members of the public to be physically present. Members of the public that attend will be asked to follow the same procedures as all visitors to our schools. Those procedures can be found in the agenda page of our website. Additionally, the board meeting will be livereamed for viewing purposes only.
Anyone wishing to view the meeting may do so as a zoom. The webinar ID for this meeting is 8797130 0993 and the required password is 984690. Call to order at 7:00 this evening. Roll
call, please. Thank you, Mr. Dumba. Mr. Cop here. Manero here. Mr. Denise here. Mr. Gallow here. Mr. News here. Mr. Kismars here. Miss Jansen, Dr. Morphy, and Mr. D
here. Uh, adequate notice of agenda for this meeting has been provided to the Ridgewood News in the record specifying that the MA board of education will meet on September 17th, 2025 in the administrative offices, 60 Ridge Road, MA, New Jersey. A copy was filed with
the township clerk. Mr. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Mr. D, I apologize. I forgot to reuse student reps in the roll call. Student repres here. Agenda questions. Please limit your questions at this time to resolutions under new business on this agenda. As a
matter of fairness, you're asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than three minutes. If you're here representing a group, please identify yourself, the group, and your position in the group. If you're here as an individual, please give us your name and address. This section of public participation will be
limited to 15 minutes. Please specify the resolution that you're referring to in your question. Have a motion to open. Mr. Gallow, second by Mr. Coplin. We are open to the public at 702. Seeing no one, I'll entertain a motion
to close. Mr. is Marskeep followed by Mr. Hughes are closed at 7:02. Um, our student representatives, our first uh first meeting with our student representatives tonight. So, we have Mr. Nick Mule and Grace Partardo. You guys
have a report for us? Yeah, we do. Fantastic. Um, so starting off first, we have the marching band. They had their first show at Sparta High School last Saturday, the 13th. They won second in US band 2 and they also won best musical effects and visual effects and musical ensemble.
Um teachers have kicked off the school year and started talking to us about the dual enrollment courses we have to offer at the high school and encouraging us to get credits for college. Um after that our fall sports have got off to a really good start. Boy soccer just beat our rival Ramsey. Um next Saturday the 27th
is the first home football game. We're very excited for that. Uh last Thursday we had our back to school night. It was definitely a a success. Um, Mday is coming up this Saturday and we have a lot of clubs and activities that have booths there. So, we're very excited for
that as well. And lastly, next Wednesday is our club fair during lunch in the backyard. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for the support. You guys are welcome to hang out for the rest of the meeting if you really want to. Take
a care guys. Thank you. Superintendent report number you got for us. I have so much feel this is the 12th time we're presenting but it's going to be the best time. I promise every time
a thank you Mr. Silva. Um first and foremost I want to thank the administrative team for being present. Uh the presentation we're about to uh share with you is a result of a a tremendous amount of work on their part as well as the the staff across the district. So hopefully everyone here is
as proud as I am uh for what we're about to to take on. Um as you all know if you've been at the five of the six back to school nights we've been talking about our strategic plan. I've been trying to keep it concise. Some schools yes, some schools no. I'm going to do my best to keep it concise today. I'm not
going to give you a time amount or a time aotment. Um so if by chance I'm going to work that doesn't work. So let's just do that. Um before I get started on our new strategic plan, allow me just a couple moments to talk about
our previous strategic plan. Everybody here had the opportunity to um experience um our end of the year strategic plan presentation. So I'm not going to be as detailed as we were last year, but it's worth giving you a little bit of an oversight of the work that was
done um from 2020 to 2025. As you all know, we broke the strategic plan into four frames. Uh one is curriculum instruction. Um, and within the curriculum instruction frame, we had a laundry list of accomplishments that we were able to um, reach between 2020 and
2025. Just some of the ones that I want to bring to your attention. Most recently, we have a new math curriculum K through five. Uh, we also have a new science curriculum for Joyce Kilmer School. Um, we also have enhanced dual enrollment at the high school and and that's really a point of pride to give
our students an opportunity to continue to um, not only learn at a high level but also have a good footing when they get into uh, college. We've also engaged trade schools and created relationships with various trade schools. And as we all know, because we talk about it at most of our board meetings, our career
pathways and our internships and externship program um, has been a point of success. um we were able to showcase um our progress bars and as we all know the the work is never going to be done. Uh but the work has been tremendous for
our curriculum frame for community connections. As we all know in our strategic plan during our strategic plan meetings back in 2020, there was a large number of uh stakeholders talking about the importance of bringing the community and the schools together. Um obviously
we're all in agreement about how important that is. Um so just some of the many accomplishments that we were able to um really experience between 2020 and 2025 is our Thunderbird partnership. Uh with our Thunderbird
partnership we have uh well over 200 um partners across not only Mawa but across um the state of New Jersey and over the border in New York. Um, within that Thunderbird partnership, we've been able to create internship and externship experiences for our high school
students. And you guys all know the numbers. Three years ago, there were three. Last year, there was 25. And this year, 60 high school students were able to take part in internships and ex externship experiences. Um, also we were we always receive feedback about our
emails. Um, and what we tried to do at the elementary level, which I greatly appreciate, is our elementary team has been able to take on a platform called S'more, which is a more of a readable document. Um, and this allow allows us to share all the information with our community. Also, social media we
standardize across all schools uh using Instagram and it's a great way for us to celebrate the work that we have done. Again, the progress bars. Next is uh social emotional learning. Uh we talked at length about this in the beginning in 2020 about the importance
of really developing the social capacity of our students and understanding um that it's important for us to to work with them along the lines of all the different things that they come across in their schooling and even outside building friendships overcoming adversity really creating a sense of
resilience um and grit. And this is something that we've been focusing on throughout the past 5 years. um in K12. Um we've been doing PD across the district. We've been able to also add guidance counselors at the K3 level, which I think is extremely important.
Previously, we had social workers/guidance counselors 4 through 12, and we felt like we were missing a major part of our K12 continuum. So, adding the K3 team is is a point of pride for us. Last, but not certainly not least, is
our work on facilities. that's ongoing and will continue to be a point of focus for us. I'm extremely um happy and proud that the finance and facilities committee's work in conjunction with our BA and our head of buildings and grounds in a very thoughtful manner um created
uh a roadmap for a lot of the different projects that we have across the district whether it's HVAC windows roofs paving uh we able to connect with the town and work handinhand with them on uh contract support um so these are things
that we've done across the district um depending on the schools, depending on the work. Um but there's still a lot of work to be done. So that those are some of the things that we talked about with finance and facilities. And last but not least, our JK Innovation Lab. Um hopefully everyone has had a chance to
see it. It's something that JK is utilizing and something that we continue to look forward to experiencing with our kids. Now hopefully that was a was was quick. Um now is our new strategic plan for
2025 to 2030. Um very similar to our first strategic plan. We utilize the same model of of building this plan. We asked community members to come in on three separate meetings. First meeting we we talked about what are the points of pride and also what are the areas of
focus. Second meeting we talked about what do you uh really envision MA looking like in 2030 and last meeting is let's start to create goals uh of how we're going to get there. There were a number of ideas that that
were gathered. What I was excited about is in the first strategic plan um there was one set of expectations and then with this strategic plan there was more of focusing on refining our approach across different different fields. Things like identifying and developing
student leaders, things like continuing to evolve families and students in the educational program, looking to develop our abstract thinkers. Um the the third to last I really appreciate. Yes, we're extremely proud of our pathways program,
but we also need to really challenge ourselves to say that might be helpful for the students who are collegebound, but what other pathways can we create for our non-olbound students? So, I do I do truly appreciate that type of feedback from our community and our
staff. Um, and then last but not least is our uh state-of-the-art facilities. We talked at all the back to school nights except for Rampo Ridge about the need for continued work across our district. And that's just another example of what the community is asking
for. As you can see, um, when you look at work that needs to be done in a school district, obviously we're going to continue to focus on our instruction. Obviously, we're going to continue to work on connecting with our community because there's always
opportunities that we can tap into. Uh social emotional learning will continue um and really look to evolve that over time and facilities is in is a a goal that we're constantly reaching forward. So, what we're going to do now is we're
going to invite up uh Miss Craft, our director of curriculum instruction, to talk about the curriculum frames for our strategic plan. This is much better. Good evening everybody. So our overarching goal for curriculum and instruction is to foster
intellectual curiosity and lifelong learning. Our first goal steam is to sustain programs and instructional experiences that challenge learners at all levels while developing 21st century skills. We're committed to facilitating an academic environment that encourages intellectual risk takingaking. Moving
forward, we'll continue to infuse inquiry based learning experiences that foster critical thinking skills and empower students to promote their curiosities through project based learning. For example, at Joyce Kilmer, this year is our first year of our expanded science curriculum. Over the course of the next five years, we will
continue to work towards strengthening that inquiry based work in the science classrooms and hypothesize ways about expanding those experiences at the K3 level. Like our dual enrollment program, we're exploring ways to ensure that all students have access to our AP courses.
In addition, we're looking to expand upon our potential offerings such as offering AP research and AP seminar courses at Mo High School. We're thrilled with the number of students at Mala High School who were able to experience internship and exter externship opportunities and will continue to explore and strengthen those
programs. Our second goal is to increase connections with trade and vocational programs. Recognizing that trade and vocational schools are interested some of our students, we're working to strengthen our existing partnerships and build new connections with relevant programs. We're also committed to
working with families and students about vocational training opportunities and career pathways. Our goal is to ensure that our students are fully prepared and informed about their options while encouraging them to stay at MA High School and take advantage of the diverse opportunities offered through our pathways.
Bridging with Wings of Wellness, we are partnering to create opportunities that cultivate empathetic national and global citizens. Our world language courses foster connections with schools outside of New Jersey, broadening students cultural awareness and communication skills. Students in our gifted and
talented program participate in national competitions, showcasing their talent on a larger stage. Additionally, we are growing the teams program to allow access for increased student participation and engagement. Our second goal is to expand the
differentiated curriculum to support, challenge, and raise achievement for students at all learning levels by innovatively using technology and other tools such as AI on hands-on opportunities. So, we're committed to leveraging technology and innovative tools, including AI, to create hands-on
learning experiences that enhance student engagement and understanding. We're hoping to start an AI committee led by our newly appointed technology uh supervisor, not supervisor, coach, Courtney Neglia. We're exploring reasonable and ethical ways for both our educators and students to integrate AI
into teaching and learning. Our work will include developing resources and guidelines to support the effective and ethical use of AI in education. And to ground this work, this neckl and I are participating in multiple professional learning opportunities that will serve as a foundation for our efforts.
And our last goal is implementing personalized learning and goal setting plans to raise student abilities at all levels. We're implementing personalized learning and goal setting to support and elevate student achievement by using our datadriven instruction through MTSS framework. Our MTSS framework leveraging
platforms like linkit and i ready. We can tailor instruction to meet the needs of individual students. Teachers are engaging in data chats with students to have meaningful conversations about their strengths and areas for growth. These discussions help our students develop personalized goal oriented plans
focus on continuous improvement and growth. As students progress, we will regularly review and adjust the curriculum to ensure it remains aligned with their evolving academic needs. And next up, we have Dennis. All right. Good evening, everyone.
So you can see here that the first goal of our flake calls which we formally reference as our community connections frame is to expand problem based learning opportunities for all grade levels with connections to real world
problem solving. Um in our 2020 2025 model blueprint there was obvious overlap amongst curriculum and instruction uh social emotional learning and the community connections frame as Mrs. Craft has already shared, we will continue our ongoing commitment to
sustain and enhance our internship and externship program. Uh over the course of its inception four years ago, we have steadily grown those student placements from three in our first year to 26 to 48. Uh and that's recently grown this
past summer to over 60 placements for our students, which we're really proud of. We know though that there are more opportunities ahead for our students in connecting our career pathways coursework to the practical application inside the internship or extership setting. We've also brought into our
Thunderbird partnership program, inviting in over 200 local experts to contribute to our curriculum, finding ways to bring our curriculum to life and to supplement our academic and extracurricular programs. We've concentrated our efforts on orienting our new families as a district, making
purposeful strides, as we've reported in previous presentations um and communicating with our our diverse families inclusive of implementing translation programs. And we've also realized through our work with the MA blueprint that we needed to
make purposeful efforts to brand our thoughtful work both as a district team and through the assistance of our communications consultant which we've been able to achieve. So locally as Dr. Duro had referenced we've streamlined social media posts and district specific
communications. We've also in introduced the Thunderbird Times which has been wellreceived by MA residents. On a grander scale, information about our programs has been published and showcased locally and nationally in educational magazines and shared through presentations from our teachers and
administrators at educational conferences. So with our 2025 2030 strategic plan, Fle calls will work to extend upon these presented points of interest. Resoundingly, through our most recent strategic plan process, we heard
from our stakeholders about the need to inform our consumer, both our families and our students themselves. And this made sense as we closed our last strategic plan self-reflected progress related to our second goal, knowing that we still had work to do in guiding families related to the educational
experience. In the five years ahead, our flight calls are planned to be ongoing to intentionally familiarize our school community about our vast instructional programs, but specifically how those resources can be accessed and when most strategically for our kids for a more
personalized career pathway trajectory for our students. In fact, we already know that building leadership is dedicated to meeting with every freshman student at Mawa High School this school year to assist in this sort of personalized launch. To this end, we also plan on continuing to build our
alumni network, tapping into alumni as resources to not only connect more regularly, but to utilize our former students experiences to inform our future practices and programs. All of this work we believe will most uh definitively shape the evolving profile
of a MOA graduate, a student who is ready for their future with confidence and purpose. Now, uh, how do we look at all we have to offer our students and families to create a more customized flight path for
a student's journey? Uh, you'll see here for our second goal, it's to educate and engage the community at large to be a part of the flight alongside us. We understand that there's a lot to this that we will be able to contextualize over the next five school years. So, we
are moving from outreach and exposure of what the flight looks like to informing and understanding the flight's impact on our families and our students. We will continue to broaden and deepen programs that allow for this sort of connection, engaging and partnering with families,
communicating regularly, and inviting our stakeholders to see our programs in action. And our task is now how do we educate our families on how our programs can have a unique impact on each specific students and their futures far
beyond their experience here in Mawa. We recognize our strength lies in partnership. Play calls promotes the engagement of families, fosters those opportunities to build community and allows for students to explore with collaborative direction. And as I
shared, there's a lot of overlap that goes with our curriculum and instruction as well as our social emotional learning. Uh, which makes perfect sense why flight calls is right in the middle. So drizzle. It's my pleasure this evening to update
you all on um our wings of wellness facilitating a growth mindset that empowers student success in a complex future. Carol Dwek in 2006, a psychologist is accounted to have coined the phrase of
um growth mindset. The overarching growth mindset is essential to the wings of wellness. It is a belief that our abilities and talents can be developed and improved with learning, hard work, and dedication.
Furthermore, that our qualities are changeable. Rather than allowing students to run from or avoid difficulty, we are invested in opportunities for students to see that in themselves and in maturity they can
learn with understanding that every experience they have is an opportunity for growth. Within our district, we're going to maintain the premise of the castle competencies, which are well known by all of our
students and faculty. And in fact, our school-based opportunities will continue to grow our students self-confidence skills with our SEAL coaches and additionally with our director of school counseling and guidance. We have begun
the process of creating a cohesive K to2 experience with grade level and schooltoschool connections. We look forward to creating an opportunity where students can take risks and step outside of their comfort
zone. Academic and social emotional activities with additional and newer curriculum- based experiences are available in all grades with teachers and co-curricular advisors ready to guide students to take
the risk and experience something new. working to have students try something new and experience an opportunity beyond the typical or traditional. Using our Thunderbird partnership program is a great example where
exposure to different and new can take place in a supportive and caring environment. developing grit, resilience, and perseverance. Through our strong connections with our students and families while using the
predictability of daily routines, we are creating the moments during which we praise students for the process taken to do and to learn. Our encouragement is rooted in realistic praise and support
for efforts to develop grit, resilience, and perseverance. Students will have opportunities in and out of the classroom to learn that growth happens when we face and overcome the hardest part.
Even when we think we failed, when we get back up and try it again. for our students. We want them to know that they may not be there yet, but they will get there. And lastly, encourage healthy nutrition
and active movement, a form of self-care. A healthy body supports our students by providing mental clarity and energy needed to tackle challenges and remain engaged in learning. Healthy bodies are
better equipped to handle stress, remain positive, and empowered by their self-care. Our physical education teachers, our health education program, our recess experiences and extracurricular offerings are in line to support all of
this wellness. 2025 to 2030 will emphasize creating opportunities for individuals to continuously adapt and respond with improvement. Up next is Dr. Doro and our future ready
habitats. I'm the last speaker so I'll I'll stay here. Um so for our our worldclass learning environments um we talked about this very briefly and I talked about the importance of carrying over from 2020
2025 plan to 2025 to 2030 plan and as you notice up here there's still work to be done along the lines of building and maintaining innovative spaces as well as upgrading our facilities. Um as you all know we just took part in a comprehensive facilities audit across
all the buildings um in the district. We use that as our road map and really start to tear and identify what are the sorry sorry I didn't even notice now I do um
so we start we we use those to prioritize uh what we need to ident to to address first second and and obviously following that um but further we also talked about the importance of going out to the community specific to a referendum
Um, obviously that work is starting and we're still in the beginning stages of it, but um, I just want to take a moment. I'm sure we're going to say it a number of times throughout this meeting, but since we have everybody here, um, on September 29th at 6:30 in the T3 building, we're going to have our state of the facilities. Um, there's an
opportunity for the community to come together and give us their feedback on what they feel is a priority and what we need to focus on moving forward. We're going to gather all that information along with the information from our strategic strategic plan um feedback from the community as well as our
comprehensive audit and uh administration, students, staff um and parents. So, as you can see, there's a lot of work still to be done. That's why this is uh another uh frame in our strategic plan.
Now, I got Oh, that was great. Before we close out our strategic plan um presentation, as you can see posted up on the screens are our district goals. Um they're directly aligned to the work that's embedded in the strategic plan. Um our first goal is
curriculum instruction. Uh we've been talking this about this at length over the past two years. Uh we're entering our third year uh specific to our tiers of intervention um across the district K through 12. I'm happy to report there's a commitment uh at all levels, all
departments to ensure that our students are getting um supported at the proficiency level in which they are at. Um so that's something that we will continue to work on. We'll continue to dive into the data specific to the student and individualize our plans
accordingly. Our second goal is finance and facilities. I just covered that in our in our last slide. Those are going to be our two goals that we are going to focus on across the uh across this year. Each school, each department will be utilizing that as their foundation for
their goals for this year. A picture of our strategic plan. Um the next slide is uh as we have done in the past which I felt was extremely helpful for our community and our focus on transparency is that we will have a tab
up for our 2025 to 2030 strategic plan. Um as we have done in the past we'll be reporting to the board uh throughout the years uh explaining the work that's been done thus far. We'll be updating that on the district homepage that's that can be utilized by all of our community members
who are interested in knowing the work that's been done. Any questions? When looking at the two different strategic plans, what do you think are some of the biggest differences that we're doing in this strategic plan that we may not have touched on as much in
the previous strategic plan? along the lines of the frames or along the lines of the actual tasks that are going to be accomplished. The tasks that are trying to be accomplished. You know, it's funny you asked that, Mr. Hughes. It's something that we talked about as a collective group, just like
we did going into the 2025 2020 to 2025 strategic plan. We had a framework of what we wanted this district to look like by 2025. And individually, each year we started to really focus our attention on how are we going to get there. So, I can't tell you all the
different accomplishments that we're going to have by the end of 2030, but what I can tell you is the specific goals that we have here. It's there's a lot of work that was done in the first strategic plan that still needs to be continued. Um, and also the work when you're talking about elevating from
whether it's instruction, whether it's community connections, whether it's facilities or wings of wellness, all of those things, there was a lot that was accomplished in the first, but there's still a lot to be done. So, it's really a continuation as well. Okay. Can I just say one thing?
I've said this before, but when this board was hiring Mike, we looked at a whole bunch of candidates and we looked at the districts those candidates were coming from. And in every one of those districts where those candidates were coming from, there were strategic plans.
strategic plan number one. There was no district that had strategic plan number two. And um it I think it's a great um uh achievement for our district to be committed to the work and to understand that it has real value for all of our
efforts, especially our staff and our administrative and leadership team. Um it really focuses our efforts. And sort of to your question, Chris, is we learned a boatload in the first one and we learned some really strate um important uh foundational items that
we're going to be building on in strategic plan number two um that I think everybody's really excited about continuing to pursue, but we have a very strong foundation to continue to pursue that. And again, just reflecting on the districts that have never done a
strategic plan too, they basically ended up when their first strategic plan had stopped, they went back to where they were, they might as well have never done it. Um, this is work that really is is um the district is committed to, the leadership team is certainly committed
to it, the board's committed to it. Um, it has tremendous potential as we've already seen in the areas of success we have had. Um, but there's more to do and we look forward to doing that work and advancing our student achievement along the way. So, and the other little thing
is which struck me when Lisa was speaking is, you know, it sounds like a lot of this is for like our high achieving students. It's not. It's a plan for every single student wherever you are on the learning journey. Um, we
have programs and interventions for every student. there is nobody who's not on our radar and um so we're lifting all boats with with this tie. So it's it's really it's I'm very proud that that this group has done this that
the commitment is strong and we continue to do it. So thank you. Very well said. Lots of work ahead but we've seen that before. Okay, let's uh Dr. Fair. Yeah.
Yes. Um, I just want to take a moment again. Thank you very much to the administrative team. Thank you for coming to support it. We know you all have families and you have other things to do. You're more than welcome like the students to stay, but you don't have to. So, please feel free. You can do that.
It's okay. It's not a test. Attendance will be taken. recognition. All right, Dr. So, we're going to Dr. and I will be sharing some of these slides. Dr.
already invited everyone to the state of our facilities meeting which will take place on Monday the 29th at 6:30 p.m. in our Thunderbird think tank. Um, the next slide talks about our opening day. This is something that we truly enjoy uh each and every year, but
it's an opportunity for our entire staff to come together. Um and as you can see up there, we want to have a big thank you to a number of different groups. We had a number of local restaurants and businesses donate um for this special day for our opening day, not only
convocation, but barbecue. We also want to thank Mr. Bitner and uh the marching band as well as the color guard. every year they put on such a wonderful performance and it's something that the teachers call for and actually a little side note there was one year about four years back that the band didn't come and
it was a lot of feedback that was given following uh that specific open convocation we also want to thank four students Avil Crown uh Crow Jean Chung Cole Baruda and Brandonclar um they were nice enough uh to come and and and speak
to all 500 staff members and uh what they spoke about was uh different staff members across the district that have impact them. And it was just beautiful to see how it was such a great cross-section of every single school contributed to um who have they they've
become and and how they supported them along the way. So, thank you so much for everyone involved um from the central office staff here, our um um our administrative staff here, administrative assistants, I'm sorry,
here and as well as the students and um and staff across the district. Thank you so much. And those local organizations and restaurants that Dr. Toro has referenced, uh they are listed on agenda item 18P. So again, thank you to
everyone who donated gift cards or food for for the occasion. Our staff truly appreciated it. Uh the next one we don't have a slide for, but I want to draw your attention to agenda item 180. Um it's donation of
time and money. Um we extend we extend our sincere thanks to Mr. James Baron of Betsy Ross School. um he's a parent for generously donating both his time and materials to repaint the United States map on the Betsy Ross playground blacktop. His contributions include not
only the monetary um to refresh the features of that the students will enjoy but also his time as well. We we deeply um we thank him greatly for all the things that he's doing to make Betsy Ross special. This is connected to uh to bring it back
Mr. Gallow to our community connections as well as our instructional frame of our strategic plan. As you can see, and I don't expect anybody to be able to read the detail. We will send this out via email. So, please don't strain your eyes. This is our parent academy list for the year. If you remember correctly,
we started parent academy back when I was director of curriculum. Um and at that time we had maybe five uh events for the year. I just want to thank Miss Craft for taking a look at what we are providing to the district, working with
other administrators across the district and getting a great um combination of both academic um both academic seal and a number of other things college ready uh focus topics and uh and like I said this was going to be sent out to you. I
believe the first parent academy is September 30th. Um but again, we'll send this out after this meeting. Yes. Is that right? Yeah, you're good. So, you'll see here, this is the flyer uh that has been shared with our
families as well as our students over at the high school. We've been talking a lot about dual enrollment opportunities for all types of students uh for uh those students to um get a head start on their higher education journey. Um, we
are ever increasing our dual enrollment off offerings at the high school, which we're really proud of. Um, and I know that we've been talking a lot about not only the, um, making the dual enrollment program that much more robust, but also branding it and communicating it. So,
uh, kudos to the high school for, um, really making it happen. We had a student, uh, Cole Buruto. Buruda, he is a senior. He was featured in Bergen magazine amongst representatives from 11 other high schools around the county uh for their
section students get real. Uh all 12 seniors share their perspectives regarding a range of topics everything from use of AI to their experiences in school um along with their uh their insights on what the future could look like. So if you you see Cole is right
here. There's Cole. So, congrats to him and um representing Mo High School. Just yesterday, in conjunction with the American Heart Association, uh the New York Giants Play 60 team spent time with our JK fifth grade students. Um their
energy, uh enthusiasm, and commitment to wellness made a lasting impact. Uh so, uh we thank them for being role models for our students. Um the play 60 program encourages 60 minutes of active play each day and uh players met students and participated alongside students in a
range of fun activities. A shout out to Dina Scaderi. Uh she is in that picture with with uh some of our staff and some of the players uh for doing a lot of the organization behind the scenes. Recent graduate Carrie Prunk. Uh we
actually highlighted her at a previous board meeting about her work towards her gold award uh for the Girl Scouts and she's recently been uh awarded uh the gold award for um her serenity steps at
MA High School. Uh, so if you remember, Carrie created a mindful labyrinth at MA High School as a space for her peers to engage in reflection and meditation, encouraging them to take a break from their daily pressures and connect with their thoughts in a peaceful setting. Um, she's also included a QR code in the
room which includes mental health resources such as quotes, calming music, and guided breath exercises. So, I thought that uh would be a nice a nice update for our board uh for one of our great graduates.
And lastly, you'll see agenda item 19E. We are recommending for appointment Katherine Hiramodoto as business administrator. Katherine, if you could wave for us. There she is. Uh so, let me
just introduce her formally to the board. Uh following interviews with several qualified candidates, uh we are pleased to share uh that we are recommending Miss Katherine Heramodto to the board uh this evening. Through the interview process, Miss Herodto distinguished herself through her
measured leadership and extensive knowledge of business office operations, which spans experience as a district accountant, accounts payable specialist, payroll supervisor, assistant business administrator, most recently uh acting BA for Fort Lee Public Schools. In her
interview, she demonstrated both a deep technical understanding and a strategic approach to organizational management, highlighting the standard operating procedures and streamline pro processes she has successfully implemented to create efficiency and accountability within our current business office. So,
um we recommend her and that is my report this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Le. Thank you. A couple of updates all related to grant funding. Item 18 GI
this evening's agenda. The bad news is uh Betsy Ross needs a partial boiler replacement for two boilers which unexpectedly failed. They were past their useful life, but we could not get through another school year uh with them
uh when it was time to do annual maintenance. Good news is uh the $149,000 will be funded from uh a grant from the New Jersey School Development Authority Emergent and Capital needs grants. The
total grant is almost 200,000. So even after this project, Mr. Romero will be very happy that there's still 50,000 left over for other projects. Uh and then regarding uh grant funding entitlement grants, we spend most of our
IDEIDA money, all of our IDA money on out of district tuition. And by earmarking the funds towards uh summer uh extended school year and the September payments, we already have spent about 70% of that. And the way the
grant funding is, the sooner you spend the money, the sooner you get the reimbursement from the state. So that will help for cash flow. And title As we've done in most years, we've spent the bulk of our money on our summer booster programs. So, we've already spent about 95% of the title one money.
Uh so, we're spending the grant money will get reimbured sooner. That'll help the cash flow. And then lastly, the rod grants that were approved. Uh the Joyce Kilmer HBAC project is all but completed just a few punch list items. So, we're working on the application to be
reimbured for the state for that grant. and the high school cafeteria roof. Although the project is also mostly finished with the exception of a few items, we're just waiting for more invoices from the vendors so that we can pay them so that we can then turn around
and get the grant money as well. So, we are taking advantage of funds from the state and we're making sure we get reimburseed for. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Dr. Morphy did not leave me a president's report. So, we'll jump right
into board committee reports. Mr. Gall just briefly um on September 9th, uh Land Associates submitted a grant application pro um package to the state so that we can get a better sense of what our capital uh our capital cost
reimbursement re rebate may be from the state with a list of projects we have submitted to the state for consideration under the referendum. That'll take a couple months to find out. We're lucky. We're lucky. So fingers crossed.
Anyone else? All right. Uh board member remarks. I just wanted to say hello. Um, it's good to be back in the chair. I just want to say thank you very much for all your support and love this
summer. Well, over the past nine months, especially this summer. It was one for the 80s. Glad to be back and uh thanks for Brett for stepping in on my committee assignments, but you're good now. We're going back to regular floor. Yes.
Thank you very much everyone. It really meant a lot to to me and my family for all the support. So, but everyone looks good. So, fingers crossed. Thank you. Have you come in to MOA Day? It is on Saturday. The greatest day. No worries. I will be there. Let's hope to see you all there.
Absolutely. All right. Uh, may I have a motion on 17A minutes from the last meeting? Mr. Coplin, second by Mr. Gallow. Mr. Coplin. Yes,
Miniro. Yes, Mr. Denise. Yes, Mr. Gallo. Yes, Mr. Yuns. Yes, Mr. Darsty. Abstain, Mr. Dil. And new business. May I have a motion for 18
through P? Mr. Kismarski, second by Mr. Hughes. Roll call, please. Mr. Cwood. Yes. And thank you to all those that made donations. Miniro, yes. Mr. Denise, yes. Mr. Gallow, yes. Mr.
Yes. Mr. Gizmarski, yes. But I'm recusing myself on 18A check number 12857 and 121102. But I do thank the board for paying the water. Mr. Nil.
Yes. And next I'll entertain a motion on 19A through Y. Mr. Coplin, second by Mr. Hughes. Mr. Mr. Copin. Yes. And thank you to all the parent
volunteers. We saw the list. Thank God. So, thank you, Miss Deanro. Yes. Mr. Denise. Yes. Mr. Gallow. Yes. And we look forward to seeing Catherine Dormoto at our October meeting. Mr. Hughes. Yes.
Mr. Kizarski. Uh, yes. And just real quick on 18F, um, I was not here when the vote was previously done with regards to the expansion of the school security officers program. I'm very happy to see that in place. But with that, I'm also very happy to see Stacy Conley on the board. Was a great uh,
great officer for many years. Be a great asset to mess the greatest elementary school in all. Besides besides GW, normally me, Mr. Dilla. Yes. And let me be the first to
congratulate Mr. Heramoto. [Applause] Right. Public comments or questions. Public participation in board meetings is in accordance with bylaw 0167. At this time, uh, members of the public
may ask questions or make a comment on educational issues or school matters of community interest. As a matter of fairness, you're asked to limit your, uh, questions to no more than one, your remarks to no longer than three minutes. If you're here representing the group, please identify the name of the group and your position in the group. Uh, if
you're here as an individual, please give us your name and address. section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes. May I have a motion to open to the public? Mr. Hughes, second by Mr. Coplan. We are open at 7:49. Hi, I'm Maria Salah. My kids in Lape.
Um, just a quick question in regards to Hi, welcome. I think I sent you an email welcoming you. Thank you. Um, I was just curious. I'm fascinated by the new roll out of this way of educating up in the academic
curriculum center, which is great for all levels. Um, how is the AI incorporated into the program? I'm curious. And like, is it K through 12? Is it
uh every day kind of a thing? And how does a teacher work through that? As well as you guys mentioning it's going to be, you know, the education curriculum is within each level. Is it a daily thing throughout the day? Like how does that work? It's a great question.
Aside from my ready, aside from my ready path of math ready. No, that that's a great question. As we all know, AI is is relatively new, especially to the educational world. And uh there are a number of different opinions specific to AI. Their pros and their cons. So I think the first thing
like we have with any other program or resource the first thing we need to do is understand the scope of what it can do with education and then we have to educate our teachers on how to use it so they can in turn educate the students. So specific to AI that's going to be a
multiple multi-year roll out this year. What we need to do from the administrative level is really engage in professional development to understand what the capabilities of AI in a positive way can have on on on education. So you won't see a lot of um
things in the classroom just yet, but when we do start to roll it out into the classroom, it's really important that we our community understands how we're using it, when we're using it, um and at what levels we are using it. So I I can assure you that once we get all the information and understand where it can
maximize the instructional experience for our students, we will then turn turn out to the community and explain that to them. Okay. But I was also lead to the other part was that she was mentioning how there's instructional different like difference where every kid's learning at
a different level their level aside from the AI. She said there's two parts to that one sentence. I was just curious. Oh. Oh. I at that point she was talking about um our I Ready platform and link it platform as well as um our tier levels of support. So in previous
meetings um we've talked about um how each of the teachers obviously you have let's say 20 students in your classroom as we all know you have different levels in your classroom. You have students who need foundational support, students who are who are at grade level and students who far exceed grade level expectations.
And it's really important for us to understand where their levels are at specific to the skills. It's not just, well, they're an A student. That doesn't mean that they're strong in all of the skills. So, we need to make sure that we're very attentive to their ability level depending on the skills that we're teaching and really expand upon them
whether it's at the foundational level or the enrichment level. So, so from K through 12, all of our teachers have received professional development. Now they have actionable data as opposed to that one piece of data from the the test
in the spring. We have uh data through the I Ready platform um that gives a very diagnostic breakdown of each of our students, right, which has been happening which is great for the past two years. But I'm just curious, how is it being enrolled
within the classrooms on a daily basis, not just the 90 minutes a week of math and um language arts? Like you know like I'll give an example. Okay. So, uh, in
the classroom last year, my kids now in three, third grade, but in, you know, he was bringing in the work and I would see the work, but there wasn't a lot of daily things that were happening that were at his level. And so, it was to the point
where I just just he was just using the ready math because he was the pilot class, but there wasn't anything else aside from that that was challenging him during the day. And so I was just curious to know like how do you guys
plan on approaching that not just for me but kids that are behind or because the kids that are on par they're they're being attended to in the class but how will that roll out when the kids like here and you have a kid from here like how are each of them really being served within the class not being pulled out
understood. Um as I shared the not only it starts with understanding what their levels are um the second piece is small group instruction. So if you do whole group, you're missing a large population of your students. So those small group instructions is not solely solely focused on the kids who need foundational support. That's also for
students who are at a higher level. But to and let's not speak about just your student as you as you stated as you stated um students who who are above and you referenced elementary school students who are above. We're very fortunate because we have our gifted
coordinator who also who works primarily at the ridge and as you know um she also goes to each of the schools for a number of different reasons. Number one is the universal screener of identifying where our students are and if we have early
gifted identification. Um, but also she works with the teachers on creating programs and experiences for our students throughout the K K3 throughout the K3 schools. Once they get to fourth and fifth, we have two different options for them. We have advanced math and we also
have our gifted program. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. There are parentmies coming up on these the topics you're asking about. So, yeah, it's just more about a curriculum on a daily basis. That's pretty good. Okay.
I have a quick question. You're both mentioning I and I'm new Samoa. So, is this a completely new program? If we if we could just have you come up to the microphone. So, I'm new Samoa and I've never heard of I Ready before, but I'm getting used to hearing it. Do the parents get the
results? First of all, welcome. Um, second of all, yes, the parents do get the results. So, I know that you've heard about it. So, let me just give you a broad overview of I Ready. I Ready is a diagnostic uh assessment for all of
our students K through 8 and some some in high school as well, but K through 8, ELA and math. And what it allows us to do that, the students take the assessment and the assessment adapts to whatever proficiency level. So, let's say you and I are taking the assessment together. We start off, you get all your
questions, you get the first four or five questions correct. I don't. I get the first five questions wrong. It gears either up or down depending on the proficiency level and by the end of the test it gives a very comprehensive breakdown of what your built what your uh proficiency level is compared to what
my proficiency level is and then the teachers use that to plan accordingly. Along the lines of the parent reports last year I think it was last year. Last year was the first year in which we shared the parent reports um with the community. Um and obviously with that comes a lot of questions. So we wanted
to make sure that the teachers uh were well verssed in what the parent report uh contained and then also what action the teachers are going to take specific to the student. So what you're going to be getting probably in October I please uh don't hold me to that. They're going to be
they're doing the diagnostic assessments over the next couple of weeks and after they're complete we'll be able to have access to the parent reports and then we're going to mail them to you. Is this is this in conjunction with the parent teacher conference too? Oftentimes it lines up that the elementary I believe that's what they
did last year. They they lined up with the elementary teachers actually handed the parent report uh to the parent and they were able to talk through it during the parent teacher conference. Okay. Thank you. No problem. Anyone else?
Seeing no one I'll enter Mr. Marski second by Mr. Cop at 7:57 we do not fantastic entertain a motion to adjourn how Mr. Karski second by Mr. Gallow we are adjourned at 7:57
thank you ladies and gentlemen and gentlemen for joining us administrator [Music]