i'd like to call this meeting to order i'd like to apologize for a late start but we were waiting for our concert to end so Mr delg Greco would you lead us in a flag salute sunshine Law statement all requirements of the Open Public Meetings Act have been met for this meeting of the board of education of the Bureau of Ordell
notice that this meeting was filed with the record and town news and all persons requesting such notice mrs norian would you read the mission statement certainly the Oridel Public School District is dedicated to the ongoing pursuit of educational excellence through comprehensive innovative curriculum and
instruction the district is committed to providing opportunities for social emotional and academic discovery to foster curiosity courage and character our goal is to prepare our students to become lifelong learners who are self-directed resilient productive
responsible citizens thank you roll call on the role Mr delg Greco here mr darion here mrs downey here mrs moran here mr nutell will not be joining us mrs walker here mr walsh will not be joining us mrs
norman here mrs nichols here at this time we will open to the public for agenda items only not seeing any we'll move forward we're going to move right to the superintendent's report good evening i'd like to begin my report by commending our music department on another wonderful concert
that just minute finished minutes ago this year there was an incredible um creativity to the concert there was a song about duct tape there were basketballs used as percussion instruments and I was honored to be asked to play the vacuum in a song about
duck dust bunnies this is the first of many musical events happening this spring from an additional concert highlighting the fourth grade coral and fourth grade band and our handbell groups our spring musical will be in May our wind ensemble will also participate in the Bergen County Band Festival our
music program is one of the traditions that this district should continue to be so proud of in the area of traditions two big ones are happening for our sixth graders this week and next the hoops finals is this Friday and the spring fling will occur next Friday also next
week will be the Oridel PTA Oridel Emerson Rotary sponsored basketball game where our OPS staff will take on the Wizards i've always said that one goal at Oriel Public School is to find the balance between holding on to tradition
while also embracing the new one exciting new fact that I learned last week has to do with our physical education department as you know as part of the Kids Heart Challenge OPS raised over $41,000 for the American Heart Association as a thank you for our
efforts our PE teachers were invited to an event at Metife Stadium where they not only received CPR training but they also received 10 CPR mannequins for the district so they can instruct staff andor students in handsonly CPR i know
Mrs holly has already begun having conversations with our sixth grade team about finding a way to include that in the spring curriculum the last two weeks also saw us focusing on district goals spec specifically district goal one which focuses on improving academic achievement as Mr
warner and Miss Cummings have been facilitating an afterchool professional development class on developing staff's conceptual understanding of fractions as the OEA contract states staff members who attend professional development outside the school day are compensated
this compensation and the materials purchased were funded with title 2 monies staff members who were not able to attend the afterchool sessions will receive equivalent professional development during the school day another way we've been focusing on academic achievement is to provide our parent community with an understanding
of the work their children are doing in the classroom this has been happening in first grade right now as parents have the opportunity to come in and work through math centers as part of March Mathness we are also making strides in district goal three as we will be utilizing mid-marking period progress reports in
fifth grade for the final marking period you'll remember that this is a new protocol we began in sixth grade earlier this year finally all board members should have received a link to allow you to view the new website and app i ask that if you have any suggestions you
email them to me the goal continues to be to launch the new site over the spring break there will be less digital traffic that week and it's a good opportunity for a soft smart start and that concludes my report thank you Mr ayelli i just wanted to give a quick
update on the PSEG direct install program we've had the contractors that are responsible for submitting our paperwork and our documentation and specs to PSENG they came out they've documented all of our rooftop units so
hopefully we will hear something back sooner than later but he said plan around end of May um that's concludes my report thank you this time we'll move to minutes we have a review of March 12th any questions or comments please email Mr aelli uh we have approval of the
minutes for February 26 do I have a motion i'll make a motion mrs walker was that you do I have a second i'll second second by Miss Moran any questions call the question
on the roll mr delg Greco yes mr dariion yes mrs downey yes mrs moran yes mrs walker yes mrs norian yes mrs nichols yes moving to committee reports
buildings and grounds mr delg Greco um would like to introduce uh B1 use of facilities looks like the Girl Scouts are using one would like to use the facility do I have a second second by Mrs walker any questions
call a question on the role mr delgreco yes mr dariion yes mrs downey yes mrs moran yes mrs walker yes mrs mrs norian yes mrs nichols yes curriculum mrs
norian uh curriculum we had a meeting on March 19th we um some of the things that we discussed were um the math curriculum where we are with it and how it relates to our link information and what we're doing with Amplify Desmos
um and where we are with the PD the professional development for our staff and using those those things um then we also talked a little bit about um interventions and how people
were um moved from one oops I a little louder okay moved from one tier to another tier so we had a little discussion on that and we should have some further information on that in the future um talked about civics and how
it's aligned with our curriculum and we also touched on AI and um some things about how staff determines or or what how people determine what to use as far as for uh books that are in addition to
the curriculum books that are listed within our curriculum um and then also we we touched on um um our discussion was about opting out and and when we opt out we there are some things that need
to be addressed the kids still need to be to have those things taught to them somehow by their families or however we're going to do that but we need to know exactly if those children have been um taught or
have been introduced to those items um so we were talking about a spreadsheet of those students who might be included in an opt out and that was it and with that um I'd like to move that we approve a field
trip to Camp Mason do I have a second i'll second second by Mr delg Greco any questions i I have a comment or a question actually um this is regarding
um material choice for libraries and other classrooms uh you mentioned um you have a document from 2018 that outlines the criteria and that document is aligned to policy 66 6163.1
um so I I looked up 6163.1 I and you know unfortunately I compared it to AI right so but it's it's pretty good it was revised in 2019 originally is from 2009 um but I'd like to know what's in that 2018 document
that we would refer to and then uh also I I I looked up policy 6161.1 and I think it's kind of antiquated even though it's been updated i mean they talk about animals dissection and not being a or being able
to opt out for stuff like that it just seems like there's a lot of stuff that is not aligned so which number is that 6161.1 okay we'll look at that in policy yeah yeah this this is something that we would direct then to policy not necessary we mentioned that that we
looked at those those types of things and they seemed in alignment sometimes with the policies that come through they're for everyone for districts that have a K to2 and and while they everything in a policy doesn't apply to
an elementary school it's still part of a policy and we at least in the past uh we have kept that in the policy okay what was your question did you have a question no just a comment about the two policies and if we could maybe possibly
6161 what's the other one 6163 okay we'll take a look and they just outline also in addition to the things I mentioned they also outlined the board's responsibility to you know review and provide governance and all that kind of stuff i just want to make sure okay we'll add it to policy um can you maybe
address the AI issue because I know Mr del Gerko had a question on the AI and we're waiting basically because it's so new you think school board's going to come out with a policy right yes stress estimate has already come out with a policy i think I shared the number with you so you can see that one the Bergen County Association of School
Administrators has just put together a committee to talk about what each district is doing and as I said um Creskill so right next door to us is really leading the way on this at this point I my recommendation is that we give school boards a few more months and
if not then we get to work at creating our own but right now as um you know at your request we have surveyed the staff seen what they're doing um and also sent them an email saying "Okay you need to understand about data privacy and what
are you putting into those prompts because I that is our one of our number one concerns and with something new not everyone is always thinking that way." Thank you any other questions mrs walker um and and to your p point um Miss
Bosios I went to a school board's meeting back last I guess it was springtime it was October I think i think it was October was it October i thought it was the spring doesn't matter but anyway in Crestkill was leading the way then and if they're still leading
the way because I had thought my goodness I'm sure other districts are going to jump on that bandwagon but they were very knowledgeable and the one key thing that he did say was "It's here to stay it's not going away so you better
get on the bandwagon and adhere to some of the things that we're saying what they're saying um and with that I just have a quick question about the um curriculum committee that I was unfortunately unable to attend the
civics across the curriculum is has that up for discussion and revamping because there isn't enough or why was that brought up i think someone added asked to it to be added to the curriculum i think I asked to be added to the
curriculum and we saw you gave us a print out so Mrs walker can get that or we can give it to the entire board i really appreciate that because I don't think we're I don't know but I think that we need to put a little
more emphasis on civic government take a look at what's in the in the curriculum now and then we'll go from there any other questions call a question on the role mr delgreo yes mr dariion
yes mrs downey yes mrs moran yes mrs walker yes mrs norian yes mrs nichols yes finance mr darien uh yes uh we did not have a meeting since our last meeting so I don't have no update from that perspective um we just have these
items D1 through D8 that I would like to introduce tonight for approval um do I have a second i'll second it second by Mrs norian any questions i just have a question
um D is it seven yeah seven the Chromebooks um you know it's 250 Chromebooks for 87,000 for the public um is that planned do we plan to do that or is it just something we added it's we normally do
at the end of every year so it was budgeted okay okay i wasn't sure cuz you know we go back and forth sometimes on these decisions to hold off and I don't remember that's all any other questions what is your question exactly was it
budgeted for this year or Yeah is this budgeted or did we just kind of decide to do it without budgeting it sometimes if Okay Mr iell or Miss Bosius you want to answer mr pell we've talked about it it was budgeted and if it was possible to fit in this year's budget at this
time of the year we decided based on where we are in the budget we can purchase these right uh to meet the needs next to meet the needs this year and going forward because of this group is how many this ages um which grade is this
for this current kindergarten and current third grade so we're taking a step ahead and not waiting to give our first and fourth graders next year laptops we're going to give them the laptops we would normally give them next year earlier and give them this year it
has a lot to do with some rumors we've heard about costs if we could do it now it made more sense to budget them every year no we budget them yeah I remember it's just sometimes you know c certain years budgets are tighter and we kind of we don't plan them and then we just do
it if we can fedell also had mentioned to us that if we don't get these orders in now uhhuh they're not sure based on 100% tariff or something landscape going forward when or if um and and also those price that
includes the licenses the uh insurance the protection it's a it's a whole bundle yeah so it's not just the device itself that's one component have a question uh speaking of which that includes the EDR and all the
licenses right that come with managing those right through Google Workspace that's the complete package thank you any other questions call the question on the role mr delg Greco yes mr dariion
yes mrs downey yes mrs moran yes mrs walker yes mrs norian yes mrs nichols yes we will go to personnel as Mr walsh is not here mrs walker uh yes thank you um I'd like to present uh
F1 and do I have a second second second by Mrs norin go ahead Mrs walker um and I'm probably being very ignorant about this first of all we have not had a meeting this past um month so I really don't have any update on
uh personnel but I do have a question within the what is Camp Mason i see these number of teachers going um if you think about when maybe your
grandchildren went to Camp Bernie it's a very similar field trip as Camp Bernie our sixth grade team several years ago felt that the Camp Bernie experience wasn't what it once was and so for the past few years we've been experimenting with different sixth grade field trips
they have asked to try Camp Bernie uh Camp Mason this year that payment is because the field trip will extend the school day so the OEA contract um pays staff $45 an hour for any field trip outside the school day so they will be leaving I think it's at 7:30 in the
morning they will be coming back later so it will be up to three hours of additional compensation okay all right thank you any other questions call the question on the roll mr delgreco yes mr dariion
yes mrs downey yes mrs moran yes mrs walker yes mrs norian yes mrs nichols yes mr nutland is not here we did have a meeting right before um this meeting this evening miss Moran you want to just
give us an update sure um we met and discussed visitor policy um grants gifts and bequests and usage of school facilities and we're going to follow up on that thank you any questions
i got a question Mr darion uh you mentioned um something about parent coffees and um that's going to be in PR we're not there yet oh I'm sorry yeah we're in policy okay any questions on policy
okay policy Miss Downey okay so we had a meeting on the 19th can you hear me yeah yeah um we went over the website looks good coming soon we talked about the superintendent wants to do parent
coffees so that'll be coming um gifts for the retired teachers and the spring newsletter went out right i got mine yeah website looks real good it's going to be everyone should check it out if you guys have the link you send the right looks really
good so what was your question for PR yes parent coffee so so is that just between the superintendent and the and the parents or is that like the entire board and the parents or what the board the first one's going to be the superintendent myself and the principal
it's going to depend on the topic it's not the board so you're going to have an agenda like a topic it's not going to be just an open meeting there will be an agenda i I think we saw this as an opportunity to help differentiate what the principal does what the superintendent does and what the board via the board president
does so the first one that will be part of the focus of it and from there we'll decide based on the topic who should be there and leading the way okay any other questions delco more of a comment i was looking at
the new website on the train today and I must say it's very easily navigable on the phone the links are nice um yeah it's great job you didn't like as a parent i didn't put it out here now she doesn't want to hear but let's hear it now it
looks good right it looks great um but it's not good it's It's good yeah i mean it's very uniform i like the uniformity of it i like even the absentee like you click on it and you can fill out the form which is huge versus having to call in there's a lot of I think pluses that'll help from a parent perspective
is there is there a link to the app yet or no yes as I shared in the email it is live that too is still a draft i didn't see that yet either okay um at this time we will open to the public we're going to limit comments to three minutes sure
just excuse me korth um just uh for the delegate even though the delegate is is not here um just to mention I believe uh that Mr illi sent out information that the next delegate assembly will be May the beginning of May
right that is correct you can check with Mr walsh is it by Zoom or is it in person it's in person so you can check with him if he's going to go and otherwise Mrs norian will go okay i just wanted to make sure that that got open to the public if you could just state your name for
the record then if you could fill out the form there no can you guys hear me now yes okay great jun Chang nice to meet everybody just fill this out thank you i have three minutes so I'm not going to try to take up the whole
three minutes and I know you guys had a lot of There's not a lot of people here so if you want to take longer we're pretty mellow with it great um appreciate the luxury of that um first I wanted to say uh thank you uh because I know this is not an easy job um how you guys sit here and meet twice
a month and then number of different meetings that I'm sure everyone in the community is probably clamoring to get into your ears and kind of find out and hear about what's going on right um I have a couple comments one uh is I really appreciate the fact the move with
the website um I think that's incredibly um refreshing as well as a tool that we're going to be able to utilize to find like the central piece of truth where we can go for the most valid information a lot of us probably aren't on Facebook aren't on other social media
platforms but is able to kind of find some place to be able to go find actual information that's coming directly from the governance body as well as the administrative body which is going to be great um the other thing is I commend you on taking on the task of the superintendent coffees um I look forward
to them and uh I think that's a great opportunity to apart from the governance and policy setting body to really hear about the leadership goals and the vision of what you're going to set for the district as a whole and to really kind of understand what the experience of our children will be moving forward
which is very exciting for me um the next however many years to be able to understand what those goals are what those uh things and mechanisms that you're going to put into place are going to be very good for me to hear and as well as from the board perspective
um to understand like what the priorities are uh particularly with an everchanging world um where education itself is evolving in the way people learn and um the needs of the kids are growing uh exponentially uh
you touched a little bit about AI i love the fact that you guys are talking about that would love to hear more about what the future goals and the vision may be um regardless of whatever the policy might be set as what can we do um to enhance a tool probably the greatest uh
human invention uh of human history how do we incorporate that or how do we safeguard ourselves for that and kind of giving us information on those things so those are very key important things that I think are great steps towards to communicating to the public um the next thing that I'm going to say
please again I I started off by saying I appreciate everyone in the time and please don't take it as a as a negative criticism um but I do think um there are ways that myself crave a little bit more information um particularly around uh your committees uh how you've spoken in
those committees what you've talked about how you come to your decisions um would be beneficial for me uh to understand and to really kind of get behind you know what we are doing as a district um the more information the better uh and I know there are certain things that are completely uh
confidential and definitely with student information and all those things respecting all those things but really would like to hear kind of the robust dialogue the debates that you guys might be having um gives me a sense of understanding of people have really have the reigns right um as well as giving
the opportunity for the administration which you've hired to be able to do their job most effectively and most impactfully um so would love to be able to hear that um and please forgive me I'm from New York so I talk a little bit quicker than than I'd like um the the other thing that I would state
is I would I would love to get um a sense of in the board meetings um I know when I go on the website now I currently see like presentations that were given um some of the things that are on the agenda i would love to hear kind of in the schedule some breakout of what you
guys are kind of talking about what's the key topic things come up all the time right you got the budget cycle you got the HIVs you got other policy presentations what are those key things that come up each and every one of those board meetings kind of like on a regular basis having like a theme so people who may not have the time to attend the
board meetings can say okay this is something that I'm really interested about I want to be able to hear about this it's on the list this is what's going to be covered will be able to engage more um and you know again I appreciate this form to be able to have this dialogue and to be able to to speak with the board um but I also know this
is not the place where I get questions and answers back and forth so having multiple forums as such will definitely be beneficial moving forward um lastly I will say that um what you do is incredibly difficult
what the administration deals with more so is that much more difficult and that trickles down again to the teachers um would love to be able to hear from the educators and the program the programmatic people of the district really highlighting some of the things
that we do on a daily basis for our students the types of experience that when my daughter walks through the school and when she comes through what is she going to experience as a newer parent coming in I would love to be able to hear that and I also think it would invigorate them because I think these teachers are very prideful we get into
teaching people get into teaching because they love what they do and I want to be able to hear that that's more infectious and I think I want to be able to hear that more so than the arguments of what what is this what is that what should we be doing shouldn't we be doing I think that the boots on the ground really give us a sense of what the
experience of our students are and I think that's the most paramount and important aspect of of schools as as an experience so um with that I would uh I would challenge the board uh to kind of think of new ways to engage and also uh
new ways to be able to present the information so that it becomes a little more digestible for us as community members um to to be involved i have one last comment is that um since I've moved into town one of the things that uh I've noticed is that every election season I
see um the the yard the yard signs i know you are all more than those yard signs i would love it if there was an opportunity during every election cycle whether you were opposed or not to be able to hear what your goals are why did you come on to the board and to have
those dialogues to get a sense again to feel connected to the people that we you know trust to be able to make decisions moving forward um as a school so thank you for your time appreciate it thank you for coming anyone
else just to your last point by the way I do believe that if there is an election yeah if there's a is an election that's contested the PTA does hold a candidate night so you can meet the candidates if it's contested
i was just asking so just to get a better sense of thank you moving to older new business Mr delgreco just want to take the opportunity to thank Miss Bosius and Miss Holly for allowing the board or myself specifically to do Read Across America
read in the classroom the dog i mean the book ate my dog was a pretty funny book um had me shaking the book up and down and the kids laughing so I appreciate to be able to do that so thank you any other older new business i have Mr marian uh one is
um you know getting back to AI um you know AI is a very common term but what it really means is a lot of different things so you know initially I remember everyone using AI to do their homework right help with the writing assignments
kind of like uh some of the other Grammarly right and now AI is is is so much more so you know I I view it in like two or three different buckets one is you know help me improve my writing but two is um you know provide
instruction I mean you can ask very specific questions and like in the past uh anything legalish it would just default to well we don't do any legal advice blah blah blah and we won't give you any answers well now it's not that case anymore so as an example I put in
the um the policy documents for New Jersey and it it gave me a whole three four page recommend ation on you know what the what it should include i mean it was like it wasn't just spouting what the policy was so I was amazed and and
so you know we can use AI to help instruction you know by asking those questions and then third is is you know prompting right and you can ask AI to give you an answer and AI will give you a you know what you want or you can
prompt it in a way to challenge you and to try to prove you wrong so that your your interaction is a debate and it it it you know it tries to undermine plays d devil's advocates see your assumptions
and and and that is very beneficial because a lot of times s you know you don't know what you don't know right until someone tells you and and that's the kind of thing that if you if you're good with your prompting you you get that instead of just a regurgitation of what you just gave it so um if we
approach our either PD or whatever from those three perspectives I don't know how that would apply to you know whether we apply it towards the teachers or how we apply it to the kids and their learning but you know there's just a lot more to it than just you know putting in
information and asking them to rewrite it and then the other thing I'd like to bring up tonight is um regarding the comment about our calendar um I thought it was a good idea that we we kind of prepopulate uh you know what are the key milestones throughout the year so you know
obviously we have our big reorg meeting that's a joke right nobody cares about that but we do have our board goals we have our teacher recognitions we have budget presentations you know these are standing you know common things that we do every year and if we were to pre-populate the website with those
dates so that people would know and if we plan on doing you know board goal updates periodically maybe prepopulate those days so this way you know somebody can plan you know whether or not they go to you know spring break fling or uh our spring
break uh Easter vacation or they attend a board meeting they can look it up way in advance any other older new business personnel we need to go downstairs
quick anyone need a close session okay so I move to second by Mrs walker all in favor thank you for coming