and roll call please here here here please join me in a flag salute pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America 10 colon 4-12 the minutes of
this meeting will be released when the need for confidentiality no longer exists i hereby move that um sorry the Ridgewood Board of Educate Nope sorry we got another one here ah
here it is pursuant to the requirements of the open public meetings act advanced notice has been given to the Star Ledger the record and the clerk of the village of Ridgewood in addition notices were posted in the office of the board secretary and in all school
buildings so um I'd like to welcome everybody um to our meeting and tonight I I'm very excited because we're going to be uh we're going to be hearing the outcome of our uh strategic plan and
this is a started in September I think no actually August or July when we first started yeah sorry um and so it is a uh nine monthsl long process that we've gone through and so much great work has
happened and I'm so glad to be able to present this to the public and I'm sure you'll be talking about this at your coffee this week as well so um we will um start with um our student um Harrison
would you like to give an update on what's happening at the high school i'm sorry what oh I'm sorry harrison hold for a minute yeah thanks thank you Madam President i just asked for the floor for a second just to acknowledge some of the cons security
concerns that were brought up today um those are those who are with us tonight um we had uh I sent out a message earlier today clarifying things but I just want to reiterate that uh there were some rumors that were circulating on social media unfortunately we learned today that some students uh thinking
that they were engaging in some sort of a prank um shared information um that was false um and it actually uh falsely uh indicated that a student um had had intentions to commit vi violent action
uh the the those rumors were were false and there was no facts to support any of those things um but what we we did find definitively that some students engaged in this uh this conduct which was really really inappropriate um I want to thank everyone in our community for their
response uh it was a lot of information we had many many people sending emails and phone calls um it's not feasible that I'm going to be able to give everyone a personalized response nor can nor can the schools per se but I just want to thank everyone for sharing that information it is a little inundating
when people share everything i would far rather have everybody share everything and just know that if anything ever goes wrong people know that they should share it with us so that we can get on top of it right away i'm grateful for our police department who is very responsive i'm grateful for our students and our
parents and our faculty who stayed flexible uh while we were trying to figure out exactly kind of how these rumors were originating which we now know so I just want to commend everyone uh it takes a takes a village to keep us all safe and we all have to do this work together and I just again am grateful if
you see something if you hear something that's concerning at all please do pass that along to us it's important and in this circumstance the the members of the public who shared information with us that proved to be factually wrong they were not doing the wrong thing they were doing the right thing because it's not
up to every individual member of the public to have to figure out whether something's true or not to report it just report it we'll figure out the rest working with the police department we would always rather respond to a false alarm than not respond to something that's real so please continue to share
information with us do not hesitate do not worry about overwhelming us share whatever it is that you find so thank you everyone and again just uh grateful that everyone is safe and everything is fine and that really there was no immediate concern just would like to and and and just want to encourage make sure
that we all continue to communicate well if we do have concerns in the future yeah I just want to thank you Dr schwarz and and and Miss Murphy for your quick responses on this i mean you really are truly 247 working around the clock weekends or not weekends it doesn't matter uh this is just one very
unfortunate issue that came up but we have lots of issues happening every week that are thankfully not this severe but that you're always communicating about and always on top of and maybe the public doesn't see that uh but you are definitely on top of things so I appreciate that thank you very much
um we'll be opening for public comment um after Harrison uh presents from the high school and then you can come to the microphone if you have something you'd like to ask sure you all right anything else no thank you
very much well thank you and you know really I you know just reiterating thank you to the police and you know this started last night and um and we all were alerted to it and thank you for that and thank you for all the followup
too um Harrison would you like to um go ahead and do your report thank you um so yeah okay there we go is that a good uh Okay um so some fun things going on at the high school per usual um if
you're wondering what the atmosphere there is it is a countdown to spring break i think I can speak on behalf of students and faculty when I say that uh the later the later break is getting everybody a little bit um kind of dreering on but uh but there's cool
things happening like always so I'll get into that uh so the guidance college fair was attended by over 80 schools and 315 registered students that was a couple weeks ago uh in the gym in the high school um physics students recently studied magv trains uh which are trains
that utilize magnetic levitation uh in China and Japan as part of their studies of electromagnetism and they had some hands-on examples to experiment with in class uh forensics classes performanced an autopsy on a rat uh seven students completed uh or sorry competed uh in the
Northern Jersey Regional National History Day uh and two moved on to the state competition um AP environmental science students recently visited the New Jersey School of uh conservation at Stoke State Forest uh the National Honor
Society hosted an event uh for ReadAcross America in the Campus Center on March 20th uh the Maroon and White dance recital happened on April 3rd in the Little Theater um the RHS band's spring concert is tomorrow at 7:30 p.m at Side Presbyterian Church uh the
Maroon and White music recital and art exhibit is on Thursday at 3:45 uh the virtual financial aid meeting will also happen this Thursday at 7 p.m and obviously like I mentioned April break is next week uh so some school uh sports and activities
happening um RHS Model UN attended the national conference a few weeks ago where they spent four days debating students uh from more than 20 countries uh they also got to see an expiring speech and Q&A from former President Joe Biden which is pretty cool and uh two of
those students won awards of excellence and another two won awards of merit so congrats to them uh RHS French Club recently attended Monontlair State's annual French day where they got to participate in a variety of interactive workshops uh to learn more about French life and culture and enhance their
skills uh the green club planted 20 trees along the Hocus Brook which will provide uh numerous environmental benefits uh in that area uh girls golf is off to a strong start to their season they had three matchups in three days back to back to back uh against IHA
Pascales and Northern Highlands and they won all of them uh and they are currently undefeated this season with a 5-0 record uh boys golf is off to a rockier start with a one-2 record after some tough matchups uh but they started the season with a win against Pasc Hills um since I made this report they've had
two more match ups so I don't know how they're doing there but um boys lacrosse is 1 and one fresh off with a win against Monontlair softball just had one game so far tough loss to Pascag Valley uh which is the same as girls lacrosse also just one game also just a tough loss uh by just one point to IHA uh boys
tennis started off their season with a win against Feralon as did uh baseball against Payic as did flag football against Piranis uh and also uh during April break both leaving on Thursday there will be a uh China trip for some
of our Chinese students and a trip to um the Galapagos Islands as well we'll also be leaving Thursday so pretty cool uh trips there uh so that's what I have for you thank you guys thank you Harrison we will open for public comments now um
when you come to the microphone if you're going to make comment please give us your name and your municipality and uh just a reminder for everybody in case you're not aware the protocol is you know we kind of just have to listen from everybody to to everybody in order and then we'll do our best to address
what we can after so we won't be able to respond immediately after you speak all right can you repeat what information we needed oh okay julie Wong Richwood julie Wong Rididgewood Laura Latidwood
so um we appreciate um the response um for the incident that's been going on um at the high school um there um I think it deserves um a little bit more attention because um you know we've been
a part of um different forums of high school parents um from last night throughout today um and parents got an email late last night um with very little information um
about why um um about this threat um but with no assurance as to um how we're supposed to respond right if um if if it's safe to
send our our kids to school um and we understand that there was a thorough investigation um but our kids were scared to go to school today many many students stayed home with the blessing of their parents these kids are already
scared about school shootings um and for this um email to go out um with so little information um and then have to have them miss school right but they're still scared to
go to school tomorrow so understanding that there are confidentiality concerns many parents would like to at minimum before sending their kids back to school is if these rumors were
unfounded what was the investigation that was done was did this person never um make a threat or was the hit list just um um the fake
piece what exactly did the student say right that caused the alarm and then the hit list is a separate question which we understand may be a completely separate thing and and made up did the investigation involve um whether
or not they checked his home or guns we just need some information to know why have we concluded that the investigation is thorough enough that the rumors are completely fabricated and there is absolutely no threat to our
kids um is it true that he is wearing an ankle monitor to school and if he is wearing an ankle monitor why is that the case um if if he was deemed not to be a threat um
so parents are churning about this in the background and unfortunately we would love to send our kids back to school but we need more information to understand why is it not
credible and what are the specific security measures being taken at least for the next couple of weeks for example are there police at every entry point what are the extra measures that are being taken hopefully this is a complete
prank but we've seen too much in news stories about how things weren't taken seriously enough um and I we do appreciate everything that is being done but it just seems that the proper seriousness of really addressing these
concerns and people's fears are not really being addressed thank you i don't know if you have anything else m Ghood so I don't know much about the details of what happened but the last
part where if the student has an ankle monitor why is he led to the school and if that's true how does that put that student under the superin of his friends I don't think that's a safe environment
for himself as well um close public comment there was no one uh with a hand raised i hope we your mic was closed when we so we haven't called out if there's anybody there may not be but right public
okay um and so uh we we have another public comment at the end of the meeting uh Dr schwarz do you have anything you want to add i Yeah yeah because this is a police investigation i know there's a limit to what Yeah i there's I mean we are
limited what we can say and it's hard and I understand that and I I you know your our kids are all so important to us and your kids are also very important incredibly important to us and so it can be very hard because we're always balancing you know the rights of the individual and their confidentiality
with the rights of the many to know that they're you know that they're going to school in a safe environment um I can't answer the questions in specificity because I can't discuss a personnel matter in public and to answer your questions would effectively be to discuss a personnel matter um but I can tell you that that that there have been
many rumors some of which you're reporting here and the things that you're saying which I know have been going around and you're working with the information that you have um but all of those all of those types of rumors have been there's no factual basis for them and unfortunately what we do know in
this circumstance is and again we don't know the extent of it it's an ongoing police investigation and it's also a code of conduct investigation but we do know that there was some there appears to be some information that was intentionally falsified and spread i don't know the extent to which that
information some of these things that you're concerned about were actually falsified by somebody at some point in time i would be inclined to think that they were because um there's just no factual basis for so many of them so what I can commit to uh Mrs i believe it's Mrs wong um is we can have someone
reach out to you and and and just just kind of help answer your questions as best we possibly can and help maybe help to help to provide some assurance but what I will say right now is that you know whenever we have these types of concerns I'm going to speak in broad generalities whenever we have these types of concerns especially if we're concerned about the conduct of any
individual student or the well-being of any individual student we work with the families right away and so that's one of the most important things that we do is we maintain those relationships we understand where our kids are where our students are in terms of their their state of mind in terms of their whereabouts and all that and we want to make sure that we that when we make
assertions like there is no credibility to the threat we don't take that lightly that's not as like that's not as though there is um the burden once we hear a report of there being some sort of a potential threat we then have a burden to to det investigate at least at some
level whether or not that threat's credible and if we were in a circumstance where we got some sort of report and we could not make some sort of a determination as to how credible that threat would be it would be hard to do but we would have to either delay school or we'd have to close school probably delay school to just buy a
little time fortunately we have a fantastic police department we've got a fantastic administrative team you know Sunday night Miss Kilus myself Mr ranky our security uh our security officer uh for the district police we were all communicating with each other and making sure that we understood where everything
was and what was happening and then first thing this morning we followed up with further assurances and again when we and we so when we say that that there's there's no credible threat um or that there's no factual basis for the threat um it we can't share much more information because we have to we have
to respect the rights of the individual but we do we don't say that lightly now that said parents you know you have you have a right to to do what you want with your kids and if you're not sure and you want to keep your child home I'm not I'm not not telling you you should or shouldn't do that but I do want you just have a little bit of a window into how
serious we take this and we do not make assertions uh that things are not credible lightly uh that said um I do want to just invite everybody i have a superintendent coffee on Wednesday night um and it's going to be at 7:00 uh again it's virtual so if you're here and you're listening to this right now and
you haven't attended one of those that is a forum that we I I maintain so that way people we can have a bit of a dialogue unfortunately here we can't go back and forth because of the way the rules are uh for public comment but I would be welcome anybody to come and join at the superintendent coffee um obviously we have to be mindful of
individual students rights and privacies we also have to be mindful about security procedures and what we can actually do with respect to to um to what we want to we don't want to share all of our security details because we don't want to you know we don't want to uh in like um we don't want those to be
used against us in any way shape or form there's there's a level of confidentiality that we keep with security but we can certainly help people to understand better and give people a forum by which to express their concerns so I welcome please please I want to invite invite you please to join us and and to talk a little more there all right all right in the meantime we
will have someone reach out to you okay um I see that that two people came on uh for public comment so open public comment to let those comments go so um is it Anna you're on with the board hi can you
hear me yes thank you um first of all I you know while I I definitely appreciate all of the work that's gone into investigating this threat that's of course extremely important um and thank you for the the information that you were able to share
um that said I'm extremely concerned that a group of students did this um and I I hesitate to refer to it as a prank it is not you know it is no laughing matter extremely serious and I'm
wondering if there's any commentary on what the next steps are for these students uh we'll take your comment if we can uh answer or give a response we will at the end of the public comment
that that was my comment i I am extremely concerned about this behavior um I'm concerned that this represents extreme bullying um I don't have other details about you know who actually is
involved i'm you know I'm learning about this through the emails that were shared but um I think that you know the actual threat is one concern the other concern is the consequences of this these actions and the third concern is what
impact any of this may have had on the student that was targeted thank you and I hope those are all being looked at very closely thank you is it Aaron you're I can't It's hard for me to
see other side yes can you hear me yes we can okay so my question is similar to what Anna just asked um really just some if there's and you may not be able to share at this point in time but would hope that there would be some type of
repercussions because unfortunately we live in a world where things happen and I think some type of precedent has to be set and I don't know if it's expulsion or what it is but I think we need to send a strong message that this is not acceptable and
would hope that you know there is some awareness that we can get out of this so that other students or other people you know other kids can learn that you do something like this there is very strong repercussions that come as a result of
it so that would just be my my commentary and my request that we send a message that this is not it's not acceptable and as a result again I don't know if it's expulsion or what it is but there is strong repercussions that come out of this
thank you Ashley oh sorry Amy you're next sorry thank you hi Amy McCambridge Rididgewood resident um I'm on here tonight again as a parent of a high school student and I just got out of soccer and I saw your email you
know that everything whatever is under control but as um the first woman stated earlier and I think is one of my concerns and a lot of parents concerns was why the email that came out so late last night I think it was like 11:00 um
in your email that email you said that this had been circulating for some time that that's your own words um Schwarz that's what you said so we're left thinking that this had been going on for you know what does sometime mean is that like a week or a few days and then if it
was sometime why didn't you let us know because like the other mother said you know us parents were left you know waking up to that email and not knowing what to do and not wanting to send our kids i did not send my son in this
morning um because of that um I just think that the delay in communication failure that again that's really reckless um you know we talk about resource officers and that you guys don't have the funding for the school um but somehow you guys have
$80,000 to give the village of Rididgewood for lights that could fund one resource officer in one school um when we're talking about money you know we can't fund resource officers we can't fund you know clean water fountains for the poisoned ones that the kids still
have access to u but let's get real there's always funding for new turf lights and beautifification projects now I'm hearing that despite Schwarz your previous claims that you're not going to turf any more board of education fields at the field meeting they said that you're planning to turf
BF2 what happened to your word i'm hoping that the field people got that wrong um I'd also like to know why you still haven't tested the soil the turf or the water where our children spend hours every day at the high school you can again find 80,000 for lights but you
can't spare a fraction of that to ensure the health and safety of the spaces our kids use you literally like I've said it so many times week and week again and you have no answers and you haven't done anything you could possibly be sitting on a super fun site but let's let's not test let's do $8,000 for lights it's
just it's just crazy it's frustrating um it it's just I don't know it's it's extremely frustrating um to know that there is money and and you know for lights and I don't know and you guys planted all those trees the green club but did you tell them that that soil and
water is toxic because of what you have done no I doubt it anyway that's all I have to say thanks thank you Ashley you're on with the board hi thank you so much um and I just you
know again want to echo what I think a lot of parents said you know thanking you for as much transparency as you can provide i can imagine it's been a pretty stressful moment um for the board and for you Dr schwarz um but I think you
know I I have an elementary school i have two kids at Orchard um none in the high school yet and um I feel for those parents in the high school but I think overall it's kind of a moment to take a step back and echoing I think it was just Amy who was speaking on the
resource officer piece um you know I know we have you know some wonderful resource officers across the district but I think it's a moment to reflect and say maybe we need more um at every school every elementary school both of
the middle schools more at the high school um and I appreciate you know that money needs to be dispersed to multiple things across the district um turf fields lights whatever it is but if there is a way to dedicate additional
funds um at looking at resource officers you know in each of the schools maybe we can't do every single school at once phase it in figure out a plan but it definitely seems like something that is needed and especially at a time like this to reflect on it as a priority so
appreciate thinking about that and I'm going to come to your coffee on Wednesday night and say say the same thing so thank you in advance thank you Ashley okay now I will close public comment i don't know if you have anything else to
say Dr schwarz uh just to just to acknowledge some of the speakers there really appreciate everybody coming out tonight um the the folks who are talking about consequences for the students who fabricated the information fabricated the uh some of this information uh we do take this very
seriously i'm not talking about that too much right now because it's still an open investigation so I don't want to uh be too prescriptive in how I categorize it because we don't we're trying to we're just still investigating um but I can assure you that even uh we're not interpreting this as a prank um and even
so even if that's what it was intended as um it the repercussions uh of the actions were pretty were were pretty intense i will say I'm grateful for the fact that students the students who are responsible have been coming forward and
taking responsibility and admitting what they did and that's helpful but nevertheless uh this is serious so depending on the context you know that that's important to consider when we um make determinations about what the infraction actually is and what the uh
consequences should be but uh but we are working with law enforcement and and we're we are committed to ensuring that um that uh that the consequences are appropriate and this was a significant event um I think we've been talking a lot at
the board meetings about fe about about turf and and all that and I know that there's lots of different perspectives in the community so I would just again welcome those conversations at the coffee where we can have more of a dialogue i do think it's of interest to folks so I would just welcome anyone who wants to speak uh again to come to the coffee where we can have more of a dialogue um and then as far as school
resource officers y' love to talk about that i mean we we this board supported um uh the moving from one officer to three officers last year for the current year so we now have one at each middle school and high school i understand there are some folks who are interested in having officers at the elementary schools um I certainly I certainly am
very comfortable with with officers but being that we just uh made an investment there we made a decision as we came come through this budget cycle that we're prioritizing some other things this this year and this time around but I know that we're I know that as board's all heard you and I've heard you as well and happy to talk about that a little bit
more we're going to talk short i had a something on this topic that I was voting for the discussion item but because we are talking about this kind of Yeah sure so uh Bergen County Bergen County Prosecutor's Office basically
they offer a service for um the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office offers a service for free for nonprofits and schools where they come in and they do the evaluation for all the security measures and they can provide us a
return report of um things that can be done to improve so um from building security perspective whether we have um proper windows proper security uh alarm systems to call the police um whether we
have all the like numbers outside the windows uh fire or uh gun safe doors uh vestibules and when we are entering the building all of those recommendations that are currently recommended at the Bergen County level because there may be different experts at different places in
the New Jersey or different states but burgundy prosecutor would know what's appropriate for Bergen County for Ridgewood right so if we call them they would come for free they'll go through all most of our buildings or all of our buildings including ed center and Glenn
school and they can provide a return recommendation to us that what are the building safety improvements we should be doing and maybe we can just go out and ask the residents for money just for that measure that okay these are the things that the prosecutor's office is recommending to improve in the buildings
and we would need x amount of money and uh we can do that as a separate project so I I I thank you for that and that is true uh and there's also some state level resources too so part of a comprehensive facilities assessment that we did recently did include uh some security considerations we also started
a new security committee in district and we've identified some things that we want to improve upon i don't want to discuss them here because I don't want to get into the details of our security but I would say that that my my um my guidance to the to our team has been that and I've actually instructed our our security officer that I would like
to as a ma matter of just thoroughess bring in either a state level or county level support we were I had a strong opinion of um some of the state level uh representatives who I know do school do school visits they are really booked so we can look at the at the county office
as well for sure but no that's certainly our intention to do that as well as far as uh we've actually had some folks in the community who are interested in in fundraising for this as well for these topics it's a little it can be a little tricky because again even as we promote them we don't want to be talking too
much about like what's strong and what's not so strong in our facilities so what I would say uh is that something that we are talking about uh pretty specifically uh we need to talk about just we need to make some final decisions on is how we're going to just consistently make
progress with respect to like continuously improving our facilities in that respect so but thank you for sharing that i think that's the right thinking thank you okay I think we'll move on then to our presentation on the strategic plan all
right first of all we have for those of you who are watching from home you can't see we've got some really great folks in our audience here today thank you all so much for being here and I'm sorry big day lots that we want to talk about but we have a lot of students with us here tonight and they've all been waiting very patiently so thank you all so much
and thanks for being here today um we are going to get into a presentation on our strategic plan um we have some folks with us some special guests with us today in addition to the students who participated with us we also have Miss Christine Corass who is one of our leads
she's heading up our the engagement portion and she's also one of our core leads uh with the planning in general as is Dr michelle Fenwick uh Christine Corass of course is our public information officer and uh we also have uh Mrs murphy was leading up uh was also
one of our um our task force chairs as was Mr matthews uh unfortunately Mr ross couldn't be with us tonight but he was also a lead and we had several other we Mr mcculla I believe was also a lead and then we had um a a variety of people actually serving on those committees we
also have with us a special guest um our consultant uh who has been really guiding our process uh Dr bill Adams dr adams was a actually a New Jersey superintendent for many many years and uh he is now leads helps school districts uh with uh with a variety of
strategic initiatives and so he has been our guide for the strategic planning process um so before we go ahead and get started I turn it over were there any special instructions that we needed that I needed to to do or you team you got everything you guys good to go just big
uh big thanks for the mayor for coming out to watch this in person as well we've been working very closely with the village uh for some time and I know he want to be here to see this firsthand time so thank you Mayor absolutely great to have you all right Mr adams you want to take it away
sure well Dr schwarz you uh you took the introduction away uh Harrison you you talked about leading up to and getting ready for spring break well there's something else happening right
now you know this is March Madness tonight's the final and tonight's the final for us too um we we're excited and thank you uh board of trustees and and all of the staff and everyone that that
work with you the team uh Stacy and I had the opportunity to guide you and uh you just took off and uh we're going to hear the results of that tonight but as we talk about the the team and uh
Dr schwarz introduced the team Jamie and Corus and Dr fenwick and and and uh Richard and and Christopher and Brian that's our team now I want to talk about coach Schwarz
so every team has to have a coach and then every team has to have that that that body behind them that that board of that governing body and uh you were such a an important part of this and uh two of you actually served on the advisory committee so uh it it was a team effort
it was that whole village effort so we we certainly thank you for that we're going to run through uh some introductory slides and then we're going to hear from the action team because a strategic plan is nothing if you don't have action plans to implement it and u
let's let's talk about that uh a little bit so it was a collaborative effort and one of the things that the uh advisory uh team looked at the 24 person group they looked at they looked at data and we'll talk a little bit about the data
in a few minutes uh they looked at at input from uh focus groups and from interviews and from the survey and that collaborative effort led to a review of the district mission and the district uh and and a vision for the future the
vision for 2030 now some of our students out there you may be out before 2030 and on to whatever the next step in life is but that that's where the the actual plan goes so as as we look at that we're going to look at an initial timeline as
we we move forward and President Broen indicated we started back in July and if you look on the on the left hand side we had the opportunity in July to meet with uh each of the board members individually at the board members at that time there is a difference of of one uh member of the
board uh from from then to now uh so we we interviewed the board we interviewed most of the um uh central office or education center staff during the summer and then in September uh we took the information that was used uh put out a
survey over 1,200 people responded to the survey uh and uh we used that information along with the data that was gathered uh to meet with you look at the next step uh around the curve uh to meet with a uh advisor advisory committee of
some 24 people and we're going to talk about them in just a just a minute and how important they were to the process and to looking at the mission and re actually making some recommendations to revise it and then looking ahead at the vision and then that was turned over to and that's going to be the bulk of the
presentation tonight uh five action teams and that was that team that was out front that that fabulous six uh that that were up there and they worked hard Stacy and I pushed them at times I don't know that they always wanted to meet back with us because uh we pushed in
fact if you actually look at the document we have every iteration of that document uh to where they are and and the final plan and then that brings us to April 7th the final uh tonight uh and uh hopefully of support then from the
board to move the whole process forward so these we have team members uh they set goals there were actually 24 goals set 18 of those goals are actually in the first two-year action plans i think this speaks to the people
that were actually involved uh the 300 people that participated in town halls focus groups 1,200 survey responses the 24 advisory board members uh the action teams which comprise 61 people uh and then just all of the people that were
involved across the board this is the 24 person advisory committee students uh board members parents staff community members uh building level principles uh and uh ed center representation i'm going to ask if we can do this just to show how many
people were actually involved uh when we we we look at that uh if you were one of those 24 and most most of you around would you stand to just remain standing for a second right if you were please stay stay up if
you were one of the 61 people on an action team would you stand up that's right you guys did the the the journey of a graduate all right if uh if you actually participated in a focus group and you're not up yet would you
stand up if you were interviewed or participated in a focus group if you did the survey would you stand up all right thank you all you deserve a round of applause the whole purpose of that exercise was
to show how many people were involved uh this wasn't a a a consultant job this was a village job and uh we we thank all of you for the hard work that went into this so what did we look at this is
interesting district demographics and village demographics you know there's some difference there's some differences in the demographics of the school district and some differences in the the demographic uh dem demographics of the village so that was one of the things we looked at because that means there's
some people or some students in the village not attending the the Ridgewood public schools so uh that was a that was a point that we looked at we looked at the uh operating uh statistics we looked back five years at the budget for the last five years uh we looked at uh
staffing trends over the last five years and we've seen a slight uh downtick in the number of students and we've seen a a slight increase in in a number of staff due to the many many regulations and and so forth that have to be met now uh certainly we looked at the technology
plan and and the the robust technology uh uh that that's available in the district and then certainly uh student success and achievements and then what one thing that was very important especially to our students that are here student survey that was taken I believe last year uh and uh that helped give us
a feel for the climate of the school and how you feel about the school all of that information was was used and then from there that's a problem with technology that was the data then we looked at the perceptions that's what all of you thought that that that was
your answers to the survey that was the focus groups and then go ahead Chris from that we came up with pages of strengths about the district and we're going to talk about challenges in just a minute but as you look up there you're
you're a high performing school district you're ranked high in the state and in the nation uh student test scores are high there's a lot of opportunities you have a great uh performing arts and fine arts program great athletic teams um extracurricular clubs uh your your your
your supports are are strong it's a community that supports education all very important uh the community and and the village leadership and and and the district leadership work together that's important and and we see that being
expanded uh certainly very frugal in terms of finances responsible finances and and you're going to hear tonight from Richard even looking out three years which most districts don't do uh and looking to the future and going beyond what you know that the the state
aid may be for next year parents that are supportive and active and question and that's that's all a good part of it they're all strengths that we see and those strengths were considered when the team looked at the mission statement and vi
vision so what are some of the challenges well there are financial limitations uh even in a in a in a community like like this community we looked at climate and culture and how could that and the student survey was very important to that there was also a parent survey that was looked at that
wasn't up there uh certainly staying current and we're all aware of AI and where is that going and the and u I believe it's uh Richard your committee was one of the committees looking at uh at AI and I believe the programs and proficiencies were looking at AI and an
official policy and so forth and going going forth then we looked at one of the things we heard from parents and and some students um every elementary school there's some inconsistencies between elementary schools we recognize that the team recognized that uh they also
recognized transitions transition from elementary to middle schools and then that big leap from middle school to high school and and those transitions all of those things were looked at and they were included in the action plans moving forward so it's important to recognize
that they didn't just look at strengths they looked at challenges and that's that was all incorporated into the strategic plan now there's a tradition of excellence we hear that mantra which is the the mantra here we heard though from stakeholders
that maybe it's not all about tradition maybe it's about always reaching toward e excellence the pursuit of excellence so the the the the group looked at the mission statement and this is actually the proposed updated statement uh that
that uh they recommend uh and it's what is a mission statement well who are you well you're the Richwood Public Schools what do you do well you're in partnership with the community uh the village and then what
is it that you're trying to accomplish well you're committed to the pursuit of excellence and innovation that enables who the only reason their school district's here the students and then certainly to reach your individual potential and and become
lifelong learners one of the things uh that uh Christina that I I I promised u Stacy we would do is is to say that statement and then just uh for a minute because I want to get move into the the next part of this uh the proposed vision statement and that's for the Ridgewood
public schools to create an inclusive community that empowers students to explore opportunities and to shape their futures uh so with that uh can you lead us in the uh the mission please join me so I'm not by myself the
Rididgewood Public Schools is committed to the pursuit of excellence and innovation that enables all students to maximize their individual potential and become lifelong learners every time the advisory group met once
they decided this and by the way the advisory group met uh four times 24 people on average 22 showed up at every meeting usually two hours of meeting and then they just met for a fifth time last week and heard the initial action plans
and there were 19 at that meeting so thank you so five five action teams journey of a graduate and that's really going to be the interesting one that you're going to hear about in just a minute balanced climate and culture we know there's rigor and we know there's
expectation but this is a school so it it should be a combination of of of rigor and and certainly a climate uh that that you feel you belong and uh you're you're you're a student and then certainly look at the facilities and the infrastructure and how important that is
moving forward and what some of the challenges are and then the big one uh programs pathways and proficiency that's teaching and learning and then community engagement how important that is and how important transparency is and that's what I think occurred with the initial
conversation on a very serious matter transparency and and and that that certainly uh is something that that's going to to continue so the action teams composed of 61 people local government representation local business uh support
staff students parents teachers all part of it so let's get to it good evening everyone my name is Miss uh Jamie Murphy and I it is my pleasure and privilege to actually talk about Journey
of a Graduate this evening um so I'll start off by just introducing um our core action team although I will say that Journey of a Graduate worked a little differently than the other pillars or goals of the strategic plan so whereas each of the other pillars had
one core action team I actually had the pleasure of working with three different groups and the largest group and and I think one of the most important groups was our student group and I'll talk a little bit more about that um in a moment but we had a core um part of our action team that included myself mr
mcculla was my co-chair he unfortunately he's unable to be here this evening um and then Mila Crane and Ben Strauss who are two students who have been with us since the beginning they were part of the advisory team they very kindly um volunteered to give even more time to
this process working directly with journey of a graduate and their voices and leadership have been very very important um to this process and they are here with us this evening so thank you for joining us tonight in person um and then Mr donnie uh Mr harney who also is giving some time tonight and is in
the back hiding thank you for being here um Miss Michilla Michelle Villi I think I got that right finally one of our parents Miss Rub and Miss Ruben um and they've really been part of advising along the way on different aspects of the plan in
addition we did have another stakeholder group that sort of reviewed some of some of our work along the way that was from part of the community some other community representatives from um both our our township office also or I'm sorry our burrow office right burough
township village so sorry our village office um some of our other areas alumni um that were able to help and give some feedback that was very helpful but the first group that really met to do the initial work was our student group so in addition to Benila we had 18 other
students that participated in grades 5 through 12 um we had one fifth grader from each elementary school we had um a sixth seventh and eighth grader from each middle school and then we had two 9th 10th 11th and 12th graders that represented um our students and I'd
actually like to just take a minute because we do have a few of those students here tonight so I'd like to just have Dylan and Lily Vivian and Jack and Mila and Ben just stand so that I really appreciate that you're all here
in person and thank you for your help so thank you thank you for letting me embarrass you for a few minutes but you have been all um really so helpful and I for any of our students that are online that I don't know that they're online tonight I thank you for joining us there but I really appreciate all of
you coming in person to support this and to see how your contributions played out and for your parents to be here supporting you tonight so thank you for that you guys can sit it's okay i know I'm not doing the six inches well I
know there's like a a sweet spot to talk into this microphone so it doesn't echo um so that being said we spent a full day together um they are 20 students from the school district and they really are the voice and the heart behind what
became the six competencies for journey of a graduate and what we will be working over the next 5 years to integrate in all areas of our curriculum and co-curriculars um which are which are the pieces of the work we do with students here that are the intangibles
sometimes the things that make them whole when we talk about educating the whole student um so I think we're we're really got to a point where we are talking about all those things so I'll go through them a little bit and I want to say that the students are the ones that ultimately decided that this should
be called journey of a graduate because this is not just about where they end up but this is about how they evolve over the course of their careers here from prek and kindergarten all the way through 12th grade or 18 to 21 if they stay on with us um so we can go forward
i'm going to give a little bit of an overview um here so we have six competencies that we that were incorporated there is a theme that runs through these and so I will say that the theme is really resiliency communication
reflection curiosity advocacy and flexibility also as we move through through these you'll see that we were really conscientious about the type of language that we used we wanted to make sure that we kept the language in the in the journey of a graduate both sophisticated enough for adults but also
accessible for all of our students so we tried to find a place where um everyone would be able to relate to what this was so here in critical thinker you'll see some of the highlights and I'm not going to read all of it this will be available for the public to come back and read all
the details but with critical thinker um thinking deeply asking good questions um perseverance are some of the themes here innovative problem solver which again questions and being curious to explore new possibilities adjusting working with
others and learning from mistakes becoming empowered learners so questioning and being curious to deepen understanding perseverance and resilience advocating for themselves and seeking help effective collaborator listening actively and communicating clearly
remaining open to feedback and working through challenges engaged citizen staying informed and being responsible showing courage speaking up for positive change and and I think this was one of the most important categories the
students actually added this when we first came to the student group they they said you all forgot to add something about us just being good people um and being kind to others so this really all evolved from our students um because we did come with
some skeleton to them but they then tweaked and modified and this came entirely from the students and and their thoughts and voice um and this is really about resilience setting healthy boundaries and that that is their words setting healthy boundaries i have to say very impressed and this is everyone that
was there um and balancing their own needs while supporting others so again I mean kudos to all of you and those of you that are online the work was really excellent and your voice is very reflected in what we'll be doing here for all students over the next um five years
so you know as you can see we'll now go through the goals of the plan um these do reflect how these competencies will grow in our students over time beginning in preK and K and we'll be documenting progress and individual growth through every grade and graduation um I will
make a note that for goal one and goal two when you go to the plan and you look at the the specifics in the action plan for both of the first goals of the plan the action steps are broken out by grade level bands so we have different goals for prek 1 no prek 2 and then 3 through
5 and 6 through 8 and 9 through 12 um and in response to the students that asked about whether or not they will be involved moving forward I hope that you definitely will so we will be reaching out and talking about your roles and your buildings as we move forward next year so in goal one this really crosses
with programs pathways and proficiency so you'll see crossover between the different pillars along the way here um and um Michelle and I will be talking about this in a little while when we get to this category but this is really where we're embedding these competencies into teaching and learning identifying
where we are already including these competencies and creating frameworks that are intentional and being explicit about benchmarks for achieving competency at each grade level band looks like um and how students demonstrate their competency this includes having digital student portfolios project-based learning and
integrating competency based assessments into our existing grading practices at all levels similar similarly goal two will cross with um with sorry no with um climate and culture sorry imbalance climate and
culture so um with with goal two this is where we're going to make sure to integrate and embed these competencies into school culture and co-curricular activities and this is where we'll use some service learning advisory periods and student led
initiatives goal three will cross with engagement um which Miss Corless will be talking about shortly which is really the marketing and branding of journey of a graduate so that it becomes part of the fabric of not only our schools but our community and goal four will be where we
do our ongoing evaluation review and improvement um as we work through implementation and beyond and now I will turn it over to Dr fenwick for balanced climate and culture thank you so now we're turning our attention to the second of the five uh strategic
pillars balanced culture and climate this focus area emerged as a critical priority throughout the data collection process and our action team included myself uh David Bailey the George Washington Middle School principal Dan Kilde our wellness supervisor and
Danielle Pani from the Ridgewood Village Health Department certainly it was an honor to work with uh these very generous people on our action team across surveys focus groups and advisory team discussions stakeholders consistently emphasized the importance
of creating a school environment that supports both our academic excellence along with our social emotional well-being this action team brought together administrative teacher and staff and community input in order to develop a comprehensive uh level of goals and strategies and our team
identified three primary goals that will guide our work in this area over the next five years these goals addressed well-being safety and staff recruitment and retention each of these uh represents a critical aspect of creating a positive and supportive climate that
our students and our staff deserve it threads the journey of a graduate and components of the remaining pillars as well as the value and mission statement of the district our first goal in the area of balanced climate and culture is to foster a supportive environment that promotes
well-being this goal recognizes the academic success and personal well-being are both deeply interconnected the secondary goals support supporting this primary objective include first creating a comprehensive well-being centered
school culture this involves integrating wellness practices throughout the school day and the curriculum rather than treating well-being as a separate initiative second proactively addressing stress anxiety and burnout the data shows increased concerns about mental
health challenges among both students and staff our strategies will focus on prevention and early intervention rather than simply responding to crisis third building community resilience through systematic support this includes
strengthening counseling resources peer support programs and community partnerships to create a multiple layer of support for our students and our staff this weaves directly with what Jamie Murphy was just mentioning on Journey of a Graduate the goal aligns directly with
feedback we received from students who expressed a desire for their school environments that acknowledge the whole person and not just academic performance and our implementation will include specific metrics to measure progress in these areas goal
two for balanced climate and culture focuses on ensuring that all staff and students experience a safe learning climate safety emerged as a fundamental need throughout our data collection and bec also here today first focusing on physical and
emotional safety this comprehensive approach recognizes that safety involves both protection from physical harm and freedom from bullying harassment and other forms of emotional distress second creating inclusive environments for all stakeholders this means ensuring that
every student staff member parent and community member feels welcome respected and valued within our school co community regardless identity or ability the strategies supporting this goal include enhanced protocols expanding
training for staff implementing restorative practices and creating clear systems of reporting and addressing safety concerns we'll also work to ensure that our physical spaces and our school culture reflect and respect the diversity of our community as you will
see the school goal complements goal one under our infrastructure facilities and finance pillar similarly we see the connection to the engagement goals uh for our communication this goal directly addresses some of the challenges identified in data collection
particularly around trust issues and elements of school culture that have at times felt exclusionary to certain populations goal three for balanced climate and culture addresses a critical operational challenge to evaluate and address staff recruitment and retention
throughout the district this goal recognizes our ability to provide excellent education uh depends fundamentally on our ability to attract and retain exceptional educators and support staff and the secondary goals supporting this objective include first
improving talent acquisition and retention and this involves enhancing our recruitment processes creating compens competitive compensation packages and identifying factors that lead to staff turnover second supporting staff development and growth this in
includes expanding professional learning opportunities creating clear pathways for advancement and ensuring that our staff feels valued and supported throughout their career in our district the data from our planning process revealed concerns about leadership turnover challenges in recruiting
diverse staff members and the need for more consistent support for professional growth this goal directly addresses those challenges with concrete strategies and measures for success by focusing on these three goals promoting well-being ensuring safety and strengthening the recruitment and
retention it will help to support a balanced climate and culture that supports excellence and wellness throughout our district these goals serve as foundational framework that strengthens all the other pillars of vision 2030 by fostering self-efficacy
and addressing stress these goals directly enhance the journey of a graduate competencies particularly in developing empowered resilient learners capable of critical thinking without emotional barriers they create an essential emotional foundation for effective learning across the diverse
pathways while supporting innovative teaching approaches that integrate new technologies furthermore these climate goals align with the infrastructure prior priorities by promoting safety and reducing staff turnover while simultaneously building a cohesive
community relationship necessary for meaningful stakeholder engagement throughout the district it is important to note that the interweaving of these proposed vision statement Rididgewood Public Schools will create an inclusive community that empowers students to explore opportunities and shape their
futures will be well supported in this way now this moves us to the next strate strategic pillar programs pathways and proficiency also known as teaching and learning which was led by Brian Ross who unfortunately is unable to join us
tonight due to an emergency the program's pathways and proficiency team included diverse stakeholders district and building administrators student body and parent community and all were great partners in the process and great to work with
echoing Mrs murphy Mr ross mentioned that the student input and voice was so very important and valued as it told so much about what it was like to be a student here in Richwood public schools and it was a really great experience for everyone on the team much of what he had
planned to share is already happening here in in our district but not necessarily always happening everywhere with the same fidelity the programs pathways and proficiencies uh team created a 16page action plan
that focused on creating systematic consistency across all of our schools and here is what Mr ross would call the cliffnotes version of key components on the teaching and learning goals goal one being the first goal to
establish consistency in the comprehensive integrated systems for student success and that word consistency is something we've heard a lot of and is a key element in the threat of instruction assessment and transitions as it is critical in this goal uh throughout the whole plan
altogether so first we're going to create and refine a multi-tered system of supports MTSS for all students prek through 12th grade and our 18 to 21 program we're going to standardize our grading practices which will be implemented across grade levels across
departments and across schools and then we're going to ensure that we have strong transitional plans for our students moving from preK to K fifth to 6th 8th to 9th and beyond uh and that includes academic and social
emotional transition support the second goal here has to do with strengthening math and ELA curriculum and instruction we have been doing this but in Mr ross' words this is something that we're really doubling down on with strong emphasis on the research aligning
our curriculum with research-based evidence-based practices we are creating and revising our common assessments through our sub throughout our subject areas creating and refining a robust curriculum review cycle basing it on benchmark assessment data and using that
information to drive necessary curricular changes okay and Jamie is going to do goal two so goal tool two is really about the pathways um that we'll be creating so creating pathways to meet the needs of
all students for pre and postgraduation success as part of that um we will be reviewing expanding our program office off offerings and as I mentioned earlier this is the place where journey of a graduate is really rolled out at all grade levels across the district which means we will be embedding the skills in
the curriculum in our academics um as appropriate to each grade level band in addition we're going to be creating pathways for students in key areas um like special education um career and technical education and gifted and
talented education for special education some of the work has already begun with action items that came out of the special education state of the schools earlier this year specifically in the areas of instruction and assessment family partnership support services and progress monitoring but also a focus on
transition and post-secondary readiness for college and career with career and technical education where we will be expanding our pathways and career opportunities for students to include CTE programs and additional networking opportunities for students providing opportunities for staff to participate
in developing these programs and providing training for counselors so they have fluency in these various pathways for gifted and talented and we've already again started to do some of this work um in our K8 space to ensure we are providing opportunities for students to have formal opportunities for extension and
metacognitive learning um in addition we are looking to reduce barriers um to for students and and family academic engagement by creating revised curriculum resources um for example one-pagers and FAQs that allow easier
access to what requirements are needed for students in our course cataloges as well as clearly communicating core resources and instructional expectations for all courses we also will be looking to address changes in college admissions landscape bringing additional clarity and focus to the process and the various
factors at play as well as fostering connections with alumni and community that will benefit students as they move into any pathway they pursue thank you Miss Murphy the third goal for programs pathways and proficiency is which on the slide does not look like a
big anything is actually quite huge it's creating a flexible system of engaging generative AI to support student learning this is a fundamental change in education it's here and we're embracing it we'll develop a district-wide understanding of artificial
intelligence's role in education researching best practices establishing a technology task force and next we'll create AI usage protocols by grade level understanding that usage at the nth grade level will look very different from say the first grade level um we're
going to prepare training for our staff on that use and we're going to prepare and share ethical use guidelines for all stakeholders staff students and families on when and where to use AI appropriately finally we'll provide
robust pedalological pro professional development um to help staff truly leverage AI in the improved teaching and learning so in conclusion this plan for programs pathways and proficiency
teaching and learning ensures three key outcomes consistent student experience across district appropriate academic challenge while positioning students for success and a maximized potential of our school system and our resources to create
opportunities for our students these initiatives directly support our district's mission of excellence and innovation and they align with our vision of creating an inclusive community that empowers our students thank you and I hand the presentation over now to Mr richard Matthews for a
review of the next pillar okay thank you uh Dr fenwick my name is Richard Matthews i'm the school business administrator and uh my team was over infrastructure facilities and finance and we had three buckets and and many
times we had to break up into different groups so that we can really kind of drill down in terms of putting together the action plan so we had infrastructure was kind of led by Sirhei facilities was led by um Andrew who was part of uh Gene Ferrell who was the architect they were at every one of our meetings and the
finance team was kind of led by uh Madame Secretary uh Sheila and myself so I'd like to introduce my team and my team was again um Sheila Broen the uh the board president myself Aaron Bowman who's the assistant business administrator Gregory Woo who's
the uh middle school assistant principal at Fen Franklin Naomi Widner who's here today thanks for showing up Naomi uh Sirhei Moran who's a director of IT Julie Johanna uh who's over transportation and Julie's in the back
there uh Todd Rothman's a parent very very involved with facilities and very engaging and understanding and knowledgeable and and really pushed the group in in different categories and our and our student was uh Ariana Corolli and uh like I said it was a very dynamic
group of of people good meetings and we had to break up and come together and and and work in all different uh types of uh groups and filling in information so um one of the things that I I like to mention is back in November we had a cyber security threat we got notified by
crowd strike so uh our first goal is to enhance safety security and technology so in order to achieve that we will have to strengthen the district's infrastructure through enhanced cyber security and district training by selecting a cyber security framework in
evaluating the current district baseline we will identify cyber security framework areas in need of improvement and create and implement a rollout plan we will also develop a five-year technology plan to align with the district goals in order to implement and maintain
comprehensive safety and security protocols including emergency preparedness plans surveillance systems and access control systems we will create a disaster recovery plan using the district's baseline and objective number one we will also conduct regular
safety inspections to identify and address potential hazards a comprehensive schedule needs to be created as well as a plan to evaluate security compliance and needs at each building such as cyber fire surveillance etc all of this will create a culture of
safety awareness among students staff and visitors our second goal is to optimize facility management and maintenance to achieve this we'll need to develop and implement a proactive comprehensive maintenance plan to ensure proper upkeep
of all school facilities technology and data analytics will be utilized to improve facility management efficiency we'll need to train at least one custodial lead in each building to use the BMS system properly currently not every one of our head custodians knows how to use the BMS
system we will standardize building BMS systems by ordering the same software and technology throughout the entire district so we'll have better efficiencies in terms of managing our building systems by building determined efficiencies the next objective is to explore energy efficient upgrades and
sustainable building practices to reduce the environmental impact and operating costs we have started by generating a list of previously identified energy initiatives for the last five years and their ability by school once we take a look at this take a look at this time we
will be able to determine the next steps one of which could be to determine a strategy for solar panels and monitor ease of savings plans to determine the efficiencies the final objective is to initiate update and amend the longrange facility plan we would assess our field
needs especially flooding concerns we would need to work with architects engineers the village and maybe even the army corps of engineers depending on what is needed when we start by addressing these issues we'll see increases in building efficiencies our third goal is to ensure
sound financial stewardship we will create a three-year budget projection to develop and maintain a balanced and sustainable budget that supports the district's operational instructional needs our team will continue to explore and implement cost-saving measures while maintaining
high quality services the team will use a three-year plan for this as well to create a cost and efficiency analysis enhance financial transparency and accountability through regular reporting and audits we're currently working on this by implementing the annual audit corrective action plan with an emphasis
on no repeat findings the business law office is in the process of developing a standard operating procedure manual to administer policy and procedures that ensure sound initial reporting and monitoring of business services such as transportation food service and risk management we will present a fund
balance review to the finance committee and the full board twice a year in the months of December and March the purpose of this goal is to create transparency within the community and approve student outcomes and resource allocations i will now turn it over to Christine Corus
okay give me one second multitasking so uh the engagement team was a really well-rounded group because um communications involves internal and external members so we had myself board
member Mary Louise Handy uh principal at the middle school Stacy Wnooki a Ridgewood Public Library um Lori Steinbecker our parent who is also our CPAG president currently Jamie Davis and our student who is an office in the
audience as well Mark Dei so the engagement team basically has to communicate what I like to call a triangle and the first part of that is that we have to communicate the journey of graduate which is something that's brand new so we have to look at that angle we have to look at communicating
the entire strategic plan which is a huge undertaking so we have to look at that side of the triangle and then the third side of the triangles are normal everyday communications that go out um andor are shared via our digital uh
website so we had to develop goals that would address all three sides of that triangle and hopefully you'll see that as I go we go through so goal one was to promote and connect the mission vision and the journey of a graduate throughout the district community these are all new
concepts we need to ensure that everybody embraces them understands them um in order for them to be successful so there's a lot of developing of communications plans to launch the messaging um how do we place it where do we place it what's better digital and
print we want to streamline the communications to avoid things like email fatigue some of which we have started this year but we're going to try to continue that continue to make the website a hub of the information both for all of the strategic plan materials the journey of a graduate materials as
well as everyday information that's needed for the district and we want to educate the district leadership and provide the support needed for them to incorporate all of this information into their day-to-day operations at each of the schools in a consistent manner
goal two we want to foster a sense of cohesiveness belonging and continuity in the students educational journey by communicating the processes being implemented to ensure smooth and positive transition for all students across the district and that basically
means the way we would communicate it to a second grader is going to obviously be different than how we would communicate it to a ninth grader but we need to make sure both understand it and the outcome is the positive one we're looking for this would all be um through
opportunities for student and staff input and resources that will enable improved decision making in the areas of curriculum programs and course offerings extracurricular programs scheduling and facilities um in order to accomplish all
of this we know that we're going to need a village so we're going to institute mentor and mentee initiatives as part of the transition programs which we know is an area of focus we want to foster a sense of belonging both within the school and within the community that
will help with the students educational journey through collaborative initiatives such as an orientation programs and transition support again we want to balance current current orientation practices with evolving needs and we want to promote vertical alignment among the schools which as
we've heard is something that all of us throughout the various um pillars or uh action teams have focused on and we want to establish best practices and create shared opportunities for goal three we want to enhance the district perception for all
stakeholders i have an expression I like to use that perception is truth so this goal was very important to me i know and I know that the team as a whole really talked a lot about this we wanted to talk about opportunities for community collaboration to foster partnerships
promote shared commitment to successful student outcomes through the fulfillment of the district's mission and vision and this means working together with local businesses local organizations village departments and the community at large and I do want to call out that while we
were doing this our um Rididgewood Public Library representative Lori Steinbecker was she just kept saying "Oh I see so many opportunities in which we can get this stuff done." So it was a really positive village school district communication and collaboration um and
this goal was really crucial to all of us so in order to do this we have to continue to strengthen the partnerships and the relationships that I feel like we've come so far with over the last couple years we want to foster community involvement we want to implement
district level initiatives to encourage community involvement and we want to welcome the local organizations and departments into the schools to foster stronger mutually beneficial personal relationships um and part of this also is with our alumni
organization which leads me to goal four we want to increase the engagement with our RPS alumni such a strong group to explore and highlight the diverse academic and career pathways um we've worked a lot over the last year and we have a long way we can go to
establishing those relationships um and they are completely and totally on board and want to do it with us so we're excited to get this moving and what the value will be is things like creating and maintaining alumni database of information regarding post RPS education
and career paths uh we want to develop consistent communications with the alumni groups and members to foster increased interaction promote positive interest and maintain valuable connections and relationships um the one of the first steps in doing this was our social media program which got a lot of
our alumni engaged with us um and it's wonderful to see their comments when they post them and we're starting to work through other things as well with the alumni develop some programs internships etc so this is a really um strong one as well for
us and yes my team had to be a little bit of overachievers and have a goal five so we um our goal five we felt was important so we added it in to improve improve the communication channels so all of the stuff we do in goals one two
three and four are heavily reliant on the tools the software the pathways that we use to get the information out so um and here's one of the ways where our student rep was really valuable because how we communicate with a parent or a community member might be very different
than how we would communicate with our students so we had a lot of discussions on website versus texting versus apps versus printed material and um he made it pretty clear what he thought about
posters and or the lack of the um value of them so we really had some valuable conversations and we need to do some more research into how do we now take goals one through four and get the information truly out there in a successful way and I'm going to turn it over to
Bill Adams to take us home all right we're on the home stretch uh thank you one of the things to keep in mind when you uh heard a lot of goals you heard objectives and so forth those reports also have strategies
to carry them out in addition to the strategies they name the either the the position or the person responsible there's metrics to measure whether or not they're success and there's intervals that they look at those metrics if resources are needed they're
identified in the in those action plans so it's important to recognize that you you got a thumbnail in in you know to respect everyone's time tonight but what are the next steps well this is a foundation uh whenever the board adopts
whether it's tonight next meeting or or whatever when they when they've had appropriate time to review uh through the balance of this year the plan will will move forward next year there'll be some uh some further assessment uh there'll be some pilot programs
initiated some of the uh the work will begin especially the communications that that uh Christine just described and how important that is uh the data collection to make sure we have a baseline so that you can measure from the baseline and then in 2627 when you can really
influence the next budget because this this budget for 2526 is is pretty much there so uh that's when there'll be a full roll out and then it'll be integrated totally into the system and then refined and then uh come down to
homestretch in 27 to to 30 when everything will be fully implemented although they'll still be identifying at that time uh some of those um standards uh to meet the the portrait or the journey of a graduate beginning with preschool
so again uh the importance of of keeping this out front uh we would hope that the entire 44page document which includes a 17page executive summary uh and uh four uh folders of eight presentations uh
along with some uh suggested resources uh will be shared and uh will be available for anyone that wants to dig into it certainly the action teams will be utilizing those so it'll help align budget priorities in the future uh you you look back to the strategic plan you
look to the action plans to move forward certainly then that data transparency and how important it is to share that and then these five teams cannot operate independently and as you saw there's there's cross pollination between members on those teams and that's very
important as they implement so this is the cliff note i'm going to go over very quickly 10 recommendations but adopt the mission and vision uh certainly adopt the action plans some of them still need a little more work but uh and then adjust uh not
annually but quarterly and then annually and then uh bannually for th those two-year action plans and then certainly uh uh the the items that require immediate action let's move forward with those now let's not wait till 25 26 and
then begin that journey of a graduate because I think the preschoolers this year will be uh graduates what 2037 so what are the recommendations well adopt the mission and vision adopt the action plans uh with the idea that
those metrics are going to be followed uh and that uh you're going to be reviewing those metrics um and then we we believe that at the end of the first year look at the 18 objectives that that were uh shared tonight uh should any of the other six that were not included in
the first two years be considered uh do resources have to be reallocated now we've changed the or we're recommending a change or the advisory committee recommended a change in the mission statement who you are what you do who you do it for and what
the expected outcome is well the big change uh was pursuit of excellence should you consider pursuit of excellence uh pursuit of excellence for all students committed to the pursuit of excellence and then if you look at the mission statement it could be committed to the pursuit of excellence in
innovation uh recommend that the engagement committee take that one on and uh maybe uh make some recommendations after further input from the community and then certainly the journey of a graduates got to be embedded in the district culture and and
and uh we recommend you know again uh that any modifications in the future for instructional strategies curriculum uh etc go back to the journey of a graduate in those th those six buckets that were
identified and refined by students christine's already pointed out the importance of the communications and staying connected with you the stakeholders and uh that that's that's key if the strategic plan's going to move forward because it's going to need
the support of the village and then the five action teams uh are going to need to get buyin from from the staff and buyin from uh through coordination uh w with virtually everyone affected and then certainly professional development
for uh continuing uh is should be developed around the strategic plan and the action team uh goals in the last two recommendations we recommend taking five minutes at every board
meeting just go over one of those objectives uh you may even want to consider and something we've we've done in in a few districts maybe in September the first committee report October the second one that gets you through the first five months of the
year and then rotate back twice in the year next year you hear exactly where each one of those action teams are you do it at a public meeting where uh communities involved and community can ask questions and and learn more about some of the exciting things that are happening and then
certainly uh without the facilities and the facilities infrastructure and some of the the needs that that are there um a lot of this can't happen because students need to be engaged in an environment that allows for some of uh today's instructional strategies uh now
we saw with the organizational structure in particular a lot of the potential silos that we see in a lot of schools have been eliminated and it's important that that we stay away from those silos and those five action teams work together there are the 10
recommendations we're not going to go over some additional consider all of the additional considerations uh we presented 10 there are actually a eight listed here but um we we think that that you come up with a strategy to share the
results uh you know one of the one of the strategies can be a dashboard but there there's some thoughts internally I'm sure working with engagement how you're going to keep this uh the progress uh shared with the whole community and then certainly uh we
recommend that uh the whatever that mechanism that Christine described whether it's the website that the plan be there so that it can be accessed I believe uh on the um infrastructure uh finance and facilities plan objective
two or objective or goal two objective four covers this but we just wanted to emphasize the importance of looking at the the facilities the challenge uh the challenges that you have in the facilities uh and that that there be an
inventory uh of of where you are where you could be uh both with short um and midterm as well as long-term plans especially those athletic fields and recognizing the village does have a master plan to to begin to address that
critically important we think to fully implementing the plan over the next five years christine we're going to just skip through the the last couple here uh uh they're in the in the final report and I just wanted to take a minute here to to
go back and talk about how important communications is coordination and buyin for the plans professional development the board meeting updates and certainly how they then can influence where you move forward with future
budgets and then that tapestry there's your five pillars or your five targets and uh that those action plans make a great uh tapestry when we look at the journey of a graduate for the Ridgewood public schools and what are some of the key
takeaways well uh this vision 2030 was built uh with a lot of stakeholder input a lot of data data analysis certainly the survey uh and it provides a foundation we think for plans and priorities as they're developed for uh
the 2526 school year uh as well as uh future uh school years and then certainly uh they can be integrated into the state uh the state of the schools the annual district goals superintendent's coffee beginning with next week uh and certainly at every
board of education meeting and then I I'd like to just go over this in terms of excitement that you can generate around the vision to to motion um actually um one of Christine's counterparts just had this published uh
in the American Association of School Administrators uh last month uh beyond the plan from static strategy to dynamic datadriven uh and uh strategic plans can live within the daily uh rhythm of the school district grounded in a shared way
and responsive to real- time needs they can become more than documents they can become drivers of change that's why it's so important that it not be put on the shelf and then in this year of educational technology evolution uh progress is measured not just by deliverables and we
mentioned some of those tonight but by momentum and there's a chance to keep that momentum going forward engagement and impact and then when guided by intentional leadership and supported by uh responsive tools strategic planning becomes a movement transforming static
into a dynamic and then innovate with intention iterate with insight lead with clarity purpose and connection uh and uh I I know it's been a long night but I get excited when I see that and what the potential can
be so thank you and I I don't know how you handle comments or questions or how you would like that well thank you very much thank you everyone um I had hoped that people would stay because I wanted to get a
picture of all the all of the people involved we always celebrate our retirees and sometimes we forget to celebrate the good work of the staff that's here so before we end this evening I would really like a photograph at least of the
people that are here that worked on this so thank you for the um strategic plan and and I'm sure some of the uh board members did see this and and sort of gave uh some input on Thursday night uh
but other board members didn't so if there are some specific questions that you might have um that would be great uh Mary you want to start or you shaking your head so I'm assuming you did um yeah I well I wanted to thank you so
very much Dr adams for your guidance um and I wanted to thank the entire team for everything um that they did the students you were fantastic um I had the pleasure of working with Mr burns here and I just have to tell you um I've said
this to you directly in our in our meetings but you are so articulate so thoughtful so insightful and your contribution to our committee was invaluable and uh I want to thank you for the opportunity to work with you and I am sure that everyone feels the same
about all the other students who were here um when you give us your voice and you tell us what you're thinking and you remind us you know what about boundaries what about being good people what about how you communicate to us um you really
you make us better in our positions and you are leaving a lasting legacy for the next it's going to be more than five years so you've made a really important imprint um on our community and on our schools and I want to thank all of you
for that so that was something that I really wanted to say thank you you know Harrison it's been a lot of fun working with you um I wanted to just note a few things which is that um because I think tonight we've had a rough day and I think that it would be nice to be able
to celebrate something and one of the takeaways that I took from this um was that many of our strength as a district are in the humanity of the district they're in our people we talk about our teachers our parents our students and we
talk about um professional development and I there was the list of them on the um slide and I I started to write them down but a large of what people identify as the strength of the Ridgewood Public Schools has to do with our te with our
people with our investment in people and the way that we work together and collaborate so I think that that's very important to identify and notice tonight and I think that as we move forward implementing this master plan it's something that you know we keep kind of in the back of our minds so I did want
to I did want to mention that I I wanted to appreciate the recommendations Dr adams that you made some of the places where uh we have more work to do um facilities being one of them and I was thinking about how you know we've just
gone through a um an inventory of our facilities and we have a pretty clear picture of deficiencies and things that we need to do and I think that's step one and I think it's important to notice that because when you talk about the tapestry and in I was in the PPP
committee the learn teaching and learning committee and we talked about um you know new pathways for students who may not want to go to a four-year college right career in technical education well that may require some investment in our facilities um we've
had plenty of parents come here and talk about our incredible fine arts programs and our arts programs and how we may need to do some work there um that is a discussion that we need to have but I think it's important that tonight that we identify it and I appreciate the fact that um with your expertise that you
identified that and other things as well that okay you've got great ideas and you put them down on paper let's make sure that you implement them and get them done in the right way and I think that as we look at our facilities our finances um what we want to do with our
schools what we are doing with our schools I think all of that comes together and informs each of these choices that we make in the next several years so I I did want to make that point um the other question I had was um I loved the specific things you told us
about won a meeting and and those types of things i wanted to ask first um and this might actually be for Mrs broen is we eventually adopt this strategic plan i assume would that be at the next meeting i'm thinking we have some time
to think about adopt the the um go the goals that we've identified and also the mission statement and a vision statement and that would be at the next meeting where everybody has a little time to percolate on it right and maybe and then as we go forward um and other strategies
um you know we we would vote to probably approve those or support those as they go forward okay um I think that was the uh I guess that was that was the final question because with some of the recommendations that were made and some of them were more um just you know add
this to you know we had the 16page plan and you know change the format add this add that i didn't know if that was something that we needed to do before we adopted i I don't want to get so caught up in the technicalities of the process that we lose our momentum um so it was
just a question i think we're we're looking at the goals and not necessarily the strategies okay but we will need to look um at the whole the strategies the budget implications and who's responsible um but some of that will be
within the committee structure also okay so if if there is a um curriculum issue uh then curriculum is going to take a look at that facilities will take a look at that engagement will be communication
so we have these um our working committees that will also be part of that as I look at this yeah makes sense well so that was those were all my questions and comments and again thank you to everybody sitting here and everyone watching at home it's great job
sir yes um so thank you Dr adams and and the entire team that worked on it it was uh really an insightful presentation and it showed that a lot of work has gone into it it's not um a cookie cutter presentation from some other district
there were a lot of uh our district specific items that you touched and you researched and you came up with the solutions that work for us so I don't have questions on the content content was very thorough very detailed and very well researched um and again I thank you
for every everybody who participated in that um as Miss Malli I also like the idea of um following up every board meeting on one of those goals so that way we touch on everything twice a year because if we have 10 months uh five one
every month or not every board meeting but at least every month for one goal every month we touch upon it and in 10 months we can touch upon every everything twice so I really like that idea thank you for that my uh three questions are one is um with these goals
um are you also recommending any milestones with the timeline because uh I saw something regarding 24 25 26 27 and then 27 to 30 but are there any specific deliverable timelines that
you're recommending so that way it's just doesn't sit on the shelf as you mentioned and it actually gets uh actioned upon on each of the uh plans have timelines associated with strategies and times to complete those uh yes uh we did mention
a few of the plans uh and we went back and forth on those timelines but uh few of the plans maybe need a little more strengthening but that can be done as as a work in progress but for the most part there are timelines uh and those
timelines are based on when a certain metric should be reached okay and and those timelines were developed in coordination with the superintendent that that they can actually be delivered or is that your recommendation
that would be better for the superintendent to answer than than a consultant we certainly work with the teams on that and the and the teams were realistic but yeah so so if you're so if those who have been following our district goal processes where we effectively we set our goals um and then
we develop strategies to support those goals and that we really try to move everything forward at the same time so it's not so I just want to be clear there will be different time frames for each of the different activities but in keeping with the way that we have been pursuing our district goals we will try
to make progress on every area at the same time meaning that certain things will be implemented like the actual really full complete implementation might be a year or two out or three years out but some things will be we'll be able to implement right away so it's really going to be the next level next
phase of this process is for us to really take all these strategies and these and these these kind of overarching uh o overarching goals and timelines and start turning them into very specific actions and activities yeah that would be great because like just just to call out some of the uh
specifics like for example we talked in this presentation we talked about improving ELA we talked about integrating the curriculum across all the schools we talked about um uniform grading patterns ac across all these schools so those are the type of things we have been talking for a while but now
are we saying that as part of your report we have an agreement on specific timelines or milestones when we'll actually see them implemented i don't think that I don't know that we have them I don't think we have them to that level of specificity where there's specific goals met by certain will be
done in five years oh certainly yeah i mean I think we're going to be I I mean to be truthful I mean the way the timelines are set up here everything is effectively going to be implemented in the next three years but I think in my experience with with the momentum that we have remember our the work in these
strategic planning that these strategic planning groups have been doing have been informed by the work of the district goals so it's not like we just stop everything we're doing and now we're doing a new set of things the we're actually already in progress with the with actually almost everything in
the strategic plan okay and the so on on the same line last question is uh so you mentioned about that these are there are metrics timelines templates for assessment um and then uh you at one point you mentioned there's a final version of the
report uh that you have generated and then there are 10 action items and you were presenting eight here so all of that material is that going to be available to the rest of the board members and is it considered um work for hire that it's available to general
public residents of the Ridgewood or is that confidential uh or like I haven't seen it yet that that information uh is available uh to to all the board members and we recommend that it be made available to the public as well right so
if since the district is paying as a professional service engagement that report final report that you're talking about should be available to anybody right it's your report yeah okay thank you yes did you not receive it I received the presentation I've not
received the report that went to all of the board members on it should have we'll check to make sure it should have gone out last Friday that it came from you Yeah or it came Did it come yeah it came it did come from Yeah
okay i can check because I usually we have a process of board documentation that comes but I didn't uh It would have been sent to your email like it's not in Yeah it was sent directly by Dr adams last week i'm sorry i thought I thought you all received it it had the report the presentation um and the data he
worked out i mean it was really very it was No the last email I have is from Dr item says "Did you get it?" 7:1624 it It should have come from uh uh Bill Adams at
hyaarch.com or Stacy or sadams at hyasarch.com okay I can check you see it not from Dr adams i wonder if you only and maybe it was just a a technical error where it just was sent to Sheila and Mary yeah
actually I have an April 4 email also let me check mary gets one i I thought it was to everybody but Yes so did I we'll make sure though that that everyone get that gets the It's important yes yes april 4th I have it yeah that's it
and so this will be available to all the residents too yeah we can post that for you yes and there's links then to uh additional sources of resources as well as each of the presentations there should be eight
presentations no but yes I mean my expectation is that that is all public information and will be uh and you talked about it in engagement be part of uh how how to as it's a lot of material it's a long
report um a good read but um it does take some time yeah and and um we talked about uh adopting the resolution you mentioned that we should be adopting the mission and vision statement and the action plan so would you be recommending some sort of board resolution language
that should be adopted for those items that that um binds us to the spirit of doing that but not uh financially binds it until we know that there is money for
any sort of commitments that require additional money right so would you recommend some sort of like I don't want to be voting on a resolution that says that board will be doing all of this in next 5 years until we understand the financial implications of any of the facilities improvements or any of the
suggestions like some of the suggestions may come uh with new hires like we may need more staff or we may need more money for facilities improvement so we can say okay as a district we we are agreeing to the spirit of this strategic
plan and we'll work towards it to identify what's needed to implement it but not commit uh to like it should not be a vote that says okay the board voted on it so now we are going and hiring more people or we are spending money on
something without uh obviously that that would come from a recommendation from the superintendent I'm I'm sure in consultation with the board chair and and and the entire board but if you if you adopt the the
strategic plan uh and the the vision statement the mission statement uh it's used then as a guide to assist when you're allocating resources so you set that as priorities uh so you're you you
you allow your your strategic plan to guide where your priorities go and and and then you use that to develop the budget but it certainly can't commit you to resources that you don't know what those resources are even going to be from year to year perfect thank you so
much mary Lou did you um have anything being a member of this a very When we first started I said to myself how are they ever going to do all of this but wow the final presentation
really incorporated so many workable ideas and I think that they addressed the concerns that the public has brought to our attention of security and and addressing the academic needs and the sports and everything else that I think
that it's attainable i think that you all of the groups heard what the stakeholders were really interested in and I think they really came up with that being an engagement committee we were thinking what are we going to have to share out to the public and I'm
watching and saying wow this is getting larger and larger the mission and to to get that all out to everybody and I think that what everybody has come up with is very workable it addresses realw world issues you know inclusion and and
bringing people in um and being aware of different groups and how students learn differently and how we can support the families as they join us for at le so we have a very crucial mission and
I really think that seeing it all broken down really addressed things that I've seen as an educator and things that we really should be addressing yes academics and everything but it was went more than that it went to the the person
our values and our commitment to the community so I'm really very proud of all the work that people that I know and looking up at the list of people who did that and I know it was a lot of hours we met continuously and the students that
on our committee and what I had heard from others they were there all the time exams or no exams they were there participating and I think it really gave it a real good you know spin and I love what you had said about the library
about the library that they were so we can help we can do this and we've never really asked them and there's an asset sitting right there so I think this really brought up a lot of good points points i think everybody has worked very very hard and it's good sometimes just
to sit back and say okay we did this before we've done this many times before but how are things changed and how do we need to adapt and I think we have a good plan and it's workable and I look forward to being a part of it thank you
again great job by everybody uh big big effort and uh you know sharing the process builds confidence outpost so thank you every you know I was I I was so excited on Thursday night after listening to this
and then again tonight um you know I you know what you've said tonight as the board members you know we've been struggling with a number of things and and this was such a so much thought went into what we need to do in the district
but when you look at what it addresses it addresses that balancing that that key part of how much rigor but where's the humanity for our students and the mental stress it it addresses is transitions how are we doing when our
students move from elementary to middle to high school is there consistency we've heard that over and over from parents is there consistency from school to school um in exams that are given in classes that are the same um and um you
know that importance of engagement the importance that that we are a community and a village that cares and wants to work together and how do we do that for the benefit of our students and what happens to our students once they
graduate are they really ready to take that next step whatever it is it's a career it's college military whatever it is are they ready have we prepared them to be the best people that they can be and given them the skills that they
need i think this is just a wonderful piece of work i can't wait to see the implementation of it and to continue journey it's the school's journey of improvement and that's what I
see this um really the ultimate part of this is how can we improve and be better for everyone that we are serving the 5600 students that are in our buildings each day so really thank you to the team um I
really I'm I'm excited and I will make sure that with um Dr sure is to have an update at every one of our meetings as we come and and we'll start next
um meeting with the first step which is approving the um strategic plan and approving the mission statement and the vision and then we move forward there um and we're not going to let you off the
hook in uh July or August so be prepared um thank you i wanted to get a picture so everybody who is involved go over there and just let's get a picture of you for a moment we'll all stand up and then we'll go on for the um we'll go on
to the meeting oh oh just a minute harrison did you have any because you were involved in this did you have anything you wanted to say i'm sorry not to put you on the spot i just uh microphone
sorry um yeah I I just wanted to say uh to all of you I I guess as a student um it just feels really good to sit here and see all these different people who are so um engaged and involved in trying to make my life better and and improve the lives
of my peers i think that's just it's a great feeling to see uh all this dedicated work that has gone into that uh and just thinking towards the future that's obviously a fantastic thing to do and I'm glad that so much work is being done on that front um and I've said this before uh and I want to say it again i
really do appreciate um the work that was done to bring in um a lot of different stakeholders including and especially students um I'm very grateful that I got to kind of speak on behalf of some of my peers and give my insights and I'm grateful that some of my some of
my peers have gotten a chance to do that as well um so I just want to thank you uh for the work that you're doing and also for making sure that uh all the voices are are heard including the students um I think that's just a really great way that that this all went down and the whole process was was very um
productive and impactful and so I want to thank you all for for doing it so well thank you for participating really the student voice i mean we're we're nothing if we don't have our students right so picture and then we'll get back
to the work of the uh uh of the uh district huh nobody ever lets me stand in the back i definitely Okay well we got our work cut out for us right okay
so we're going to go to um the superintendent reports yeah I I've already talked plenty but I just wanted to point out a couple things we had some questions about um the the the district calendar we don't seem to be using our last snow day so over memorial if you look on the calendar it does explain how
those days are g that that extra day is given back so that the day off will be the Friday before Memorial Day so if you want to just make sure that you understand that we will have all the Friday before Memorial Day the Tuesday and the Wednesday after Memorial Day will be days of school a and um I'm sure
Christine will get that out um in the board minutes or the board report tomorrow but maybe also highlight it because a lot of people are asking that question yeah additionally um I just want to share that the coffee is usually on Thursday it's on Wednesday this week
just due to some scheduling conflicts so 7 o'clock Wednesday and I think I've already spoken enough so okay so we'll go on to uh consent items regular and routine and I move uh
administration do I Thank you i'll second it and does anyone have any questions this is second reading on um all of the policies that have been on for discussion and first reading last time second reading we're ready to go forward
with those I think any questions no let's go then yes yes yes yes yes
on human resources um we do have a retirement uh Margaret Shenad uh 30 years uh first grade i don't know if she stayed if she was in first grade the whole 30 years but she was been at Willard the whole year oh 30 years yeah
majority of her time in first grade so uh she'll be retiring we'll be celebrating uh her at the next meeting right and her her great career um so human resources uh I move human resources second
yes yes yes yes yes and if I just may I just want to congratulate and welcome Mr david Clark who will be our new manager of custodial services he's here with us today mr
clark thank you so much for coming we look forward to having you on the team thank you for that um see we're finance um and I I move
finance second yes yes yes yes yes and I would like to read into the records of the donation from the Federated Home and School Association for
$2,750 to be used to pay a $250 stipen to each of the 2425 teacher recognition honores to purchase classroom supplies again this is a tradition um that the Federated Home and Schools have done for
years so we thank them for that resolutions and motions not included in consent agenda um we um on a we are um voting on a contract for
uh custodial services and um and bringing in ACB services that would start services on May 1st um as a um to really
transition transition thank you transition into um the district um and then start uh on July 1st so um I move the approval uh for that
contract second would someone like to second it second second move yes he did second it yes I have it yes okay so we can I think unless anybody has any questions I think we're ready to go
ahead and vote mr donnie yes and I just want to note um for anybody listening that the this resolution for custodial services and the hiring of Mr david Clark so these are all part of our new renewed effort by Mr richard Matthews to
bring um divide the prior custodial contract into three different sections so earlier we had custodial services maintenance services and buildings and ground and their management all of that was part of one company outsource company now that is being divided into
three different groups so this contract is just for the custodial services and the we will have an in-house or our own employee who will be the manager uh who will manage all of that so hopefully our buildings will be cleaner and clean will
be cleaned on a more timely basis and then there is in a few days or few weeks there will be another contract coming up for the grounds and snow removal and all those things mulching and everything so hopefully um the complaints that we had from the previous company about ground
maintenance will also be fixed and the maintenance staff is coming on on board so those are the new changes that Mr matthews and team are bringing in so this is first part of the three big changes that are coming in that contract yes you know you've really listened to
some of the concerns a lot of the concerns that we've had over the time about our fields um our our buildings and uh our maintenance and um we'll be watching carefully to make sure that
this is all goes well and and another comment I had which I I'll also said before this was a very welladvertised bid um kept open for a while thoroughly interviewed and we had seven qualified biders so that is that that is a lot to
say about the um the team that is managing the bid process that when you go out for a $45 million project a lot of the time when I attend meetings public meetings I say sole bidder or it's a very complicated thing that we did not have a lot of biders but in this scenario we had seven biders which are
qualified and he went through the team went through the qualification or bidding process so that says a lot about the process so thank you for that any Anything else I would like to mention excuse me um as a teacher many
of the teachers and students really enjoy or get to know the custodians in their building and the one thing about this also because our custodians this is all new to me but I'm understanding that they are members of a union they will be
um kept on and working with the new company for evaluation and everything else so it isn't necessarily going to be a clean slate of new people in the building although that could result that way but basically the people that are
there will be there they'll have an opportunity to apply for the new jobs and there will be some consistency because I know my own children through the years have just really a school custodian is part of the culture in a school and it's nice not to have a
wholesale they're thrown out and new people brought in so there is protection and opportunities for the new um custodians yes the the contract uh at le you know you would the custodians will stay at
least for 60 days if if not beyond but there'll also be opportunities for additional training and support and um and what we're bringing in is the management team yeah okay so yes your vote is yes yes
Miss McCalli Mr mcmood yes M broen yes and thank you again for all your work on this i know uh we had a committee structure there was a lot of evaluation going on um so it was a thorough process
to come uh to the decision to hire ACB um board member announcements um I just had one um and that is the our uh Ridgwood High School orchestra concerts at Westside on on
um tomorrow night yeah that's tomorrow night i think it's at 7 or 7:30 um and just reminder that on April 28th at our board meeting uh we will have our public hearing on the
budget we had the preliminary uh discussion on the budget uh further work's been happening the went to the county i'm not sure if the county has already come back with an approval yes I was going to mention in finance and
facilities this week um last Thursday I checked early in the morning and I saw that we had received the approval from the county great no issues no concerns clean clean great so we're all ready then to to move forward with a hearing on um April 28th at the at the public
board meeting are there any other there's we have been we haven't been away too long is there any other uh have an announcement for CPA sure so uh just to remind everybody that the next information meeting for the CPAG is
tomorrow April 8th at 9:30 a.m right here um Michelle and I are going to sleep here tonight um but uh a couple things you want to know about that meeting is they're going to be voting on the new slate of nominees for the 2526 executive board and uh we're going to
have a guest speaker topic is going to be family partnership uh Beth Kosantino and McKenzie Di Maria of SPAN Parent Advocacy Network they will present on family engagement in the IEP process preparation communication and support so
it's a don't miss that's everything thanks great thank you any announcement any announcement you can do that now because because we didn't have any anything listed for committees because the major committees I don't think met this um well I want to
say that um at the fields committee meeting um April Fool's it was April Fool's Day we had students there that were far from fools um we had a group of students that presented a plan to
upgrade the garbage cans and recycling ling bins in a more environmentally strategically placed um they had a proposal which I know they went to the village council to to then you know about it they were tremendous they was
this on the fields right this was for the fields committee and they made a recommendation for vets field they analyzed it they took pictures they had drawings to say this is where the trash cans and recycling bins are but they
could be more improved locations so that they're more user friendly so that garbage doesn't overflow and they had some proposals of kinds of bins and just to say there weren't enough and every and they were asking for the support of
the different sports groups who use that field for their input on the locations they recommended and maybe some money to pay for it but I think that the fields committee was so impressed with their presentation they wanted it to not stop
at Vetsfield but let's go to um the board of education fields let's go to Haws and to to citizens and to um everywhere to Maple and to have another report i think the kids were saying "Oh wow i guess it's too much of a good
thing." They did such an amazing presentation that everybody was so impressed and they wanted them to do more because it was so wellthought out and and well done so I wanted to commend those students yeah you know for their presentation and their ideas and
hopefully there will be some additional because as a coach using these different facilities garbage does go overflowing and everything else and it makes our village look more more tidier and with it with the green initiatives and having
you know recycling there and have it more um used by people rather than everybody just throwing things in the garbage but I'm very proud of them that's great for their presentation great our students are wonderful um you know just a couple of dates for
your calendars um the 26th of April is the um Earth Day uh festival in town uh Daffodil Festival I think it's called and um uh we have a number of our high school students that are going to be
there um at uh uh through the grant that was given on uh for um environmental work so a number of our students will be there so if you happen to be um in town that day please please uh stop in is it
the 26th or is it the Sunday the 27th the Daffod Festival oh Sunday the 27th i think Sunday the 27th sunday the 27th thanks yeah thank you Mary um and then um on June 7th is uh Pride Day and there'll be
a market a little um in Venice and also at 1:00 in the afternoon they will have the ceremony and the raising of the flag uh some speeches songs so if you um happen to be in town then to um please
stop by yeah um so uh discussion items are we are we done with you something yeah you have something is coming just in time so um I have two discussion items one is
um uh we had a public comments and some discussion at the superintendent's coffee and at last meeting or the meeting before about the water and I just wanted to check uh maybe with Mr
matthews or Dr towards that the where we are we we currently are is we have water fountains in the district and the manufacturer of those water fountains makes a filter that filter can be
retrofitted or just we have a regular replacement filter program where we replace the filter so there is a newer filter that they claim to remove PAS so whether we there what is the accuracy of their claim we don't know but we've tested that it it works right so um
because there are two schools of thought one says that those filters are not good enough for everything but they claim it and we have tested it it seems to be working so but that filter cannot be fit retrofitted or that filter is not compatible with all the water fountain across the district that's only
compatible with a small portion or a small percentage and for those water fountains we are using the new filter But it's just a filter it it's a filter that takes the incoming water is coming from one side of the filter and outgoing water goes from the other side of the filter so if the machine does not take
it can we place them in the supply that goes to the water fountain like usually you have these filters that are under sink enclosures so there's a enclosure in batch like filter enclosures that they sell we can put this these filters in those filter enclosures and put that
in the same style that plumbers usually do under sink water filtration so outside the fountain so outside that machine so can we where the water where the water is going into this water fountain can we place these filters outside there will be we'll have to come
up with some um way to count the number of uh refills so maybe there's a dummy filter that is counting that and then when with that count we replace it or with a certain interval we may have a track that how often we were replacing those filters before we can follow that
schedule and replace them but if the machine does not accept these filters can we place this filter outside the machine before water gets into the machine or some sort of um a different solution that is under the sink water filtration can we place those uh to the
one stage or two stage water filtration that are outside the machine so that way we don't have to replace all the fountains so So I don't forgive me I don't remember what when you communicated this idea but for the other board members if you're not aware Mr donnie had kind of
had explored an idea that's maybe gets us without so much cost to a place where we could actually retrofit some of our other uh units involving like an external filtration system uh Mr matthews I know uh I I'd asked this week it's been a crazy week or last week was
a crazy week but I uh I asked Mr matthews to take a look at that in in some of the context there i don't know if we had a chance to do that that was the uh relation to the idea of like some different water filtration solutions so we'll circle back on that tomorrow and just make sure that we that we're exploring that possibility um it sounds
logical um if if there could be if if they could if that could actually be a middle of the road solution that would not be as costly as fully replacing all of the other water fountains then that would that would be worth considering I would think thank you and and the second one I had was I received a couple of
emails from residents about the um the fields committee meeting so the way I understand is fields committee so the way I understand the current um protocol um whether that's a written um protocol
or there a practice for past several years is board of education is the custodial of minutes there may not be written minutes but we take we record the video and we post it on board of eds YouTube channel and our website so if we
are the um in practice if we are doing acting as a custodial of the minutes for this meeting then there is a the next meeting is proposed at a location where currently um the talks are that there will be no recording or no minutes so
but if we have been doing that in the past then as that practice should we be recording it and posting it um even if there's no if I understand there's no Wi-Fi there and it cannot be broadcasted and people cannot attend remotely but as
uh so there are two parts one is live participation but if that live participation is not possible the second part is we keep the recording on our website so we are in essential like we are posting all the recordings so should we be considering
um recording and posting them on on the website and if we cannot then should we even be participating in a meeting where like what's the rationale to do it at a site which is not ADA compliant possibly
and where recording cannot be done so Mr matthews that was not at the last fields committee meeting do you have any insight for us as to the the scheduling of this meeting well the the recording came up after the meeting but I wasn't at the I wasn't a part of the conversation of of
having it at a different site do you have any insights for us oh you mean at the fields committee meeting is your speaker on is your mic front off yeah at the meeting they're sorry changing the location of the venue i don't I don't recall that coming up
you It is here it's here i have the agenda from that meeting and it's under um afternoon business and it does say next meeting date is going to be at the Shedler property um at 8 a.m in-person meeting you know
they told us to wear boots it's very it might be very muddy and they explained that because of what Mr said the um Wi-Fi would not be available to have that meeting broadcast as the other meetings are right so broadcast is one
part this is just a oneoff because it's changing I think to see shed I'm due to the field meeting so I know that Shedler property the development of that property has been an ongoing topic and I think that maybe they wanted to go there
in person you know for the fields to see the location perhaps they did not explain in great detail why they wanted to do it in person there um that's fine so that's that they may explain or they may not explain as a board of ed
representative uh my question is that if the school board has been documenting the meeting in the past and um archiving the minutes on our website then and is that a mandatory requirement to do that or is that just past practices that's my
question um so what that if if it is not required are should we be even doing it and if we have been doing it and if we are deviating from that have we explored why
I think that the parks and wreck the way that the meetings the parks and wreck um Mary you I have more history they set the ag they are the no we are equal partners came out village of Rididgewood is the letterhead but I know that the um
board of ed the board of ed is equal partner on on that wait my question just the your question was why are we maintaining the minutes now my question is I'm assuming based on the past practice that we are the custodials of the minutes because we have been
maintaining them on our website for past several years or right so that's an assumption unless somebody says that we should not be doing it we are doing that into that and ask you know maybe we could use a recording and we could have just a recording without a visual that's
what I'm asking that's right i don't I mean I'm assum I don't know what their plan is there is the house there i don't know if they have tables and chairs if they they did not say because it was at the end if they are going to have a full
agenda and full discussions i mean when we have meetings it's quite extensive in the things that they say but this they didn't give the details how they plan to implement it but I don't see why we couldn't have brought a reporting of something to record it and just have an
audio version of the discussion i don't think that would work well as they walk around and look at the grounds that that's fine so but the discussion but when we are so I from the perception when we are saying that what they want fields committee is a joint committee
between board of education and village of Rwood so it cannot just be a decision by the director of parks and rec it has to be an equal direct decision with the business administrator of board of education and Mr matthews is equally
part of that committee if you read the bylaws of that committee the how that committee is structured that's my understanding i may be wrong because I read it long time ago so um but if that's an equal committee if Mr matthews is part of that decision which is board of board
secretary and business administrator i'm asking here that as a board of education um if there has been past practice to record a meeting and broadcast it and hold it at an ADA compliant location if we are deviating from are we ready to
deviate as a board from all three of those or can we at least record it and post the minutes uh or post the recording well Mary Lou I'm gonna I'm gonna look into it i will speak with Nancy Beos tomorrow and ask her if that Mr richard
Matthews question it's it's not Nancy that's that's what I'm trying to highlight that this meeting is a joint meeting and we cannot rely on respectfully with Miss Beos that we cannot be relying on uh village manager or Nancy Beos to be directing what what
board of Mr matthews needs to be doing we'll find I can find out what the plan is are they going to have other discussions that has to come from him also okay then I that's what I'm saying that he's equal equal we need to be equal part of that meeting as per the current bylaws of that meeting so
committee for what it's worth um I've never been the rap on the fields committee but I've listened to a couple of them and I remember there was discussion at the committee back in 2024 so before Mary Lou was the representative when Miss Clack was the
representative where there was a discussion at the field committee about going to Shedler for some reason to have the meeting so that's just some information as to the fact that um you know at some point I guess we were aware
like I remember hearing something about that um but I I I can't tell you exactly how that decision was made and I understand that your question is maybe less about that and more about how do we make sure that we have it um properly recorded and and um communicated to the
community right okay but I just wanted to give you that background because that's something that's been like the idea of it and this is me listening not uh consistently for a while to be honest with you but that it was something that was discussed for like a couple months like before before 2025 yeah so three
points three points were brought to my attention on that meeting one is that it may not be ADA compliant because people are being asked to park far away because it's not paved the building itself may be but the parking and approach to that may not be so that's one question but maybe they can come back and say that
all participants u they asked the participants and they don't need that meeting to be ad compliant which I don't know if it's okay or not but the second can be okay this does not need to be Wi-Fi compatible so people who attended currently remotely there are a lot of members who remotely attend even the
members of the fields committee not you the audience right because they have worked so they may not be able to attend so may you can come back fields committee can come back and say okay we have asked those members and they are okay not attending it so for those two um I don't have much to say but on the
part of keeping the minutes or recording it and posting the minutes online I don't understand why board of ed cannot do that if we are equal participant in that meeting if we have been doing that all along so oh I was just going to go ahead i'm sorry i was just going to say
I just pulled up the uh the field committee policy which we're working to revise right now and it it isn't really entirely clear exactly what the requirements are there's not there isn't a requirement for recording meetings or live streaming meetings it doesn't even say anything actually about taking minutes but then there's statements that
imply that like things are going to be recorded for the meeting meaning meeting meaning like into the records like it also says that a big part of the committee is to hear community concerns like that's actually specifically written in there um I know Miss Corass uh signaled to me that she wanted to share something here so before I say
anything else Miss Corus can you just grab a microphone miss Corlo of course our public information officer helps out with a lot of these communications thank you i asked if I could speak because this to me goes under the no good deed goes unpunished category the
meetings were not ever posted to a website until I came to Ridgewood and I felt like if they were recording them I'd might as well share them so there is no requirement it was just me trying to be a communicator and since we had them
share them the minutes are posted before I came on board i don't know what caused the change they were maintained on the village website um both the agenda and the minutes we did not maintain them here something happened right when I
came on board and it became my job to do that um I believe that the village also post the agenda but we post the minutes but the recording was totally a volunteer try to be nice option it was not anything required so I just wanted
to be able to share a little bit of that history with you so maybe we could just ask um Mr matthews just to see how you want to run it it is not unusual i mean I know when I was on parks and wreck it wasn't
unusual sometimes we change the venue and we went to Health Barn to to look at some aspect of um a programs that they were going to run uh the the barn in disrepair that
they were talking about at that point tearing down so it's not unu I don't think it's an unusual thing to to look at a site but why don't um the two of you just uh get get some information
about how I'll give a call tomorrow i was at the meeting to the end 30 minutes past the end of the meeting i did I didn't recall getting that hearing that but I got caught by another person in between that's why I missed that last piece okay great thank you
um we'll um move then to comments did you have any discussion on We'll move to comments from the public i don't Are you the only public out there okay so um if there's there are some uh on remote
here so Anna Annie I can't see that last sorry um you're on with the board good evening this is Ann Loving can you hear me oh thank you Ann sorry I
couldn't see your full name there ann Loving Ridgewood resident thank you as always for the opportunity to speak remotely first of all regarding the threatening incident of today Dr schwarz seemed to basically
brush this off as a non-event people were terrified what I really did not understand tonight is that Dr schwarz seemed to direct people toward your upcoming coffee at which you will answer all questions this really confuses me
because while on the one hand you're saying that this was all basically a hoax on the other hand you're saying you'll answer questions at your coffee why didn't you answer questions tonight uh one of the parents who was in person you know was really asking a lot of
questions i don't have children in the Ridgewood school system but I was on edge all day and after your commentary this evening Dr schwarz I still feel very much on edge on another subject of safety I
would like to thank Mr donnie for always doing the right thing he is solutionoriented and he has an idea about the water fountains at the previous board of ed meeting Dr schwarz described the cost of putting POS filters on all the school water
fountains as exorbitant exorbitant is a subjective adjective and I state without hesitation that safe drinking water is a necessity to heck with the expense you guys have plenty of money and you're spending it
on subjective things like lighting on a board on a village property for example again I appreciate that Mr donnie had a good idea of a way of doing this i don't even know what you mean by exorbitant
you haven't even said the price but moreover at the meeting two weeks ago or last week Dr schwarz said he defended the decision not to put filters on all the fountains by saying that the science is not clear about the effects of
forever chemicals on the body that's a direct quote from Dr wars from a highly educated man i am flabbergasted that this statement was made when documented effects of PFAS include high cholesterol
liver disease asthma newborn deaths low birth weight cancer hormone disruptions thyroid problems interference with vaccine effectiveness reproductive harm abnormal fetal development to name some our students and our school employees
deserve better safety from terroristic threats safety from dangerous water you got to get it together and lead this Ridgewood public school system more effectively and make all of us feel safer and regarding the water I have two
questions the first is are there water fountains in the ed center and if so do they have filters and the second is is bottled water being provided at the ed center for employees thank you for allowing me to
speak thank you Amy you're on with the board hi Amy McCambridge resident um I just want to go like uh back on the shedler um and Donnie again thank you so much for
actually making us feel like we're being heard um that's not just me that's coming from a bunch of residents and I really thank you for that even if you don't agree I feel like you are taking us seriously on very serious issues um the woman I don't remember your name I'm
so sorry who just spoke before and said you were doing us a favor by trying to be nice by videoing these um you know these meetings for us like that's you're you're trying to be nice if you didn't video them there'd be
zero transparency um which is ironic because there's like not really any now even with the video stuff like they're not available for us to see till days later but with the Shedler property right now it's um you know thanks to the village
uh council there's 24 million pounds of contaminated soil there so contaminated that the NJT will not come in right now because it's not deemed uh safe enough for them to even come in so I don't get
like you talk about the health barn and going there and celebrating like there's nothing to celebrate about having the field meeting at Shedler uh one you're exposing everybody to all the contaminants there that uh our village council said there were none um we're
celebrating a park that was purchased with grants and you know I hope they do the Sorry I do you guys so bad because that village was the property was purchased for $2.7 million with grants from the Bergen County Open Space Trund
uh fund whose whole program is to foster environmental stewardship and ensuring public spaces endure for generations to come which Rididgewood is in direct violation of this so for the fields people to go there have their meeting um in a place that they contaminated
destroyed every living thing there and then not have it be live streamed and then now you telling us that you're doing us a favor is it's insanity to me like it just it's again it's crazy not just to me but to everyone else um it
just seems like nobody cares the village council nor the school board at all when it comes to the healthy uh to the health of our children you talk about uh terroristic threats you know coming from from in the school whether you know it
seemed this was a prank and whatnot but what you're doing is also when you're poisoning water that's domestic terrorism in itself when you're poisoning the soil and the ground and everything we need to survive that is a form of terrorism um that's where our
enemies would go to i was a Marine my you know my husband you know served overseas a combat veteran um that's the main way they attack us and it's it's just absolutely heartbreaking for these kids that were literally getting attacked by the people meant to protect
us so the whole Shedler thing makes no sense you guys should cancel the meeting there because it's so contaminated instead it's celebrating something that should never be celebrated it's an overuse of power a misuse of grants and
I'm digging in to hold everyone I can accountable from James Toesco who gave you the grant to the state and everything else um but you shouldn't be celebrating this and you're not doing us any favors i can live stream the meeting from from my platform uh so the public
can know what's going on so I'm happy to do that i also have a panel coming in i've been working with Mount Cyani um and Keith Fischer from Natural Fields um are looking to have that panel May 1st i'll keep you all informed on it thank you
thank you void phone hi boy loving Ridgewood thank you so much for hearing me tonight sure i would like to uh thank Mr donnie for bringing up the subject of the fields committee meeting that is scheduled to be held on the Shedler property on May 6th i was
one of the ones who wrote to Mr donnie and expressed my concerns about it um as Mr donnie indicated it has been traditionally the board of education that has taken the effort to live stream these meetings to zoom them so that
people who are unable to attend in person can participate there are many members of the fields committee themselves who are at work uh and who are participating early in the morning before their workday starts having it at
a location where it is unable to be livereamed will prevent those people from coming or make it extremely inconvenient for them to have to go in person and then go to work so I asked why can't it be live streamed the answer
that I was given by the village was well there is no Wi-Fi at the location when I asked why a hotspot couldn't be used with a single laptop I did not get a straight answer so that's the question that I now pose to the board of
education people can conduct Zooms from buses and trains why can't a Zoom call be originated from a location where there is no Wi-Fi it is easy you put in a hotspot or use somebody's smartphone
it's a simple thing we're not talking about constructing a multi-million dollar IT infrastructure to handle this one meeting let us get it together your budget is over $100 million for the for the school district can somebody figure
out how to make a Zoom from that location in the absence of Wi-Fi i think the answer is yes but somebody has to agree to do it why the board of education wouldn't agree to do it when you've been doing it for the past 18
months I don't know so let us please try to figure it out so that a zoom can be ha handled from that location people who can people can participate who can't be there and the public can have some insight as to what's going on as Amy's just said it's all about transparency
let's keep that transparency going and by the way I do not believe that that facility is ADA compliant there is no paved parking lot people who are attending the meeting have been told that they have to park on the street so I'm not even sure that it is legal to
have a public meeting at that location and I would hope that Mr matthews checks into that too thank you so much have a good evening everyone thank you Cynthia you're on with the board good evening cynthia O'Keefe Rididgewood
resident um you know listening to you know some of the parents speak tonight about safety and how afraid they you know were by the email and you know concern over their children's safety you know it really eclipses all of the other
things that we talk about because safety really should be the number one priority and I fully endorse Chief Lions and the SRO program i think you know not having to share resources and you know put kids
at risk you know obviously this from what you said was a um you know an unfortunate incident being a hoax but you know what if it's not one day and you know let's not join the list long list growing list of communities that
are dealing with you know tragedies god forbid you know anything like that ever happened in our beautiful community um you know let's prioritize the right things you know everybody was very quick to say yes to field lighting um because
you know Ridgewood is viewed as a sports community but we're prioritizing things that it's really a concern especially in light of what happened um you know having field lighting isn't going to be
a consolation if something terrible happens so let's put our thinking caps on you know you have this mission statement and all these great things strategic plans and things you talked about with student engagement this evening you know we went on and on for a
very long period of time at tonight's meeting those things are great but when you grow up and you know you become an adult in a community that isn't prioritizing things that are taking care you know well-being into account I'm
confused um with regard to the fields committee meeting and Shedler um Siobhan Winrad who's the uh village council liaison specifically said and Mary Lou you may remember this she specifically said the reason they were having the
meeting at the Shedler House was to um invite the sports groups in because they would be a potential user of the house and she wanted to invite them there to engage ideas and um I guess have a back
and forth um I thank Mr donnie for bringing up the topic i think you know that meeting you know obviously Shedler is a hot button it's a contentious topic um you know there are many people in the community that are concerned about it uh
Mary Lou you're a neighbor i'm a neighbor in that community one thing that we have to take into consideration is that meeting is 8:00 in the morning there's school bus pickup and drop off and all these people who may be attending and there may be many um you
know will be parking on the street during a time when kids are getting on the school bus so that's something to think about safety you know we talked about Glenn School and all the activity that's going on and how to protect the kids and um you know get in and out uh
let's do the same with the Shedler neighbors you know people are speeding off of Route 17 it's a dangerous area we've had three children hit by cars as I've said numerous times um in terms of PAS and artificial turf um I know Dr
schwarz you had mentioned and you know maybe I'm pretty sure I was very clear I'm a good listener um that I was clear you said it was going to be a natural playing surface but at the fields committee meeting they specifically said that they are looking into having
artificial turf on that property so I'm a little concerned about the mixed messaging and perhaps at some point uh I can't make it to your coffee but either at this meeting or the next meeting you know it'd be great if you could address um why there's so much confusion over
whether it's grass or turf um seems emphatic you know at one meeting and then the train is going off the tracks at another so uh if we could please clear that up it'd be great thank you last three numbers of your telephone are
321 331 maybe sorry about that i'm seeing it sideways so sorry but you're on the on the um on with the board 331 is that what you're saying
telephone number ending in 331 hi yes uh this is Melissa a Ridgewood resident um I just wanted to echo what many of the parents have already commented on tonight in lie of today's very serious
security threat we really need to start prioritizing SRO's in these schools all the surrounding towns have them and there's no reason why Ridgewood can't with a$100 million
budget i mean again we spent $80,000 on softball lights my daughter's a maroon soccer player she loves her coaches she loves the team but her safety is the number one priority and we really need
to prioritize our children's safety because today's threat was so scary i had to keep an 8-year-old home today that's how scared I was so I really think we need
to start prioritizing the SRO's in every elementary school every middle school and the high school thank you thank you thank you and um that was the end of public
comment i will close public comment um I don't know if you would like to acknowledge anything or Yeah sure just just uh just appreciate everybody coming out and sharing all their concerns i know that these are topics that kind of there's a kind of an
undertone of of of concern and concern for safety and health and all of them and I certainly understand that those are those are impactful and important um I don't I don't think I'm going to necessarily satisfy everybody's concern with the response but I just appreciate everybody's time our IT team did look at uh trying to come up with a solution uh
that was offsite uh but it's true that without Wi-Fi uh they couldn't guarantee without knowing much about the signal there either they couldn't guarantee the ability to provide reliable service tomorrow so that's was their concern um I think that if we can't put something together for tomorrow I think we're they're going to have to just take this
as a one-off um it sounds to me like lots of folks in the queue oh I'm sorry my calendar that's great then we have a little more time great all right so maybe so we'll see we'll see if there's some other solution but I'm just concerned that a phone or a hotspot if it doesn't get a sufficient
cell phone signal is not is going to is going to pro provide frustration with unreliable service so but we'll we will we'll follow up and see if we can do more with that um and then I would just say you know I my my invitation to folks to join me at the superintendent coffee is because of
the format it's not about being able to I it's not like I can say it's not like I can speak differently there than here it's just that I can we can actually engage and have a conversation that's my point about it so again with all these these these are all conversations and I would really like to just have them in
the context of the coffee i mean if for some reason there's any statements or any any individuals who have such concerns and they'd like to just sit and have a conversation in person too I mean I I certainly would make a if someone's willing to take so much time to come and join us at our meetings here I would be
happy to make time uh for them as well in my office as well so maybe we can do something like that great thank you this concludes uh the meeting and I move um to adjourn the meeting do I have a
second all in favor i I great uh we are back as I said on Monday April 28th uh for our um meeting on the