Ready? Go. >> Good evening. Welcome to a meeting of the Mountainside Board of Education. In accordance with state and sunshine law and state regulations, adequate notice, this meeting was provided by mailing and notice of time, date, location, and
instructions for accessing the meeting to the Union County local source and the Westfield leader. filing the same with the federal clerk posting the notice at the main access door of Mountside Board of Education building and on the Mountside Board of Education website. These meetings are reserved for board
deliberation and for review of items contained within the agenda. The board reserves a right to vote on action items. The board welcomes the participation of interested individuals. We encourage questions about specific school practices, incidents, and events be brought directly to school
administration. Public comments will be permitted at the beginning of the meeting for agenda items only. Each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making statement. In addition, time will be allotted at the end of the meeting public comment on any item. Michelle
comments. Bill Dylan, Michael Goodwin here, >> here. Jordan, Vivian here, Candiano here, >> Carmen here. At this time, I would like a motion to go into executive session.
It's 7 sorry 6:32. Second, >> we will return in 1 hour. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. See you in a bit. Good evening. We are returning from our executive session 7:29. Please stand.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stand. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May I please have a motion to approve
our minutes from last month and August? Second. Any questions or comments? Roll call, please. Am I good? >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Yes.
>> Okay. On the correspondence, we received uh correspondence from MEA members. All our board members have letters in their hands. So, that's all I have to report. At this time, I would like to open the uh floor for public participation on any items that we will be voting on today.
Please come up to the podium, state your name and address. Seeing none, we're moving on. I do not have a president's report, so we are moving on to Mr. Kenny. Welcome. Okay, good evening everyone. Uh, tonight
I have a couple of things to add to the superintendent report. The first thing are the assessment results for the access testing and we'll go over a little bit about what that is. That was taken in the spring of 2025.
uh formerly known as ELLL or English language learners. Now MLS or multi- language learners are uh students that require uh opportunities to receive instruction in English language. So what they do in the spring is they take the
access assessment which ascertains if they've met the requirements to uh be considered English proficient. So as they take that assessment actually I can make you make it known that a
parent can accept or decline these supports based upon uh how the parent sees fit as well. So after that in the spring they go ahead and take uh this assessment but what really is the population believe it or not it is 2 1%
of the population for the 2024 25 school year those are two students that are considered MLS for they are native language Spanish speakers so that is the population there and how this basically breaks down is as they take certain assessments they are given
during levels of entering, emerging, developing, expanding, bridging and then reaching. So you'll see on the next page how broken down for the particular students. All right. Uh they are given actually
numerical scores. Student A scores are listed there and student B. You can see there's an overall score and that's the score that we look at to determine whether or not the student meets proficiency in order to be considered English proficient. And you'll notice
that on the side to the right it tells you that an overall proficient score of 445 or higher is needed for the uh score to be proficient. So therefore the two students currently right now with a 3.5
and a 4.4 before are still in need of these services. However, in October, okay, you can do a couple of different things. You can give a retest or a screener. You could look at the proficiency of that student performance currently in class and make also
determinations based off of that. So, that's currently what we will do in October with these two students. So, what are we doing in 202526 for our ELLs? We are starting services right in September. We do two to three
times per week for remediation. There's one pushin service for general ed classrooms usually in EL ELA classrooms. We have ancillary online programming to work with their fluency reading and we also reach out and do work with parents
and give them resources so that they can help their students at home. Well, that is the access testing report for the spring of 2025. I'd like to uh go ahead. I'll end this. You guys can go back to your seats cuz the rest of
the superintendent report is not on the screen. All right. Uh so one of the things I want to talk about tonight and we we talked about this before retreat was to go over with the public and make sure that it's understood that we truly take a hard
look at the strategic plan for 2024 through 2029. We'll be working on certain goals or as we're going to call them markers that we're going to try to hit upon for this particular year. a lot of deals with the community, parents and
community involvement. Uh looking to address a mentor program for our students and bringing in the community there. Putting out a parent student culture survey, looking at doing parent partnerships not only with uh current local organizations
such as the PTO, but also our uh receiving district of Governor Livingston and Berkeley Heights. We're coordinating with seniors on different opportunities for them to come in and partner with our students. We'll be advertising those mentorships in a
newspaper on Instagram and Facebook. We'll be looking at developing FAQs for parents on appropriate use of technology. the creation of an AI implementation plan. As AI is on the forefront, if not
hitting us uh directly in the face these days with the implementation of an AI plan, we will spearhead not only the plan but the board policy outlining the effective use of AI in our community.
During that time as well, we'll be developing a culture planet culture survey for the staff. Looking at how we'll be able to target that strategic component of supporting the wellbeing of our district staff, looking at our long
range facility plan. We are currently doing a facility study. So we will take that and utilize that in creating a long range facility plan as well as looking at the facilities usage policy and how
that is to be uh adapted to our facilities usage long range facility plan. Excuse me. Um new website. We're going to go ahead and pull our new website and showcase our new website tonight. So for those of you that don't
know our technology coordinator and our website Kelly has been working diligently. I cannot thank Kelly enough work that she had done in regards to
putting this together. I know that as well has spearheaded it in the spring, developed a particular template and over the summer we really kind of tried to make it as user friendly for parents and community members to gain access to
information at uh at their fingertips disposal. So when that gets filled up, we'll take a look and Paul, if you can do me a favor, just stay there and kind of guide for the for the people doing at home. Um, one of the
things I'm going to right away is if somebody wants to come in and register it in the right hand corner, that's registration right away. Um the main office will direct you right to the main page and it's right there from Genesis
portal the schools right there in front main the top points there is a translation button as is uh ADA compliant as well as now compliant for language access that translate our website translates our website into
different languages. Uh along the green barrier line are headers and as you scroll through you'll notice the header that is called parent resources. This is a one-stop shop for
parents. So when they go on they will go this particular header and be able to get what we feel is necessary for parents to access right away. Um, so the different headers are on schools, departments, curriculum, web, community,
and media. Very similar to almost what we had on their old website, but a little bit more user friendly uh arrangement. As you scroll down, you have a uh sub links again, the parent resources is there as well.
Calendar, virtual backpack, athletics, staff directory, and lunch menu. Very easily navigated. Scrolling down even further, news and announcements. Don't know who that guy is, but he's there on the front page. Um, as
you scroll down even further, we're going to call this upcoming events. You can view a full calendar. We want to go ahead and do that. All right, that is our current calendar. Or if you want to go back and do a
monthly calendar, you get a sort of a uh a timeline of a monthly calendar with events that will be updated. Not much goes on in August, but in September, you can start to see it filling in. All right, going back to the main page,
scrolling down even further. Different information. And this is where you find our mission, our goals, our strategic plan, our curriculum, HIV information, as well as any required notices that we are as a district required to post. And scrolling down further than that, you
have the bottom toggles of our Facebook and Instagram accounts. So that is the main page of the website. It is currently live and explorable. So go home and explore away. And we do ask the
public, the ones that are listening and out there on the uh YouTube channel that uh please go ahead and please let us know if there's anything that seems a little bit wrong. It could be a link that's broken. I mean, this is about 99%.
Uh there's 1% that we're trying to think of, you know, working through the kinks, but for the most part, I think it's heads above what we had before. And I can't thank, you know, Kelly for really doing that with assisting uh Kelly on
that and our uh our uh our person Tam who's been a uh our conduit on the back side of final site which is our website. There is the new website as it stands. All right. Thank you both.
Summer projects. All right. I'm going to introduce Mike Rainy who would like to say a couple of words for the board. Uh Mikey is our new facilities uh supervisor buildings and grounds and uh has come on and really taken a a for
Wayne Deo and I want to say service above self. That's really what it was this summer for him was really service above self. the fact that he is so devoted to this district and was able to come and help us in a time of need and
honestly uh Mike could tell you as well, you know, helping him out and onboarding him. So, thank you Wayne for all that you've done. Uh I know that they thank you at your retirement, but we thank you again for again service above self. So, Mike,
good evening everyone. Thank you for having me. Um, I'd like to piggy back also say thank you to Wayne. Uh, he's been a great help for me this past week and I look forward to, you know, you know, still asking questions to him and lean on him if I need some. But moving on, I don't want to take too much time.
I just wanted to say thank you again to the board that I'm hardworking gentleman. Um, I come qualified with a great background. Um, very skilled in all assets of buildings and grounds. Um, I worked my way from the bottom all the way to the top as a summer help as a kid
at 14 out of school all the way up to buildings and ground supervisor where I got my CFM serve my educational facilities management degree through Ruckers. Uh, and all I can say is that I'm ready to hit the ground running and be a part of Mountainside family. Um, I already implemented some of my
ideas with administration. um my staff, you know, little that time will pick off a little piece and at both buildings are wonderful places. Um if you look at what I put together for my
presentation for the staff when they come, I did put together a mission statement for our facilities environment which I'd like to read to you. Um this is the mission statement is to provide safe, clean, efficient and well-maintained environments that support student learning, staff productivity and community engagement.
We are committed to delivering highquality facility services, proactive maintenance, strategic planning and sustainable practices with pride and integrity. We work collaboratively to ensure the buildings and grounds reflect excellence excellence of our district and foster a
welcoming atmosphere for all. I think just following those basic steps with my staff for both buildings, I think we could take Mount Side to newer, new innovative ways doing things. And I just once again, I appreciate you guys having me and I look forward to hitting the ground running and doing the best job I
possibly can for the district. Thank you. >> Thank you. So again projects we've just been trying to maintain a safe and secure environment. A lot of it was by coming on and having the uh the gentleman the
ladies that he works with understand you know the expectations of both he and I uh have in mind for how we want the buildings to look the opening of school. Uh so those summer projects really relate to just maintaining and not so
much uh doing extraordinary projects that are above and beyond and that's next summer for us. Sorry I do have cards I need to get out for you guys. Let me tell you guys uh just a couple things for superend
report. Uh, superintendent visitations, third grade visitations as well. On September 3rd, sixth grade orientation is in the APR on September 3rd. Our first day back at school is September 4th. Uh we have new staff
orientation on the 28th and 29th. We're very excited to bring in some real quality uh individuals to work with our students everywhere from guidance, social work, case management as well as teaching staff. opening days activities
for all staff are the second and third and we are truly uh truly uh honored to have Tracy Se as our keynote speaker on the third. Uh for those that have not seen Tracy, she is a nationwide speaker,
uh New Jersey homegrown educator, superintendent, presenter, but uh just to be able to hear from her, uh it's more of a uh a culture and climate build for the staff that she puts forth in her presentation. I think it's going to work
extremely well. So that is my superintendent report. Any questions? Thank you. >> Thank you. The fact that this website got user friendly. The interface is great. It looks nice. is easy for people that
are the speed that you guys did is 99% 99 moving on to our business adventure. report. >> Okay. Berkeley Heights. Do we have a report from
>> uh so uh in here? >> Uh we're just going to summarize the Berkeley Heights uh committee met um last month. Uh that's right, this past this past month. We have another meeting
scheduled for September. uh midepptember during this initial meeting was the introductions of who's on the send receive uh contract uh negotiations committee. Uh the purpose outlining a
time frame and a timeline of how often and when we're going to meet. uh keeping in mind uh Berkeley Heights having a new BA coming onboarding onboarding uh at the end of the month that uh our next meeting would
be midepptember. Uh we look forward to a collaborative nature of negotiations. Anybody else on the committee would like to add? >> Thank you. Let's move on to administration and please have a motion to approve items 1 through 12.
Any questions or comments? Roll call, please. Mike, >> yes. >> Yes. Vivian, yes. And >> yes, >> yes. >> Moving on to budget and finance. May I
please have the motion to approve items 1 through 19? So move second. >> Any questions or comments? Roll call, please. Mike, >> yes. >> Dantro, yes.
Yes. Candiano, >> yes. Are my members? >> Yes. Moving on. Can I please have a motion to approve on the personnel items 1 through 7? So move. >> Second. Any questions or comments?
Roll call, please. Mike Goodwin, >> yes. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Moving on to policy. Can I please have a motion to approve items one and two?
>> Any questions or comments? Um just with the attendance as the one that we revised. >> Correct. >> Y and a correspondence will go out to the community. Uh after the board meeting
is great. >> Thank you. Uh roll call please. Goodwin. >> Yes. >> Dway. >> Yes. >> Yes. And >> yes. >> Yes. >> Any old business? New business.
Uh committee reports. the personnel um committ curriculum committee met um a couple weeks ago. I think I'm losing track of time but um we met um one of the things that we discussed was the attendance policy um and and obviously as you'll see that this was the policy
that was um revised and the other thing that we discussed was uh report cards and um whether we're moving with standard based report cards for grade five or neutral letter you know percentage grades. So those were the two of the things curriculum revision and
then the curriculum yeah the five year curriculum revision cycle um so now um well every 5 years let's say by by law do you have to provide your curriculum every 5 years so what we did was now we have a plan of which curriculum is
getting u revised and at what year it's getting revised a little bit more not that we haven't done it in the past but is it just a little bit more concrete and fine tuned to say in 2025 26 this is what's going to get revised 26 27 this will be revised etc. Obviously with changes in standards and things such as
that if standards were to change then those that curriculum has to be revised earlier than our plan on date but this is just a guideline for us um in case they don't change the standard >> that uh cycle will be under the curriculum
heading on the website you'll see the five >> great yeah perfect >> thank you campus at this time I would like to open up um the floor for public participation any item that you would like to discuss anything please come up say your name
address you have three minutes seeing none we're moving on okay I we do not have a second executive session I please have a motion to adjourn motion second all in favor I
see none thank you very much we'll see you September 16th I hope everyone has a great Start uh first day of school.