealt with a challenge. But we will certainly be very attentive to that and very thoughtful about the process. And maybe
my colleague Anthony would like since he's chair of the committee, would you like to be on the spot and answer that as well? Um, I'm not sure what's left, but on the face of it, I would say no, we wouldn't do anything substantially different because we were pretty pleased with our
last choice. Circumstances beyond our control, blah blah blah. But, um, we will probably make some modifications keeping our recent experience in mind. Okay. All right. I appreciate your time.
Thank you. Other comments. All right. As I mentioned, there is public comment again at the end on agenda or uh other items pertaining to the running of the schools. Right now, it being the first meeting of the month, we will have committee and liaison reports. And we'll start with you, Ry.
No updates, Heather? Sure. I'll start with curriculum. Um, curriculum at the end of September. First, we talked about the testing results, both the AP scores and the NJ GPA. That's going to be shared with the public at our next board meeting. Um,
for the AP scores, we focused on areas where the scores have increased and possibly why and um, topics that were below the um, state average and uh, what to do about that as well. We also touched briefly on the fact that the related arts and world languages is
going under review this year. Um we talked about um kind of standardizing practices a little bit in terms of a number of assignments and how much they're worth at the high school. Um, we also talked about, um, what Betsy
already alluded to, um, that there's a lot of students who go into business in Glenn Ridge and possibly expanding our business offerings at the high school, as well as, um, in terms of wellness, looking at domestic arts or arts in general, tying that into wellness and expanding our
offerings and seeing what students are interested, which leads to our goal, which Betsy read out to you earlier. Um, the finance committee also met at the end of September. We um discussed um that the chiller for the AC at um
central is going out to bid. Um we've been able to kind of work things so that some of that work can be done ahead of time on an earlier schedule than was planned initially. Um you may have seen the new bleachers at the high school. Um and the new HVAC units are in the high school. So almost the entire building is
now aironditioned. Uh we also were grateful to hear about the new health plan that we'll be switching to. Yes, it's awesome. Uh went from going up 30% to now we're only going up 1%. It's amazing. Um it makes us all feel so much
better here about the budget with no dimmonition in coverage or Yeah. No, it has to be equivalent plan by law. So yeah. Awesome sauce. Okay. Thank you, Darius. Okay, Anthony. Yeah, I'm sorry.
I don't I don't really have an update other than I think the um softball cage that's going to be installed behind the high school um is they're they're collecting information
including what kind of electrical they're going to need and drainage and all that. And um most of if not all of those costs will be borne by Ga. So um that's why Barbara, you haven't heard about it because we haven't had to come
to you for it. So uh no update from the negotiations committee as Betsy shared. It's it's not time. Um but I do have an update from the Rididgewood Avenue home and school meeting which happened on the 12th of September. Um Dr. Harris gave a really
great overview of capturing kids hearts and speaking to Miss Petrus's uh question about wellness in general. She she shared a lot on how um is working to support staff as well with affirmation boxes um in each classroom and the
school as a whole building social contracts and every staff member also receiving an a calm app subscription to facilitate meditation um and wellness. So that's one snippet. Um, also in
October, it's the 125th birthday of Rididgewood Avenue School. So, there was some discussion about what might occur to celebrate the school's existence for 125 years. Um, it's basically at the the next meeting for Rididgewood will be on
Friday the 10th at 8:45. Um, I also attended several Glenidge CPAC meetings, the special education parent advisory committee, um, a coffee chat, the first online meeting on the 29th, and a meeting with the director of student services, uh, child study team member
Heather Goss, who's a speech and language therapist, and, uh, the Lynen Avenue resource room teacher, Daria Zoisa. And so there was a conversation about all of the goings on in special education across the district and and training that's happening. Um the next
coffee chat will be on Thursday between 9:30 and 10:30 at Skidu and then there will be a parent social occurring at some point TBD. Thank you. Uh the Glenidge uh diversity and inclusion association has had a name
change to the Glenidge Community Association and they met recently. It was a rather small group uh but they are in the process of going for their 501c3 designation which uh is a lengthy process but they're hoping to complete
it soon. Uh they talked a lot about uh their sort of reorganization in in that context. The president is Marylu Cabrera and she presided over the meeting. Um they talked about the burgeoning relationship with our new acting
superintendent. were very pleased that um Miss Pivot had had a sit down with them. Uh they are, you know, interested in the superintendent search as we all are. Um they're the they're changing their social media and their logo uh to
reflect their new uh identity. Uh they just participated in the community event at the women's club, which many of you attended. Uh they have a new brochure. Uh they were uh at the back to school nights and um also they are going to
have an international food festival in May probably at Glenrich High School uh with lots of student involvement, all kinds of food. Uh the entire community invited. It sounds exciting. Uh they're participating in the Chinese New Year celebration at the high school in
February. Uh again, lots of families, lots of food. I know that uh Miss Jiang said that last year she felt like they didn't have enough food, so this year there will be even more food. Um they also remarked about um the popups on
student Chromebooks in honor of various um affinity months like uh they spotlighted Hispanic Heritage Month, which that was uh something that they discussed with Miss Pivot and actually happened. So it helps to reinforce
positive messages uh during those those months of celebration and they are looking forward to uh thinking about even more activities collaborations with other groups. I know at the previous uh uh community association uh meeting we
had a representative from the CPAC. So they're thinking about outreach and collaboration and that is the Glenidge Community Association report and uh Trisha the middle school high school HSA
meeting was on September 19th. So, a lot of these uh updates are a bit dated, but I'll go ahead. Um, new state testing. Mr. Lawler spoke about the new state testing for the NJSLA and NJPA and the field test. Um,
that's happening in the fall. Um, field testing of these new tests. Uh, rigger day already happened. Uh, student club fair happened as well. Homecoming dance of course last weekend, last Friday, as well as the game. Yay, we won. Um,
PSAT upcoming for the juniors and seniors uh this month, I believe. I can't remember what the date is. Um, middle school, great start. Miss D O O'Donnell Pinker said there was a great start to
the um school year for the seventh and eighth graders. Started off with class meetings at the beginning of the year. They had their own rger day for the middle school. Um they had club info sent to the middle schoolers via their Google classroom. They had um Stuco
elections, student council elections. Um eighth graders are participating in some peer leadership with high school seniors as u mentors for the first time happened on October 3rd. Um back over the high school PG26, I'm sure Dval will probably
speak about this. the indoor golfing event that is taking place. Is it October 9th? October 9th. Yeah, I'll let you speak to that. Um holiday mark holiday market. Um you should have seen the email that came out from the
district um sometime this week, but the holiday market fair is a little earlier than usual. It's going to be on November 16th. So, please save your your holiday shopping or get ready for some early holiday shopping um which happens right
here at the high school. And then GRCPAC, which uh Joshua has already spoke about, they're having their talks as well as their coffee hours the second Thursday of every month and planning a happy hour for October
16th. Um the next Glen Ridge um middle school high school HSA meeting is on Friday, October 17th at the train station, 8:45 a.m. Thanks. Thank you, Jonal. Thank you, Tracia, for the uh plug for
the uh first parent social for PG26. I'm not working on it, so but I'll go since I have a senior. Um, I'm going to report out on our communications committee meeting, which was just this past Friday, which culminated a week of
committee meetings. I believe we were the last of all of them. Um, and uh, Betsy stole my thunder a little bit because we did talk about how to convey the superintendent search process and timeline. So, thank you for that, very comprehensive overview. That was great.
Um, and we are up on the website with the uh the job posting. We also discuss ways to streamline our communications which loops back to our goal about streamlining um basically to make sure our information is disseminated in a
timely fashion and with consistent messaging. Um we're also exploring possibly how to consolidate and package information for easier consumption um including ease of use for the redesigned website. Um, thank you
everyone who came out for our cookies and conversations for all of our back to school nights. And uh, please be on the lookout for new opportunities for um, all of us to be in community and with or without cookies, but just to be
accessible. Um, next, uh, we had, um, I'll report on the Forest Avenue Home and School Association. Our meeting was nearly a month ago now on September 10th. Uh, Mr. Murphy outlined his school, the school's priorities of safety, well-being, and
success. Back to wellness. Um he also uh modeled some of the language that they use uh with capturing kids' hearts and was um talking about using that same language and this idea of asking about good things in the morning, which is
what the students do. um but also asking that of the adults who were maybe you know a little unsure about you know the whole process. So that was kind of fun. Um as for the organization they are rocking and rolling. They had a book fair in midepptember a successful mum
sale. Discovery classes are up and running as at the end of September. They've kicked off a Halloween costume drive which is going through October 16th. They had a morning yoga from the enrichment committee last Friday. um learning garden celebration will be
on October 24th where they're will have finalized all of the plantings for their new uh refurbished learning garden and a festival of jackal lanterns on the 29th of October um actually and before that October 22nd will be their next meeting.
Next is the uh Glenn Ridge Educational Foundation. We um they met on the 24th of September with the top priority item of the um organizing the Ashenfelter 8K road race that's coming up on
Thanksgiving. Uh they are still accepting uh sponsorships for um corporate sponsorships which will be due by the 18th of uh this month, October 18th. So you can get your logo and your name on the t-shirt. And there's also
time to become a family sponsor, which also includes a name on the shirt, race entries, and shirts delivered to your door. That deadline is October 25th. So, please support the race. It is the biggest fundraiser for the educational foundation, and they support so many of
our efforts, including capturing kids hearts as one big example. So, thank you. Thank you, Duval. We'll now continue with the business portion of our meeting. Um, board members, you have minutes in your package from September
9th, exact session and regular meeting. Uh, Jocelyn, would you move the minutes? May I have a second? Second. Second from Ray. Thank you, Ray. Um, board members, any changes to either of those sets of minutes?
No. All right, Barbara, would you call the role? Miss Akenwandi, I. Mr. Bonnet, I. Mr. Dad, Mr. Dorenzi, yes. Miss Gotautle, yes. Miss Graham, I Dr. Yaris Ramos,
Miss Ginsburg, I. Motion carries. Okay. Anthony, would you move the personnel items? Oh, I'm sorry. A1. Jocelyn, would you move A1? May I have a second?
Second from Anthony. Um the calendar has been put together and reviewed extensively by the board uh by administration, faculty, DRA, everyone. Um so we are ready to move on that. We've been moved and seconded. Uh does
anyone have any further comments on the calendar? Yes. The start date is based on Labor Day, which is very late this coming 26. So, we'll be starting before Labor Day, but still in September. But still in September. Yes. No August
starts because the community would have an uprising. So, um, we've been moved, seconded, and made appropriate comments. Uh, Barbara, would you call the role? Miss Akini. I. Mr. Bonnet, Mr. Dinad, yes. Mr. Dorenzi,
yes. Miss Gotautle, yes. Miss Graham. Yes. Dr. Yaris Ramos. No. I really wanted the spring bake that lined up with mine. Is that a no? No. Miss Ginsburg.
Uh, yes. Okay. Anthony, now it's your turn. Uh, would you move personnel items? Yeah. Oh. Um, this is very precarious. Yes, we're short on mic today. I would
move personnel items P1 through P15 in addition to P11, P16, P1 17, and P8 on the agenda. Second. The second while we move the microphone. Uh, in
keeping with the sunshine laws, board members code of ethics, uh, personnel discussions are held in exact session. Uh, therefore, Barbara, would you call the role? Miss Akinwandi, I. Mr. Bonnet, hi. Mr. Dinard, Mr. Dorenzi,
yes. Miss Gotautle, yes. Miss Graham, yes. Dr. Yaros Ramos, Miss Ginsburg, I. Motion carries. Okay. Before we move the business items, I'd like to draw your attention to curriculum two the curriculum items. Um
Heather, would you move curriculum? Sure. I move C1 all those field trips. Okay. May I have a second? Second, Trisha. Second from Trisha. Uh any comment on the curriculum items? It's a lot of trips. All right. Barbara, would you call the role?
Miss Acti. I. Mr. Bonnet. Mr. Dod, Mr. D. Lorenzi, yes. Miss Gotautle, yes. Miss Graham, yes. Dr. Yaris Ramos, I. Miss Ginsburg, I. Motion carries.
All right. Uh before we move the business items, I'd like to draw your attention to uh donations under B4 on your agenda. Uh we received a uh ROI wireless go microphones from Dr. Kesha Harris with a value of almost $300. Uh
so thank you to Dr. Harris. Uh and now um I have a question if that's okay on one of the business items. I meant to ask an exact and I totally forgot. Um can you tell us uh Winnie a little bit about the Riverside Insights? Um it's under B3.
Is that for like everyone? Coat. That's COGAP testing. Um is that special ed? Is that for everyone? I was just No, that's everyone and specific grade levels and I don't know I could get that information but I know it's definitely K four.
Yes, for every student. Thank you. Okay. Um Heather, would you move business items? Sure. I'll move B1 through B 11. Okay. May I have a second? Second from Joselyn. Any other
discussion on the business items? Right. Uh, Barbara, would you call the role? Miss Akin Wandi. Hi. Mr. Bonnet. Mr. Dod. Mr. D. Lorenzi. Yes. Miss Gotautle. Yes. Miss Graham. Yes. Dr. Yaris Ramos.
Hi. Miss Ginsburg. I. Motion carries. Okay. Okay, it's time for the second public comment period for questions or comments on agenda items or other items pertaining to the running of the schools. The same protocols apply. Uh if you have a comment, please step up to
the lectern. Okay. Uh that being the case, the board was not able to finish its business in executive session. So, we will be adjourning back into executive session, but we will be doing no further uh official business tonight. No further resolutions. So, thank you all for
coming. And board members may have a motion to go back into exact session.