We are live. 6:30 and I'll call this meeting to order. Could we all rise for the flag salute? I aliance 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. And will we all remain standing for a moment of silence for all those in harm's way and for all of our military at home and abroad. Thank you. We could all be seated. This statement uh statement of advanced
notice. The notice requirements of the open public meetings act of the state of New Jersey have been satisfied by the inclusion of the date, time, and place of this meeting in the notice of regular meetings adopted by this board on January 6th, 2025.
Such schedule and notice of meetings is posted at the municipal building, the Mount Olive Library, the board of education offices in the six schools. Was submitted to the daily record for publication on January 7th, 2025, and was filed with the clerk of Mount Olive
Township on January 8th, 2025. I direct that this announcement be entered into the minutes of this meeting. And we'll take a roll call, please. Mrs. Aquino, here. Mrs. Fenton, here. Mrs. Faggera, here. Mrs. Fitzgerald, Dr. Mr. Gordano here. Mrs. Melendez here.
Mrs. Narcissis here. Mrs. O'Neal here. Mr. Orizilla here. And with that, we will take an approval of the minutes. Can I get a motion? Um, over to Miss Fenton. Thank you.
I'll make that motion. 2.1 to 2. Second. And are there any comments or questions from the board for approval of the minutes? Nope. Seeing none, we'll take a roll call. Mrs. Fen? Yes, Dr. Gordano. Yes, Mrs. Aquino. Yes, Mrs. Faggera.
Yes, Mrs. Melendez. Abstain. Mrs. Norcis. Yes, Mrs. O'Neal. Yes, Mr. Dorzilla. Yes. And with that, we're actually going to move the order of our meeting and move the confidential session to after our
reports and discussions. And with that, um, are there any communications or petitions? No. Seeing none, we will move on to our superintendent report. Good evening. At this point, I would like to invite Dr. Rean, our acting assistant superintendent, who will be
presenting on student achievement assessments from spring of 2025 and GSLA access for L's and the DLM. It's not going to work. Thank you. Good evening. There we go. Thank you.
Uh tonight I'll be presenting on the spring 2025 um NJSLA access and DLM results. I promise you we can get through this in 10 minutes. This presentation will be posted on the district website uh tomorrow morning.
This annual presentation is required by the New Jersey Department of Education and it will be checked during state monitoring. The state provides a reporting template and we've used that template for the purpose of this present uhation. Excuse me. Some slides uh
present the same data in different formats. I will address the data presented in the table format and skip through the slides with the bar graphs because that would be redundant if we did so. So, um the information is there
but we'll skip through those bar graphs. Uh the first three slides address student participation in the NJSLA testing and uh the the participation was very good on all three
assessments. Uh we will start with the language arts literacy results and please note that the yellow highlighting designates significant progress for the New Jersey Department of Education. uh they look at
2% and above as significant and something to celebrate because it's forward motion. Um we want to see levels one through three move in a negative direction and levels four and five which is meeting and exceeding proficiency
move in a positive direction. Uh grades three through five are trending in a positive direction uh in our language arts literacy results. Grades six through nine are demonstrating inconsistent performance and these are
grade levels requiring focus and improvement and they are getting that kind of focus and improvement this year. the interventions that are in progress. K12 um they've updated their curriculum and it's aligned with the revised
standards. K12 professional development on the new curriculum um new programs and analyzing data is another intervention. Uh our K5 new comprehensive benchmark literacy program
uh includes best practice strategies, phonics, academic vocabulary, integration of science and social studies topics, word study and writing. Uh the middle school and high school revised their curriculum that too is aligned with the revised standards and
writing rubrics were developed to better assess and provide focused instruction on writing in our language arts, social studies, and science classes. Moving on to math, grades three through seven are showing a positive trend in student
achievement. Uh high school algebra 1 and geometry require focus for improvement. Algebra 2. We are observing a strong positive trend in student performance. Uh interventions being implemented include uh revised K12 uh
curriculum with a focus on updated standards and best practice instructional strategies. Our K12 teachers have been participating in conquer math professional development, including best practice instructional
strategies and analyzing data. Okay, moving on to science. We see positive performance trend uh interventions. We continue to introduce and reinforce mathematics to support understanding and facilitate
cross-curricular applications and connections. Whoops. Excuse me. All right, here we go again. I'm skipping past the bar graphs. Um, and here uh are our science
interventions, integration of science topics in literacy. There's a real emphasis on academic vocabulary. And you'll see later on in in this presentation, the importance that across the curriculum, we really have to focus on academic vocabulary, especially for
our multilingual learners. Uh, in grades 6 through 12, uh, we are um using mathematics. We're incorporating, we're collaborating with the math department and making sure that mathematics supports scientific concepts and
applications and uh also implementing cognitive interest uh cues to increase student engagement. Some of this is like phenomena, interesting um puzzling questions that we pose to students etc.
So now we will um take a look at some of our demographics. Um, let me just go through. Yeah. Uh, we continue to see trends not only in um Mount Olive, but very similar to what
we're seeing nationally. Uh, in terms of race, we continue to monitor and address below proficiency performance for our black and Hispanic students. You'll see that language arts, math, I have an arrow where we're really needing to
focus and science. Okay. In terms of gender, we are seeing that females are scoring higher in language arts literacy. Um there appears to be a leveling
um a leveling of performance in math and science although more males are scoring at the exceeding proficiency level. Okay, now we're looking at our Yeah. Okay. our special programs. So in
language arts literacy um our uh English language learners um a high percentage of students are not meeting proficiency expectations. Uh what's interesting is uh if you take a look at our students with 504 plans uh
they are meeting proficiency and um it could be that the designated accommodations that are being written into their 504 plans are making a difference. Okay. um our multi-ingual learners and our
students with IEPs are not meeting proficiency in math and um that's the same holds true for science. Um science I'm as we looked at this with the curriculum and technology committee science we had a discussion really stood
out and again I'm really thinking that the academic uh the academic vocabulary is is really important here. Um, science probably has the most technical vocabulary and our supervisor who
oversees the ESL program is collaborating with um his colleagues, he's supervisors and we're all watching that. We're really making a conscious effort to build in academic vocabulary uh direct teaching uh throughout the
curriculum. Okay, this brings us to the access results. Um, and you know, probably what stands out here is, uh, we don't have a a whole lot of we don't have we hardly have any students in level five and six,
but I will tell you, having overseen ESL for many many years, this is actually something um to really applaud because what this is saying is students that are really uh in the bridging and reaching.
I always worry that we hold our multilingual learners in programs too long and this is saying that there's some good decision makingaking um in terms of getting students back out into the general ed classroom. Um there is
careful monitoring of the students once they exit but it you know if you have a lot of students in five and level five and six um I worry that we're holding we're holding on to them. Um okay so uh
moving on let's see this is oh I'm going in the wrong direction. Sorry about that. Okay, some of the interventions uh access prof uh proficiency levels um were aligning them
in in terms of instructional priorities and student groupings. Um uh interventions were emphasizing as I said academic vocabulary continued focus on listening, speaking, reading and writing and aligning uh instruction with
widow standards. But there's also an emphasis of also including our New Jersey student learning standards because that makes for an easier transition for these students back into uh general ed classrooms.
Uh DLM are dynamic learning maps. Um these are assessments for our students with the most significant disabilities. Uh the four performance levels are emerging, approaching, at target and advanced understanding. Uh we had about 35 students that were assessed under
this program. Again, there's not something global that I can share with you because progress really is determined um based on each student's uh IEP. So, we're looking at performance here um against each individual IEP
goals and objectives. And finally, um, we're looking at advanced placement. I think that you looked at these previously, so I'm going to be real quick. These are great results. Having been in other districts,
high performing districts, this is something to celebrate and be proud of. 856 tests were administer administered over 31 courses with an average of about 3.5 uh performance in 79% of the students
scored three or higher. That's something to celebrate. So that said that concludes our assessment presentation. I hope I was able to accomplish it in 10 minutes.
Thank you for your your interest in the topic and uh I'm here to answer any questions if anybody has any questions. Do we have any questions on comments from the board members? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you,
Dr. Banji. Any added anything added for that? Um I I think at this point I think we've talked about the state assessment so often. I you know as a district we look at the whole child like I'm really proud of the fact that we have a data informed outlook so certainly it does guide our
curricular expectations set for that grade level or that department but we take into consideration a lot of pieces of information to paint a picture of an individual child. So I think that's really key and certainly you know while we have certain areas of growth that we need to do we're always focused upon how
are we going to transition and um translate that to success beyond that classroom. So that's why a lot of those interventions are not necessarily, you know, can they get from one grade level to the next, but what are things that's going to make them successful individuals and I one of those um miss Dr. Wan pointed out is that academic
vocabulary. It's really critical for them to have a basic understanding of that as well as ensuring that what's being taught in one building is being taught in another. And I think that's really the work has been done this summer, especially from an elementary standpoint and certainly with the
supervisors across the K12 spectrum. Thank you. Anyone else? Oh, thank you. Oh, and just want to let know our buildings are ready to go for tomorrow. So, there's no question school's going to be open. And with that, we'll continue through
our reports and discussion and then we'll go into close session after. So, with that, I will move to personnel committee report. Sorry. Got it. Okay. We met um on the 7th of this month. All were in attendance.
We talked about district hiring and vacancy updates. Um we are in need of two positions, tenure track positions. One's an elementary special ed position and the other is an elementary PE position.
All openings are updated daily in Apple and potential applicants are encouraged to frequently visit the district's website in order to see open positions. We also discuss supervisor search updates. The committee was updated on
the status of the open supervisor positions in the district. a posting for an interimm science supervisor is active and is currently taking place and I believe that's misspeaking now. Is that right Dr. Aangia? Yes.
So we're in process of um hiring our special ed um supervisors and as you can see from um the board agenda we did find an interim signed supervisor. So we're very fortunate for that. Very good. Then we have a Keen University par profofessional opportunities. We're looking into
engaging with several New Jersey universities to explore partnerships possib partnership possibilities that would offer pathways to teacher certification for our district's par district's power professionals. The district continues to search for ways to
to incentivize potential candidates to join our par profofessional teams. And then we also had our power professional open house. Um, we hosted two separate openhouse opportunities at the board office this past week, specifically targeting candidates for uh several
current par professional openings in many of our district schools. Um, they're also encouraged to visit our websites and apply through Apple and then we had some confidential things and that was it.
Thank you. Do we have any comments or questions from board members? No. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move to our finance committee and I think Mr. Ozilla, you're up today, right? Yes. Uh, we met on the 7th also. It was
a very long meeting, so I'll try to keep this short and sweet. Um, some of the things that we were discussing, um, the direct install project for the HVAC is underway. So far so good. The um
middle school HVAC project is finishing up. The uh parking lot expansion at the middle school is done if I'm correct. And we're at CMS right now. Mhm. Um what else we got here? Uh
I think that's really all I'm going to talk about because everything else is on the uh the minutes is on online. But those are some of the cool things that are going on. Oh, also where you're going to um uh fix the roof over the cafeteria to
high school. And Miss Shing, uh correct me if I'm wrong, the boilers at the high school don't need to be replaced. So that we found how much money now to spend on more roofs that are in desperate need of being fixed. So
that's about it. I have a question. Shoot. the um the parking lot. Was that done inhouse or did we contract out for No, we contracted that out. Okay. Thank you. That was it. Any other questions from board members?
No. Okay. We will move on then to curriculum and instruction committee. We met on Monday, October 6th, uh in Dr. Bania's office. All members were present. Dr. Dr. Vania discussed the kindergarten survey that's going to be
shared with our kindergarten parents that allow schools to have an understanding of the educational experiences of their child prior to kindergarten. Uh Dr. Rean re reviewed new curricular updates that include elementary dance and theater arts.
She also reviewed the state assessment results from the spring of 2025 with us. Uh Dr. Banier reviewed the expectations of the hib self assessment that will be formally presented the o at the October 27th board meeting. Uh we also discussed
the importance of expanding our dual enrollment options at the high school. Dr. Bania shared that the high school is in the process of working on their program of studies and will ensure dual enrollment is a part of the conversation as the program of studies is developed.
Um Dr. Banana also reviewed the technology report that was developed by Dr. Krider. The technology department is hard at work preparing for fall testing. Um, and our last topic of discussion was CQAC. Dr. Bania and Dr. Rean discussed
the district's progress in preparing for the instructional and programming portion of QAC monitoring. And we are in very good shape, should be in very good shape, meeting the expectations of the state. Any comments or questions from the board?
Madam President, I um I'm glad to see the committee is looking at our dual enrollment. That's something I know the board has been, you know, pushing forward past couple years. I'd like everyone to keep in mind though too as a committee, Beth, that going back to Dr. Regan, the reason why our AP we we offer a lot of AP tests is because the student
pays for the first one, the board picks up the tab for everyone after that. So, one of the things the committee could think about is if it's a detriment for the cost that the board would if the student pays half, the board can kick in the other half. whatever that is, that's something to think about so it's not doesn't become a roadblock because I do believe dual enrollment is
just as important as a as AP test for students. How much does a test cost? AP test, what is an AP test? 80 It's about $88 some dollars. We pay and then we pick up the rest. So you pay the first one and you want to take another three, we pick it up. Are we we're paying the additional or we
paying just one? We just we just we just pay for the first test. every testable that's we pay for the first test and then when you want to take after you have to pay for I'm sorry Mark okay but it's substantial cost think about test we give I mean we had 856 tests so
but I agree I was actually very grateful to hear um added interest or exploration to dual enrollment any other questions from the board nope okay we'll move to policy and governance committee Miss Melendez.
Yes. Uh the committee met on October 6. All members were present and we have a guest uh Mr. Feldman and Miss Cook. Uh the policy committee review proposed policy regulations updates to areas impacting high high gradu high school
graduation requirements outside activities and proposals for curriculum activities. These policies will be finalized at the at the lateral date. uh revised policy 8500 food services and policy 5516 use of
electronic communication devices were finalized and placed on the agenda for board approval. Mr. Felmont and Miss Cook review the parameters of the student program map at the high school and the various support programs has in
place for the targeted student population. The renaming of the Mountain View Library in honor of former principal Mr. Frank Fishell was discussed and approved. The latest state school digest update was review by the
policy committee too and then some discussions in private things financial things. Any comments or questions from the board? Nope. Okay, seeing none, we will move on. And with that, let me just scroll
back up. I will open the floor for any board subcommittees or parent teacher association liaison reports. Do we have anyone? I see. Hey, school. Come on up. Hi, how are you? Uh Marla Cora. Oh, sorry.
Oh, thank you so much. Never got that right. I'm with the MOHS uh parents club and we wanted to uh let everyone know about the uh scholar senior scholarships we' given out uh in the spring. Uh the
we gave out a number of scholarships this and um sorry the the full list was uh $800 to Allison Bisser. I'm going to apologize in advance in case I get anyone's name wrong. Uh, $650 to Juliana
Muscatello, $650 to Bonisha Dvagiri, uh, $425 to Amllin Cubs Saba, $400 to Lur Thomas, uh, $350 to Sydney Frink, $300 to Jacob Hamry, $225 to Isabella
Safola, and $200 to Brandon Barers. We also give a $500 annual gift to each class. Uh the way we fund a these gifts, a lot of the things that we do for students and for the school is concessions. And our first concession
stand is this Saturday uh at the we will be running concessions for the ROC bingo fundraiser which is being being held at the MOHS cafeteria. Doors will open at 5 and we are definitely hoping that everybody comes out.
You Thank you so much. Any questions from the board? No. Thank you so much. Hi, Amy. I see you. [Music] Hello everyone. I'm Amy Marini. I'm one of the co-leaders for CPAC, this
special education parent advisory group. I'm really just reporting on SEAK. So, I did email you guys all the link again. Um but just as a refresher because some of this stuff is really important stuff and so um CX stands for the state
special education um uh council and um it's at the state level that oversees CPAGs and stuff like that. Very important. Their first meeting was September. Um and that's one that I kind of like sent out to you guys. Um but um they also changed their format. They're going to be meeting
every single month this year. So um the next is actually Thursday. So, um, so just as a quick thing I had to actually print off because I was running late. Um, the, um, the things that I wanted to make sure I brought up to your guys' attention is some of the stuff that they've reviewed was the accountability
and quality improvement indicators for the districts. One being that we are in cohort three, which the self- assessment is like now, and that um, then the monitoring will be next year, so 26 27. Um the um then they also provided the monitoring protocols and like the
revised pieces for the districts. Um this stuff is clearly not my language but I at least have some understanding of this tiny little piece of it. Um there was um also the indicator one pagers um for all the things that
they'll be monitoring um which was under the there was like a whole QR code on that I didn't know about actually that were on each one of those indicators for training opportunities for the staff um which I thought was really really informative. Um other things that were part of these indicator one-pager
resources was um different indicators for different programs that are within um different districts. So, the emotional and behavioral program quality indicators um the quality indicators for programs serving students with disabilities 18 to 21 um ones that were
servicing um the autism program quality indicators were all different things that they had updated last year um that they reviewed and I wanted to make sure that you guys had links to those. Um then they reviewed some of the stuff that's available on the um Office of Special
Education's website, which is huge. Not even just for parents, but staff and parents to really become more educated. Free opportunities right at fingerprint at their fingertips. Um for like right on the the website, they reviewed legislation, which we've talked about at
CPAG. Talked about different um different opportunities that were conferences that were being shared. Those are all things. I'm not going to read them. a resource fair. I think that may have just happened. Um, but the big big big big big big big thing which falls into
CPAC's meeting is tomorrow night at 7:00 and we have Mike Marada from um, tech solutions coming to talk about assist of technology. Um, but they had assist of technology from the TCJ assessment technology center come and do a whole presentation about what they offer, the free services that they provide, the
YouTube channels that they they provide, and all the supports that that TCJ does um, and providing for families and for the districts really. It was really more district kind of opportunities um, with like free resources that are available
out and about at TCJ. Um what other things then they talked about other stuff that makes my brain get a little bit crazy because I don't understand it um about just more monitoring stuff and everything. Um so we do like I said have our our next
meeting is tomorrow. Uh we are always virtual um and we um the second Tuesday of the month. Tomorrow's month meeting is a parent only meeting, but if somebody wants to attend as a parent, um, and not as a member of the board or even, you know,
then that's totally fine. Um, and we do have someone coming to speak about assist of technology. November's meeting, um, is for the district to provide. We've all we've, um, last year we did this as well where the district does one month we alternate. So, it's
parent only and then the districtledd presentation about something that is specific to special services within the district. Um, I'm not sure exactly what I think they're nailing down what the topic's going to be. Um, and then we're hoping to have some unified students come to speak about their experiences in
December. So, um, yeah, that's it. And thank you for I heard because I was listening on the way in. I'm glad that you guys are looking at uh creative opportunities for for paras. Do we have any comments or questions from the board?
No, I know Dr. Bani is on top of that um monitor and yes, we are board just met with state last week. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. And with that, do we have any other subcommittee reports? Did anybody
attend? I see Beth. I do. on behalf of the FPTA. Uh they are doing a soft launch of a school store this month uh in addition to their annual trunk retreat which is scheduled for this Friday. Please come support the fourth and fifth grade classes with Kona Ice.
And uh the fourth grade class will be selling Ashley Farms cider donuts and hot chocolate. And I saw an advertisement going out from Mountain View. They're looking for um volunteers and more
trunk trunker needed. All right, perfect. So, if anybody wants to pull up with their trunk open and decorated with goodies for the kids, did they contact the PTA for that? Yes. Okay. Yeah, you can shoot them an email.
Okay. Anyone else comments, questions? All right. I will close out the committee reports. I have nothing for my report. And with that, we will actually take a motion to go into confidential session. Do I have a motion? So moved. Anyone second?
Second. All right. All those in favor? I I be it resolved that the board meet in confidential session for the purpose of discussing negotiations, personnel, matters of attorney, client privilege, pending or anticipated litigation, confidential pupil matters, real estate matters. Be it further resolved that the
matters discussed in confidential session be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality. no longer exist and we are in confidential session. All right, I'll call us back into session. And can we take a roll call, please? Mrs. Aquino,
here. Mrs. Fenton, here. Mrs. Faggera here. Dr. Gordano here. Mrs. Melendez here. Mrs. Narcissis here. Mrs. O'Neal here. Mr. Orizillo here. And with that, I will open the floor up for public comments. Oh, did we get
everyone? Miss Miss Shing. Yes. Okay. I'll open the floor up for public comment on action items. Members of the community may comment on any action item prior to board discussion. Please state your name and address for the record. All comments must be respectfully
presented. Abusive and obscene comments will not be tolerated. And the mic is open. Going once. Going twice. All right, we will close out public comments on action items. And with that, I will take a motion to move all agenda items from 7.1
down to and we are at 11.5. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Oh, look at that. And do we have any comments or questions from the board? No. I just want to say congratulations,
Miss Mosiac. and welcome to our interim um supervisor of science. And with that, any other comments or questions? Nope. Okay, we'll take a roll call then. Miss Shonen. Dr. Giardano, yes. Mrs. Aquino, yes. Mrs. Fenton, yes. Mrs. Faggera,
yes. Mrs. Melendez, yes. Mrs. Narcissis, yes. Mrs. O'Neal, I abstain from anything for Christian Humphrey. and for special itillo. Yes. All right. With that,
we will open public comment. Students, parents, employees, and community members may comment on any item of interest pertaining to the Mount Olive School District. Please state your name and address for the record. All comments must be respectfully presented. Abusive or obscene comments will not be
tolerated and the mic is open. Hello everybody. I am Lisa Lmodola and I live at 498 Sanore Road in Bud Lake, New Jersey. Um, we just wanted to let you know on behalf of EMO, which for those of you that don't know is the education association of Mount Olive, um, we
represent the majority of the faculty and staff in Mount Olive schools. And one of our goals this year was to become more involved with community events. And so we wanted you to be aware that we've started to have a larger presence out in the community. We've partnered a lot
with um the recck department and we recently participated in Mount Olive Day. They had that big parade. It was very loud. Um but we had a booth and we had games for adults and kids and giveaways. Um and this past weekend, although it was cut short, we also
participated in Oktoberfest and we gave away pumpkins to families. Um so they got to do that. Um, I do want to give credit to our EMO uh PEP and fast grant chair, Melani Litel. We kind of gave her
um some uh ideas of things we wanted to do this year and she's off and running. There's a lot of good things coming our way. Um, but next on the list is we are also supporting all of the trunk or treats at the elementary schools. So,
you'll be able to see the staff participating in some of those events as well. So, we just wanted to let you know. Um, I'll keep coming and giving you some updates there, but we know that both the district um the district is also trying to make some bridges with the community and we're helping to
support in that way. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Miss Leandola, where did you get that sweatshirt? Oh, I got this from Limitless. It's a Sansore mom. Oh, it's over on Indian.
Go to limitless.com and you can get your shiny marauders. Thank you. For those at home, it's glitter marauders. As long as it's not and any other Oh, okay. We got more.
I know. Oh, the sun got really hot. I know, right? It's hot. I'm hot. That's cuz I my the amount of heat I generate fat. Name name and address. My name is Martin Wells Muller, 25 Woodcraft Avenue. But Lake, New Jersey. Um, I want to say I was very proud of
the school district for doing that strategic planning going forward. Um, I, as you know, for years I've been talking about what we can do to plan for the next generation going in our school district because it does matter to me. Um, I am now the vice president of the Mountain Republican Club, and I know
last time you had a hard time with a lot of Republicans with the last uh, I guess thing about expansion and trying to go out for a vote. I'm telling you, like with me working with you guys and helping you guys, I'm hoping that when the next referendum comes out, we'll be able to deliver that to the town and we'll understand why we're doing this
for the kids and for the staff and for the future needs going forward. Um because like I said, Rome wasn't built in a day and it wasn't a shortening day and and as they say, it takes a village to raise a child. Um so like I said, we just got to get everyone behind the future of Mount Olive. Uh as you know, a
lot of school districts are selling schools off now. Um, and we have a problem in our town that we're expanding. And with the Highland Act going here in town, um, that's only going to I progressively make things worse for us in the next several years. Um, and I don't like ever putting kids
in Porter schools, mobile schools on the outside because when I went to school back in the day, that was either the smart the bad kids or or the disabled kids did all that in the trailers. And I'd like every kid to be in the same building as everyone else. So, like I
said, let's go from Mount of. And even though I have no kids left in the school district, I'm still here. All right then. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Also, the chairs are okay. Do we have anyone else for the mic?
These chairs. I like I go once, go in twice. All right. We're going to close out public comments then and we'll move to old business. Members of the board may comment on any old business. Anyone? Seeing none, we'll move to new business.
Members of the board may introduce any new topic. None. I might have a new topic. I I had a thought in my mind about I saw that the they're offering a grant to do uh
bell-to-bell no phones. I actually love that idea. And I'll tell you, I'm sure that might be a little hard at first, but I the one thing that really bothers me about the cell phones is the psychological
misdevelopment of of their brains from being tagged all the time in in Instagram and stuff like that. And it actually they proven that you lose concentration, you have anxiety, you get depression. And I think we should
seriously consider doing that. I know nobody nobody's going to like it, but for the health and wellness of our students, I think it is such an important thing and I'd really really like this board to seriously consider moving on to that. We've done a very
good job, but I think we could do better. Agreed. I think we're doing that. Yes. We're not bell to bell. It's this bell class. lock them up and in afternoon you you unlock them.
So at the moment we have at the middle school that for all morning until lunch the students have them locked in their uh lockers and then they can they return they have them locked in their lockers. All right that's it. It's accessible locked in their
and then at the high school each classroom has the pouches that their phones are put into. And I know that we are exploring the phone grant um that was forwarded to Miss Joning, right? One of the phone the phone grants. So I will say this about that that that
grant is for those yonder um pouches. That's one of the main things. So for the younger kids. Yes. But we already have no phones in the school for the younger age groups. Yes. And so when we talk about the middle school, they are expected to put them in the in their locker. And when there's a student out with a phone, it
is very telltale. It's very it's very This is where I'm going to argue that, okay? Because what time is lunch? But they they don't take them out at lunchtime. What time is lunch? They can access during they're throwing tag at lunch.
These children are thinking about, all right, if I go to the bathroom and it takes me one minute to go to the bathroom, then maybe I could sneak to my locker and I could grab my phone. And this is what they're thinking of instead of their math or their algebra or anything. I really do believe we should
I I saw these pouches that magnetically unlock. Have you seen those? That's the the yonder pouches. Is that the I think those are fabulous. They have they they can't even think about even looking at their phone in that case. So, I will tell you this.
When schools have that, kids have dummy phones and they put their dummy phones in the yonder pack. And so, I'm certainly willing to explore it. Listen, I they're ahead of us. But I will I will say this, I I think the the district has the
district has done the heavy lift of having those conversations and about emphasizing responsible use of it. That's why in the elementary there is no phone. There's no watch. There is wonderful. I'm not saying we're not doing a wonderful job. So, but I think it I think this grant brings up the the need for continued
conversation, right? And it's also to understand this is a joint venture between home and school. Yes. And I think that is very critical that as a school district we are very focused upon the learning and that we at the same time recognizing the responsibilities that families do have
and as they get older. But it also takes when there are instances in which a student gets caught with someone where they don't have a phone when they get called home that they there's a support system there between home and school but certainly we can engage continue conversations because we did I did have
a conversation with the middle school and high school administration last week about that very grant and we talked about our practices and you know this is an ongoing conversation those the yonder patch packs there there's things you have to look at you the way that you have those. You have to have different
locations in the school to open them up and it turns into whole different things get around. But certainly I appreciate the sentiment. We are certainly keen on understanding the developmental appropriateness of a phone and when I because I when I meet with kids they too at the high school
especially they're like listen Dr. Vania we get it why we can we have to have our phones in the pouches. That's that's a no-brainer. And I think but those but at the same time I do understand what you're saying because just having the phone over there. Yeah. It still is distracting.
Right. And what's the right answer? Because I'm not saying there is a right answer. That's but you bring up a good conversation that we're we need to continue to have just because at the same time if we're going to put them in yandra pouches in the high school and they go off way to do it. Yes. But but but also when they get to
college, they also have to learn to have it on them so it's not distracted to them. So it's one of those it's a great topic though. Well, I just really think that it's actually more of an addiction now and I'm I'm just hoping that maybe like what we can do in the younger years can
actually aid in that non-indiction part of it. That's all. Dr. Cher, you have Thank you, Madam President. I just Dr. Bi, I was just a suggestion or thought came to my head. Um why don't we wait you talk to the middle school principal in the high school like you have been maybe have them present to the to the
policy committee um in December and then policy committee can can we can have those ongoing discussions and update the board that way. I think it's I agree with you Miss Fen at some point though I mean you're right it's an addiction so you know if I'm addicted to drugs and you take them away from me it's gonna be a shock to my system. I think this is the best way to do this and see where we
get our data how we're doing with it now and then if we can go that fool if we have to. But again I would only do it if the schools want to do it. It's going to it's a tremendous burden on the administrators and our teaching staff now. It what happens if the phone breaks? The parents are going to blame us now. It's going to become a hole. There's other things we got to think about. So, I
think I think it's worth the discussion, but I think we need that data first of what we're doing now. No, I totally agree with you, Dr. Jan. Okay. We're putting it into policy, Dr. Jan. All right. Any other comments for new business? All right. Seeing none, we're
going to move to board um administration uh comments. Any members of the board may comment on any item pertaining to the school district and we'll just start at the end like usual. No comment, Madam President. Miss Melendas. Um, no comment. Miss Aquina, Miss Fen,
no comment. All right. I have nothing for today. And Mr. Rosillo, no comment. And Miss Miss Big, I'm going to break the cycle here. I want I want to give a shout out to the Flanders PTA because they won the New
Jersey PTA family engagement award. from NJPTA for a family book club that we did last spring. Congratulations. That's great. All right. And Mrs. O'Neal, sorry. No comment.
No comment. Dr. UA, I'm good. Thank you. Everyone's good. All right. With that, I will take a motion for adjournment. So moved. Second. A second. Others in favor.