Got that guy here, right? Yeah. Attention on this based on what I saw. We'll call the meeting to order. Please join me in a flag salute and pledge of allegiance.
I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Pursuant to the rep,
sorry about that. 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.
Good evening everyone and um we'll start with um get a roll call. Dr. uh pardon me. A roll call. Sorry. Yes, Mr. Donnie. here. Miss Andy here. Miss McCalli
here. Mr. Lakmood here. Miss Broen here. Fire presidents. So we'll start with we want to start with the information. Uh good evening everyone. I hope you're
well. Hope everyone's having a great uh great start to their their school year. We're already in October. That is very hard to believe. Uh we have some as part of my superintendent report. We'll talk a little bit about some of the presentations that we're going to give. But today, we just wanted to uh give acknowledgement. We have uh memorialized
in the agenda um students at Rididgewood Public Schools, Rididgewood High School, who have been recognized by the National Merit Program. Oh, I'm sorry, it's the wrong one. Thank you. So, we just wanted to put them put their names up on the screen here so that folks at home could see them as well and
offer our congratulations. Uh, we had five students who were designated semi-finalists. Um, but if you're not familiar, students who take the PSAT also then qu take the qualifying test for the National Merit Program. Uh, this is a very prestigious program. 1.3 million students take the
take the take the test and we've had uh a record number percentage of students uh be recognized in recent history this year. So, congratulations to all of our students. Uh, their hard work is appreciated and it's been it's uh it's it's obvious to everyone here. So, congrats to everyone.
And now we'll go to our uh presentations. We have a recognition of the Ashby Award in tradition of excellent winners. Yes, it is my great pleasure to uh to introduce some of our uh recipients here today. Um we have with us first of all
um uh Mr. uh Michael Yenon. I was going to give a round of applause for Mr. Yon. Right. Uh Mr. Yon, could you mind coming up and joining us here? Yeah. Yeah. So, Mr. Mr. Yon was honored at the beginning of the school year. Uh we were
very blessed to uh to have um at our convocation we had a wonderful awards ceremony where we recognized Mr. Yon and we recognized the many different uh comments uh and and um praise and accolades that he got in his nomination. Mr. Yon is a social studies teacher at
the high school. He also was recognized for his tremendous service to the the REA as the president for was it 20 years? I believe the REA felt like 20. No, felt like 20 years. uh 13 13 well it's still quite a few years so we're very very grateful for Mr. Younone
for his time and his service and for all that he's done. Uh the Ashby Award is an award that has been with the district for quite some time. It is a very prestigious award. It is really the the award the uh the most prestigious award that we give. Um there's a robust nomination committee that consists of educators uh and representatives
throughout the district. there's a nomination process that starts with colleagues and peers and parents and uh and we're very blessed uh to to be be able to honor Mr. Younone here this evening. So Mr. Yoan, thank you so much for being here. Uh and I believe you have a few words that you would want to share. Would you mind?
Sure. Uh so I mean first I just know how lucky I am. So thank thank you first off for this award. Um I would like to mention a few people. Um so during my career who I was fortunate enough and lucky enough to work alongside um and the history
teacher in me knows that the that you know the pro I'm the product right of those that I interact with. Um and I'm smart enough to know how lucky I was to work in a social studies department for the last 29 years that was just stacked with teachers. Um it was an ashby factory actually. Um so over my 29 years
in that department I was fortunate enough to work with Helen Esanites, Jane Blakeley, Charlene Dixon, John Donville, Laura Fleming, Maine um all previous Ashby winners um all who taught me the value of collegiality um the importance
of teaching uh what I am so the importance of teaching what I am so fortunate to be able to teach. Um and it's a bit surreal to be kind of like mentioned in their ranks. Um when I started in Rididgewood back in 1997, my first day of paid summer orientation was
in this building sitting next to Jeff Nyas. Yeah. Um and through talking with Jeff and through a series of hockey plays, I don't know how I don't know if you remember this. Um through a series of hockey plays, he taught me before I ever set foot in a classroom how to connect with kids
outside of it. Um and so I feel like I should mention mention Jeff. I mean there was Greg Woo, right? also my first year um trying to just stay afloat and it was Greg who taught me the proper role of humor and that humor has a place in the classroom and has a humor with
has a place with colleagues um so I'm grateful and thankful to him and over the last several years I mean it was Laura Graasso right Laura Graasso emulates service to others um above self like no one I have ever met like right now like as I'm sitting here she is running a zoom for REA members about
health insurance um so that idea idea of service above self is something I try to bring in my daily life. Uh so again I am very lucky to have been able to work with these master teachers. Um so thank you. Um and then lastly I mean there are
mentors and then there are mentors. Um so it's it is with great certainty that I can say that I would not be sitting here right now if it was not for me Schaefer. Um it was Meg who taught me how to think across disciplines. Um it what it meant to be a colleague and a friend. Meg was an English teacher. from
a social studies teacher. That normally does not make sense, but it just made perfect sense in my case. Um, most importantly, it was in Meg's apartment uh my first Friday in Rididgewood where I met Meredith. Um, and so Meredith is everything, right? I'm a model in
compassion, empathy, selflessness. It's evident in that her wisdom and guidance is sought after by many, and I am the luckiest person alive to have her as a constant by my side. I mean, simply put, Rididgewood has enabled me to do what I love with the person I love the most.
And it's for that blessing that I am most grateful. So, thank you. So, again, I just wanted to thank you for this award. I thank you to all my colleagues who who thought enough of me to nominate me for this. It is incredibly humbling. Um, and so, thank you. Yes, just thank you.
And Mr. You know, before we go and we'll give him one last round of applause. I just wanted to read a couple of excerpts uh that we put together for acknowledging him uh when we gave um we gave him the award this year, but there are a lot of really great great commentary uh from his colleagues. Um some of the things that we heard were um
beyond beyond Mr. Yoan's classroom, he's been an entireless advocate and an invaluable leader. He's been a constant voice of reason, working collaboratively with both staff and administration to find solutions and guide the district through challenging times. He was described uh as consistently someone
who's an ally and a problem solver. Someone who's always there providing advice, answering questions, and standing up for the rights of countless faculty members. But what truly sets him apart is his character and the genuine care his genuine care for others. He's described as the epitome of a
professional, a person with a strong moral compass and an unwavering ethical standards. He approaches every interaction with a calming presence. He listens deeply and treats everyone, students, parents, and colleagues alike, with the utmost respect. He never seeks credit for his great work and instead uh
humbly gives all credit to others. So many, many very fine things said about Mr. Gino and I won't read every single one of them here because I'm sure he's already very uncomfortable. But thank you so much for for coming out. We really really appreciate it. It's been and I could say just just as an individual level, we've had a chance to
work together for a few years uh in your role particularly uh as president of the REA and I just uh really have so appreciated your collegiality and your ability to work together. So thank you so much. Can you stick around for a minute, too? We're going to give you a round of applause, but then we'd love to uh snap a picture with you if you if you want to
hang out for a few baseball game, but okay. All right. And a round of applause for Mr. You know. Yeah, if I might, Mike, I I I too had the opportunity many times to work with alongside you, and I appreciate um all
that you did for the teachers union in being their advocate, but also for being just a stand-up person all the time, really telling it like it was and is. And um I will miss all of your great speeches uh at um the various ceremonies
throughout the day. 50 minutes of speech onto the high school. You know, you you've always um done such a good job in terms of the reality of the teaching profession, what we need to do to move forward and and working
within this district. So I you know, I've really appreciated this. I hope you continue to be a teacher here in the district for many years to come. Go. Thank you. You great. Thank you, Mr. You know,
what I had to say this. So, Dr. Suarez, you actually kind of provoked me to say this and it was actually it was something you said about him being humble. Um, so the Ashby Award when you, you know, Meredith
knew ahead of time just like I did and we had to keep it quiet and you know, of course she was like wondering what he was going to wear. So that Sheila, you said he does it he normally wears what he wears now, maybe a jacket for speaking at the uh, you know, the
convocation. So Mike came in in his shorts and his Ridgewood sweatshirt as Mike Yon would and uh but it was something he said when he received the award and this is who this is who he is. He said the wrong you known won this
award and um that is Michael Yenon um because Meredith is also very very deserving and and he he really emulates the best of Rididgewood High School. So congratulations And next, it is my pleasure to invite up
our tradition of excellence a winner, which is an award that goes to uh is a is a companion award to the Ashby Award, and it recognizes one of our support professionals in the buildings. And this year's winner is Terry Caliando. Miss
Caliando, can you come on up? So again, uh the the uh the uh tradition of exc the um tradition of excellence award uh is follows a similar process to the award for um for the Ashby award uh in that there's nominations. There's a
very rigorous screening process. there's a committee very confidential committee that goes through and evaluates all the pro the candidates and all the applications and all the nominations um and uh and Terry was a part was uh being represented um among a field of very qualified folks but again I would love
to just read some of the things uh that that that that folks said about Terry um so uh so in part I'll read a part of my speech here because it encapsulates a few of those things that we read with the staff this year so we said Terry's uh has been with the district for 13
years. She embodies the heart and soul and quiet strength of Benjamin Franklin Middle School. This person is one of the rare individuals is felt by everyone even though she works so humbly and quietly behind the scenes. Sorry, I'm cutting out there.
You borrow uh but the full extent of what she does can sometimes go unnoticed. But with this person, the school simply will not run the way that it does. So whether it's a student who needs a safe place to land, a staff member trying to figure out Skyward or Real Time, or a child study team member working through an emotionally charged meeting, uh, Miss
Caliendo is there, steady, calm, compassionate, and extraordinarily capable. What sets her apart is not just how hard she works, though her work ethic is unmatched, but how deeply she cares. She knows our students by name. She remembers their stories. She creates an environment in the guidance office
that serves as a refuge for students on their toughest days. And she does all of this while managing a myriad of complex, sensitive, and confidential tasks with a level of professionalism and precision that is simply exceptional. She's a go-to person with warmth, kindness, and
a steady presence. And she makes she uh has genuine compassion for all students and an unwavering sense of respect. So, Terry, thank you so much for your service. Congratulations on the award. and we'd love to give you an opportunity to say a few words. I don't have a uh
articulate beautiful speech, Mr. Yunown, but like do my best. Um, thank you again. Um, as I said at the convocation, I landed at BF over 20 years ago and it's been home ever since. Um, and I'd like to give a special thank you to all
my colleagues who wrote in these incredibly kind and humbling words about me. and I'm so proud to share every school day with all of them and all of you. It's a pleasure to work here. Thank you, Miss Caliando. If if you all wouldn't mind, if you want
to come up, we'll take some pictures together if that's okay. Thank you. So then Yeah, that's a by this uh student uh rep report. And yes, at this time I would like to turn it over to our student representatives who are going to give a
report from Rididgewood High School. Hi, I'm Violet Batley. I'm a junior at the high school and I'm one of the four student representatives. So, I'll start off the report tonight. Um, from September 15th to October 15th, the Learning Commons is exploring the
cultures um of Hispanic Americans through books because it is Hispanic Heritage Month. Um, on Monday, September 22nd, the Princeton Review editor-inchief, Rob Franic, came to the high school to give a presentation to parents of seniors about building a
college list and appealing to admissions officers. On Tuesday, September 23rd, the district was closed for Rashashana. And on Wednesday, September 24th, was the 12th grade parent meeting at the campus center at the high school. Um on
Monday, September 29th was the virtual financial aid meeting. Um also primarily for 12th grade families. And also Monday the 29th was the ALISA um program which stands for American history with
integrated study in the arts along with the AP African-American studies visited the Met during the school day. So it was a nice break from classes and field trip. Um on Thursday, October 2nd, the school was closed for Yam Kapoor.
And on Monday, October 13th, school will also be closed. Um it's a professional development day for teachers, but closed for students for indigenous people's day. On Wednesday, October 15th is the 9th grade parent meeting, which is primarily for um freshman like
transitions and talking about how their children are transitioning into the high school. On Monday, October 20th, school is also closed for Dewali. Um, and the Ridgewood High School Alumni Association announced the 2025 distinguished alumni
to be honored during homecoming weekend, which will be October 18th. So, this honor celebrates alumni who have made significant contributions to society through their individual talents, professional developments, and community service. Um, an example of some people
who are going to be honored, um, are Peter Ror, who is a renowned dog rescue advocate, and Dog is my co-pilot founder. Um, another example is Kim Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Learner Studio.
So, Homecoming 2025 is the week of October 13th with events through the week leading up to the big game on October 17th. And October 17th, um the high school would like everybody to show their maroon pride by either wearing the 2025 homecoming shirt, which was being
sold, or any other Ridgewood shirt. And lastly, parent honors for 2026 senior yearbooks and Monday, October 20th. And that's for any parent who would like to feature a special message from them to their child. Um Aro is going to take
over with clubs and activi athletics. Thank you, Violet. Um, my name's Arv. I'm now going to go into clubs and athletics. Um, on September 18th, girls varsity soccer had senior night where they took photos with family, showed off their senior posters, and had a game
which they won 3-1 against Pamis. On Super Soccer Saturday, which was this weekend on October 4th, uh the girls soccer team also won against Bergen Techch 7-2, bringing their overall record to 64-1. On September 18th, it was announced that
members of the Ridgewood crew team, Oliver Illan Schneider, Sam Sharenberg, and Michael Scop made the US rowing scholastic honor role, while Matthew Mumji received an honorable mention. Um, this award recognizes high school seniors who have excelled in both
academics and rowing. Applicants must have rode or cocked at least one year and successfully competed at or above the regional level. On Friday the 19th, the marching band performed a preview of their show Voyage on the RHS field. Um,
on the 20th, they were the opening act for Ridgewood's first annual Porchfest, a community music festival festival where neighbors turn their porches into stages. On the 26th, 65 seventh and eighth graders from BF and GW middle
schools joined the marching band in rehearsing for and playing at the Friday night football game. That was the 15th annual seventh and eighth grade marching band night. Um, now the marching band has an exciting competition season coming up with a performance at Metife
on the 18th uh and a bands of America regional competition at the University of Delaware on October 25th. On September 21st, the girls tennis team earned third place overall in counties. Making it to the finals was uh making it
to the semi-finals was second singles Daria Bakshiva and second doubles Juliet Edittois and Mila Crane. Third singles Ana Lambert also made it to the finals. Uh with such a strong season so far, the team had a buy in the first round of the state tournament. But tomorrow, October
7th, uh is the section 1 group 4 state tournament quarterfinal against Fairlon for the tennis team. On Wednesday, September 24th, Latin club students brought history to life by creating clay models of mythological and historical figures, engaging in a new hands-on
approach to classical learning. On the 26th, the varsity football team held its annual teacher appreciation game, nominating more nominating more than 30 teachers to be thanked and recognized. On October 4th, the football team had a game against our rival Hackinack, where
they dominated with a final score of 20 to6. The team's next game is Friday, October 17th against Northern Highlands. The RHS Green Club, led by AP environmental science teacher Mr. Blue has been quite active this year, leading an RHS campus cleanup on Saturdays,
September 27th, and running campus biodiversity surveys in which they identified and documented pl do documented plants and wildlife around RHS. Also on the 27th, Project Interact, Rididgewood High School's chapter of AM Rotary, held their monthly food drive on
the 27th. About 20 students took part by sorting food at the high school and collecting donations at Stop and Shop and proceeds will be donated to the Father English Community Center in Patterson. On the 28th, over 80 Project Interact members joined forces with the American
Legion Auxiliary to prepare for the annual Gold Star family ceremony in Vaness Square. The event honors families who have lost loved ones in active duty service. and I actually had the pleasure of attending the event, helping with setup and representing Rididgewood High School students.
On September 30th, students launched the Asian Festival season with their first meeting to organize the annual potluck, which will be held tomorrow. The last boys varsity soccer game was on October 4th against Bergen Techch. They won 3 0 and now stand with a 5-3 record and
their next game is this Wednesday against Hackinch. Throughout last week, the American Sign Language Club hosted a chalk the walk for deaf awareness. They covered sidewalks with vibrant ASL signs, inspiring quotes, and powerful reminders
about accessibility and inclusion. And last, but certainly not least, on October 7th, which is tomorrow, Varsity Cheer is hosting its no cook night fundraiser at Tito's Burritos from 5 to 9:00 p.m. So, it's a great chance to grab dinner and support the team. Thank
you. Yeah, I just I just want to build off what Dr. Schwarz said earlier about the National Merit Scholarships and highlight that Grace Arv and Ryan were all commended students for that. So, congratulations
to them. Well, thank you for that fantastic report, Eli. Thank you for that highlight. Thank you. Okay, we're open for uh comments from the public if there are any here.
If you could just um state your name and your municipality and um if you could keep your comments to four minutes or less, that would be great. No problem. Thank you. Um good evening. My name is Emily Cathkart. Um, my family's in the Willer district and my daughter attends the
RISE program at Ridge Elementary. Um, I'm here tonight to express my Can you hear? Okay, thank you. I'm here tonight to express um some parent concerns regarding staffing at the um Ridge Rise program. Um, specifically the class
sizes in the program a lot of the parents and I I think um staff feel are far too large. Um, so I would respectfully ask that the board considering hiring another teacher. Um, on a personal note, it pains me to ask this because I just adore our daughter's
teacher and I realize if another teacher is hired, there's of course a risk that our kid our child could be transferred to another class. Um, that said, I think these addressing these large class sizes is still the right thing to do. Um, because it would allow the the RISE program to be what it's supposed to be
for my daughter and her peers. Um, so the Ridgewood website, it describes RISE as a comprehensive ABA program that provides highly structured, systematic, and individualized programming for students. That language also appears in my my daughter's IEP and I'm sure other
students IEPs as well. Um, and that really sums up the purpose of the RISE program. Our children are placed in the program because the districts determined that the least restrictive environment available to them still requires them to be in a small, highly structured one-on-one controlled environment. Um,
so at Ridge, there's currently three RISE teachers, each with their own class. Uh, my daughter's class has eight students, and I believe the other two classes have nine students. Um, now for a general education neurotypical class, that might seem small, but for for these students, that's pretty unwieldy. um for
what's supposed to be a small again highly structured systematic classroom. Um I understand if I understand it correctly the way the program is coded by regulation the class size could be like 9 to 12. Um but in reality these classes are ABA classes composed largely
if not entirely of autistic children. Um and the regulations governing those types of classes cap class sizes at I think six or eight if I'm not mistaken. Um so why are these large class sizes a problem? Um well first the large size lends itself to a chaotic classroom
which prevents teachers and students from focusing on again that highly structured systematic in individualized programming they're supposed to be getting. Um I understand the stimulation from having eight children in my daughter's class can be overwhelming at times. One child gets disregulated or
frustrated, it can kind of trigger an effect and multiple others get upset and it's chaotic quickly. I know from personal experience, uh, so I have the the one daughter who's autistic and a younger daughter as well, and if the younger one gets upset, you know, hurts herself or throws a tantrum or what have
you. Um, depending on the day, my older daughter might just lose it really quickly just because of her sensitivities or how she's feeling that day, whatever. Um, and that's, you know, with her own sister in her own home where she feels the most comfortable place she has in the world. So, I can't imagine how crazy it would be being in a
class with seven other children who all have various sensitivities and vocal stems, communication abilities, energy levels, etc. Um, second, having a large class size leaves no wiggle room if there's a student who comes into the district from out of district and then
needs to attend the RISE program at Rididgewood. um in which case that as I understand it you would just have to accommodate that student and in the RISE program then their aid therefore absorbing two additional students into the RISE classroom further exacerbating the problem. Um third I think our
teachers just need more support um because of the high needs of our children these RISE teachers are so much more than teachers to our families. Um they're partners with us in addressing behavioral and emotional issues. they I know from personal experience can
complete pages and pages of a forms every time our child goes to a new doctor or even just needs a refill on a prescription that they're already getting. Um they help us brainstorm how we can improve our child's sleep or their eating or their attitude so the child can access their school programming better when they're at
school. Um now I'm not speaking for every parent of course but the parents that I've spoken to all adore their children's teachers. Um, so we just want to make sure that we're supporting them right now because they're so important to our children and families and I think they sense they're they're drinking from
a bit of a fire hose. Is that my am my getting clocked off? All right, I'll wrap up really quickly. Um, uh, just by again by placing our students in the RISE program, the districts agreed to provide that one-on-one small groupoup learning environment to help our kiddos thrive. Um, and I think that
the RISE program is something to be so proud of in this district and I'm so excited to be here and proud of the program. Um, so I would just ask the board to invest in it so that we can do right by our kids, make sure that they, the support staff and the teachers have
the support that they need. Thank you. Hi uh Lynn Benson and Rididgewood. Um so good evening and um congratulations uh on your award which is amazing and to Miss Collando. I know she's left but that was really touching
to see these awards um given so welld deserved. Um, so I've been in the mental health um, arena and advocate and supporting the social emotional needs of students within our district for over a decade. Uh this is back in the day when
uh Regina Botszford was the assistant superintendent and I'm very much looking forward to hearing the update on later school start time and grateful that our district made this change, one that directly supports the most basic physical and mental health needs of our
teens and in some cases can be lifesaving. I've shared this before um and I'm I want to share it again. as a teen uh while balancing academics. Um I experienced the effects of chronic sleep deprivation firsthand. Following a volleyball tournament, I drove home
utterly exhausted. I fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into the center divider, flipped my car, landed upside down, and totled my car. And I'm very lucky to be alive um to be here to talk about that and advocate um for these important
matters. Um, back in the time, no one talked about the shift in adolescent circadian rhythms, or the importance of deep and REM sleep cycles, or that teens most potent REM cycles occur in the early morning hours, which they miss out
on when schools start too early, affecting memory consolidation, physical and mental health, and impulsivity, resulting in poor decisions, which can alter one's life forever. Like many families, we move to Rididgewood for its academic excellence, but academic rigor
should never come at the expense of student wellness. I remain deeply grateful to Mr. Nyas and Dr. Anne Robinson who were instrumental in leading this change and the numerous advocates, supporters, and decision makers that were determined to see this
through. And I was thrilled that Dr. Schwarz, when you came in and you were fairly new to our district, you you saw it through. um which was really terrific uh and it's inspiring to see Ryan uh dedicated so dedicated to this topic and
uh and co-presenting this evening. Amazing. Uh so looking ahead I hope that our district will integrate the science of sleep into its curriculum and perhaps it already is. I don't know. But this is an opportunity to really talk about how our district uh led with such an important
policy change and we have new kids, new families, new teachers, new staff, new new coaches. Um you know, this is a topic that I feel like needs to continually be um part of our education system, not just for the students, but for all of um us in the community and
within the district. And um and also I feel I feel it's it's very important to provide an explanation on our website as to why we made this crucial change. Uh and with respect to social, emotional and mental health resources, supports and teachings that do exist. Um I feel
strongly that our district uh and for our and our village for that matter could be doing a better job with making this information much more visible, prominent and accessible on its website. Uh this is something I will continue to circle back on and um and I and thank
you Dr. Schwarz um to your team and to the board for all your efforts and dedication to our students and to our community. Thank you. Any any other comment? Um if there's anyone on um
remote. Okay. Not seeing any. Uh I'll close public comment and uh Dr. Schwarz will go to our presentation on um late night late night late start. Oh goodness.
Yes. And and if I could and it and if I may just wanted to acknowledge just a couple of our speakers real fast if you don't mind, Miss Broen. Um for starters, uh uh want to thank um it was Mrs. uh Cathcarp. Thank you so much for joining us. I did hear you on those concerns. uh
we will review those concerns uh after this meeting and uh we'll review the class sizes and and visit the classrooms as well to to just uh uh look in on your concerns. So, thank you for raising them with us here today. And Miss Benson, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for your advocacy for mental health and just your investment in the
community. Uh it's been a pleasure to work on a few initiatives with you. Um I it's been my pleasure to support uh and follow through with the um uh in providing support for later start. I was not here for that initial conversation. In fact, actually the board uh voted in
support of that initiative without me. So kudos to the board for all that effort. Uh and I want to say kudos to Mr. Nas here who really took up a charge of really thinking uh first of all moving forward with trying this initiative out but also uh being very crit thinking very critically and
working with Ryan here uh to to really develop a really thoughtful uh data picture of what we've what we can see about the impact from later start. Um the science is is so strong uh saying that if schools start later that kids sleep more. Um but it's but being that
um being that it's not so common in New Jersey, it's really were kind of a fun test case in that respect. And I know that some concerns that folks had when I came in were that um there might be a loss of instructional time or there might not be enough time for athletics. And so when we when we had when we did this analysis, it was important that we
kind of show as much as we can. Um but generally speaking approaching the topic my attitude has been well listen if the science is so strong and if it even if the data is neutral um then it makes sense to continue right because it's going to support kids having more sleep. Um so so I think we see so I don't want
I don't I don't want to spoil the uh spoil the the the information you're going to share but Mr. Nayas and and uh and Ryan here are going to give us a little presentation that they worked on to give us a a picture an insight as to what the trends have been over the last uh last several years and especially the
last two years since we've done later starts. So without further ado, Mr. Nyas, do you want to introduce the presentation? Yes. Well, thank you for that introduction, Dr. Swars and uh thank you um all for being here. Um, I'm very
proud of the the work we've done. And I say we because it wasn't just me. Um, you know, there are many people here tonight, um, including Anne Robinson, who's sitting behind me, um, and Burton Walsh, who's here from the Women's League of Voters, uh, Lynn Benson, who
you heard speak, um, and many more. And especially the board I'd like to thank for being here. So, thank you so much for for supporting this. Um, and one last thank you for helping me put this beautiful presentation together is Christine Corless. Um,
Ryan and I had the ideas and the work, but she made it look this very pretty like as it is. So, thank you Christine. Um, and you'll see because she's very talented. Um, with that being said, um, I'm going to go ahead and just introduce
Ryan here. Uh it's funny how Ryan and I got acquainted because I didn't know Ryan uh even doing all of this work with an for for 13 14 years and Ryan was a sophomore at the time. I I and um he was
already working with the task force of adolescence and sleep which I was on and with you know this is a task force in New Jersey that is built with students and parents and other administrators from around the state and uh you know
many pediatricians Dr. Steinbomb from the town is also on it um and and an is also uh Dr. and Robinson is a pediatrician as well. But what I found out was that Ryan is also an author and Ryan was a published author in
Psychology Today and I said, "How do I not know this student who's at the high school?" So I quickly looked Ryan up and started talking to him and you'll see why I brought him aboard today. He's a very intelligent young man and uh did a lot of work with this later start. So
I'm going to let him talk for a couple minutes. Yeah. Thank you for the super nice introduction, Mr. Nas. Um, just to give a little bit more about myself, I became interested in sleep uh in my freshman year and since then I've dove super deep into the sleep world. Um, I've been fortunate enough to, as Mr. N said,
published in Psychology Today twice. This is my an excerpt of my second article. Um, also Mr. N mentioned, I've worked with the New Jersey American Academy of Pediatrics and I'm on their sleep task force for later start time. Um, I've also been able to create my own nonprofit to um, educate adolescence on
sleep and its importance and benefits. And I'm just super grateful to be here today to present on later start and Richard High School's experience on it. So, thank you. Thank you, Ryan. So, just to talk a little bit about the objectives uh, for this presentation uh,
going to do a few slides about how we got here and then we're going to address address some of the counter concerns. uh the concerns that people were worried about, community members, um many it took us a long time to get this off the ground, but some of those were of course busing cost, uh student sleep times and
what that would do to instruction um at school impact on athletics and the impact of overall like tardiness and absences. Um so I'll be sharing those results with you tonight. Um and Ryan has some actually anecdotal student data that'll share.
So Ann and I when we started working on this back in I think around 2010 the Race to Nowhere came out and I don't know if that you remember that that was uh Vicky Aly's uh video we had her come to Rididgewood High School and shortly after she did a book called Beyond
Measure um which we are actually featured in um and we talked a lot about when my next slide is about homework um but that's what that concentrates on um but the American Academy of Pedi Piatrics helped Ann and I in 2014
because they came out with a very um profound statement saying that students of the age of 13 to 18 need 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night and more importantly um schools in you know should start 8:30 or later. So that was
a real impetus of us getting this done and pushing forward. Um, and we started with what you'll see again is the 24-hour day, but what we were finding in at Rididgewood High School and many other high schools around New Jersey, um, is that homework
was, you know, a I was director of guidance for many years, so a lot of of the issues that came across my desk were kids are spending too much time at night at homework and they're up late. Um, the National Education of Association came out with this slide and it's pretty I
mean if we stick to this I think it's pretty good. Basically 10 minutes per grade level. So if you look three through six, you know, a third grader should have 30 minutes or less. You know, fourth grader 40 minutes, 50 minutes, you get the picture. So a high school senior should have up to two
hours a night homework on average. Um, looking over that these guys over there and you're saying, "Mr. Um, what do you think, Grace? I would say that in terms of actual homework, it's less than two hours. I mean, I try to be really efficient with
my time using whatever free periods I have. So, homework-wise, it's closer to just one hour. But in terms of studying for tests and working on projects, this is where a lot of my time goes to. And then especially when we consider the current um competitiveness of a college
application process and even just how talented our own high schoolers are, when you consider extracurriculars or sports or working on research papers or internships, those hours really add up. So, in terms of the what's like taxing on a high school student, specifically a
high school senior schedules, um adding on college applications, um it's way more than two and a half hours. So, well, thank you, Grace. Um so, basically, we started with this and then this led to the 24-hour day and I used
this slide. I I have a um I gotta thank Ann for this slide because I think her and her son Michaeled this, right? Um, and it really encap encapsulates encapsulates what a healthy clock should look like. Um, and it and it it's pretty
clear. Um, if students are getting to bed around 11:00 at night and they're getting up between 7:30 and 8:00, they will get that eight hours of sleep a little bit more. Um, and then you know that our school day doesn't change. You know, that's going to run between our
8:20 start time. This says 8:30 because we were going with the the actual time that was recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It goes to 3:30 and 80% of our students at the high school are doing a sport or multiple sports or
an activity which keeps them from 3:30 to 6:30. And then you can see that, you know, there's that transition time and then there's the dinner time, the family dinner time. And I always like to say that students should have PDF playtime, downtime, family time. Um, and that is
that time in between seven and 10 o'clock, you know, and also that homework time. So, this really is the healthy clock. And I and again, something that was always said to me is, well, if you give them more time, you know, then they're going to just stay up
later. But it's not our job as a school to tell a child when to go to bed. But it is our job as a school to actually pro provide a clock or provide a structure in which kids can get that 8 to 10 hours of sleep. I mean that was
just my thought. So moving forward we are going to look at the pre and post later start numbers. And we're going to start with Ryan here because this was uh his little um part of our presentation. He did a really
nice job with getting uh some information from students. Yeah. So, going to uh my survey last year, I was able to uh give a survey out to juniors and seniors at the time uh about their experience with Later Start because those are the students who were able to experience high school before
later start was implemented and after because the younger grades had a pre-ater start and middle school. So those were the two grades we were focusing on. We had around uh about 116 students who responded. So it's not the largest sample, but it does give a little insight into uh students perspectives and how their I guess sleep
and wake time changed from later start. So for the first question, I think it's pretty obvious how students feel about later start, but a large majority of them were satisfied or very satisfied about it. Um I know my fellow high schoolers here can agree with me that they why wouldn't anyone not want more sleep? So, I'm not too surprised about
these results. But looking into other um questions, one of the questions I asked was, "What is your wake up time prior or later start?" And a large majority, around 80% uh woke up from 6:30 to 7:00. Um so that's just a large 80% majority. And you can see around 15% woke up
before 6:30, 10% woke up around 7:30, and a really small majority around 2% woke up after 7:30. But when we look at the later start time wake up on the right side here, there's basically a 30 minute shift. the 80% shifted 30 minutes later and the majority of students are
now waking up at 7 and 7:30 and that 1.7% changed to 16.4%. So large majority of students are waking up later 30 minutes later and you could see an actual shift in that 30 minutes and that all the numbers are changing right there. Um so that's great. We get to see
that students are sleeping 30 minutes uh waking up 30 minutes later. But looking at their sleep, um a large majority, another 80% around went to sleep around 11:00 or after 11:00 and around 15% went to sleep at 10:30 and 10:00. And when we look at um their sleep time on the right
side again, post later start, it's pretty similar. A little bit went up um but it's around 80% are still going to sleep around the same time, 11:00 after 11:00. And um it's that shows that's a great thing. Students are waking up a little later. They're going to sleep
around the same time. And as a teenager um as was mentioned before, we want to go to sleep later. That's our biological clock. So that's something that's in alignment. It's going to get us good quality sleep and we're still able to wake up later. So this is just in alignment with what our body wants and what our body needs. So this is just great to see.
I also asked um if anyone if any of the students who took the survey had any anecdotal information or kind of like open-ended questions they wanted to add on. So that was optional. Um and 40% of those comments um were about how they liked uh later start and um improve their quality of life and it has been
only positive for them. But as all things there were some critiques on it. So 21% of the comments um talked about how later start means they couldn't get from their parents or so now they have to walk to school or that they're late to sports practice. So although it's been um relatively positive, there were
some critiques to look at and to consider. Thank you, Ryan. So, busing was also a a main component in terms of things that uh there were many uh community members um concerned about.
What we found uh 20 between 22 and 23 which is the year before late start uh the cost of we the bus the high school bus schedule we have seven buses as you can see. Um it's for the route for the year was around $55,000.
Um for the year that we started late start which was 23 24 um it only went up 0.91% so it went up to 56,000. So that was normal cost and increase it actually went up a little bit more the the next year but again there was that wasn't
because of late start. Um that was just you know regular cost structures moving um higher and this was a decreased instructional time. I'm just going to go through a few things that we looked at. Um we do this
on our school profile each year. So I just wanted to show you and the years I'm looking at are the years of 23, 24, and 25. Um, and this is on this goes on every one of our school profiles. It kind of helps define the class. Um, as
you can see, there isn't a drastic change in the number of this is weighted GPA between a 4.0 and a 4.6. Uh, in class, you know, the in 2022 there was a significant change. Um and again it that
maybe coming off of COVID I was thinking about this and and you know getting back into school. Um you know there were a little more grade inflation if you will. I mean I'm just assumptions. Um and then but you can see there hasn't been you
know there's not much change. um this you will see a positive change if you um between AP scores as the average um rose significantly over the course of between 2021 and 2025.
Um in fact the AP score results three or higher you know rose again later start was uh started 20 uh 23 if you will in the last two years 20 uh 2024 and 2025
it's risen each year and this one's even a little more clear. um the number of exams have actually gone up significantly between 24 and 25 almost by 250 exams. Um and yet the AP students
with scores three plus if you look it's 550 students out of 573 had had three or higher. So that's a really great number. Um so again this as Dr. SW said earlier, this might show a slightly higher trend,
but it it's it's certainly not making our scores go down, right? And here's some SAT scores. Uh, starting with English, you know, again, the last few years, le last from 2019 to 2025,
um, very consistent for RHS. Um and you know you have the New Jersey and the national scores there and you can see in the math scores we did dip a little bit. Uh you can see we you know in 20 2023 it
was 645 633 and then last year it was around 629. Um I want to look into this a little bit more and you know try to and and I did talk to a few students one of them being Ryan next to me and he he mentioned this again. It's something to think about,
but these tests became digital um within the last few years and you know it it it could have an impact you know especially in math um but it's something to look into um and and Ryan was saying something go ahead Ryan you can
yeah I was mentioning Mr. or not. I thought these were really kind of interesting numbers and I was talking about how maybe it's attributed to uh the SAT going digital. I mean, I can't say for sure. I mean, personally, I switched to the ACT because they offered it on paper. I really do not like looking at a screen for too long, but I
just thought it was something interesting to look into as Mr. Nyas mentioned since there was a switch in being from paper to digital. And then this is something actually um in talking to some parents in the community, I don't know if I would have looked at this, but it was an
interesting trend to look at because there were a lot of um there was a lot of talk about athletics starting later um and the day being moved back and kids being tired. Well, one of the effects of sleep, especially if you're getting
enough sleep, is you know your performance is, you know, going to be better uh better in academics, better in in your ability to you know interact and play sports. Um you can see the division in county titles are fairly you know I
mean they vary a little bit. The one thing in terms of sectional titles those are state titles. So from 21 and 22 there I mean we doubled in sectional titles over the again will this change over next year maybe. But it's just something interesting to look at and you
know it it certainly again didn't go down. If anything our students are performing at a very high level um on the you know field court you know rank. Um so all right and then the COI if any that's his coaches of the
year. So that's something to be noted. So that's I just threw that up there. So that's very impressive too. So the teachers are getting more sleep and coaches. All right. And then finally, tardies and absences. Now, at the at the high school,
um what you what you may or may not know, um we take attendance by period. So, it's very difficult. It's not like taken in home room and then, you know, measured for the rest of the day. So to be fair, I looked at that and it's very
hard to determine if anything there's been no change in total absences, but the tardies and now this is first period tardies. So when kids get to school in the morning, there is I mean I I I don't know if there's a I don't know if I can
move this, but I I don't know there's in the 2024 is getting cut off a little bit, but if you look at 2023, it's 8,62. Thank you. um tardies, you know, for that first period. That's the first period in the
morning. And that's the year before we went to late start. 2024, it went down light, you know, slightly. And then in 2025, it went down pretty significant. So, I'd like to keep watching that. Um that's that was one of the things we
noticed. And if you look at the little outlier in 2020, that is, you know, we left school in March of of 2020 for COVID. So that's probably would have been closer to that 8,000 mark. Excuse me. Is this calendar year or school year?
Um, that's the school year. So So when we refer 2025 school year, that that ended or that? Yeah. Yes, that was last year. 2425. Okay. Yep. And then just some key takeaways. Some
of these we mentioned, but I think it's, you know, we're going to continue to monitor these concerns. Um, and just to I mean, we did, and Christine reminded me of this, we did so many um amazing, you know, we got a lot of great
publicity from this from all the major networks. But the things that you may not know is I've been contacted um by many schools across the state of New Jersey. Um Ann and I are going to be presenting soon in Roxberry um and to
their board of ed and and they want to know how we did it, what we did. Um last year I got calls from two schools asking me to talk to their class about it because they were doing studies about it. So it it's it's something that's been very good for our district in terms
of publicity. Um, two states are are already doing it, Florida and California. And the other states that I have listed up here, um, when I say already doing it, they're starting 8:30 or later. Um, school, every school in California, and every school school in
Florida. And the schools that are, uh, from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Texas, there it's all in legislation similar to in New Jersey. So, it hasn't been passed yet for us to start after 8:30, but it is still in
legislation. And as you can see, there's been minimal impact, you know, in terms of um the things we looked at. And the one another thing that I just want to mention this, it's the high school has
become safer because of it. And that I know because there's a staggered start with staff and and students. Um, and our parking lot when students and parents and, you know, and teachers were arriving at the same time, you're
talking about 1,800 students and you're talking about 150 staff members coming into the same place at the same time. With the staggered start, the traffic patterns have been helpful and they do get in and and there's less disruption in our parking lot. Um, that is true. I
mean, I've heard it from the teachers, but I also witnessed it. I mean, so that's that's been a positive. Um, and I just want to thank you all for listening and thank you, Ryan, for being a part of this. You did a great job tonight. All right. And, uh, take questions if
anybody has any. Yes. Good evening, everyone. It's so great to be back with all of you again. Um, I feel kind of like a proud mama back here. I mean, not not just because of the tremendous success that Leer School
Start Time has had at Ridgwood High School, but also because of this really impressive presentation that you just heard where Jeff and Ryan worked side by side to deliver that to you. Um, you all know that Ryan is an excellent
spokesperson for later school start time, but he's also a perfect example of how valuable the student voice is and just um um you know how incredible the resource is um you know of all of
you to all of us. And that's something that Jeff has always known. Um, you know, really in every position he's held. Um, and I've been around for I think almost all of them. He has worked side by side with the
students. 16 years ago we started working together on what we call the smart balance initiative. Um and um you know at that time the very first thing you did was to establish that
principal's advisory board and this was a chance for the students to come and meet with uh Jeff you know anyone was invited some came for just a meeting or two others came to every single one but the fact is that every
successful initiative that came out of Smart Balance funds was inspired by and guided by the students. Some of the initiatives took just days to implement like getting rid of 715 detentions. Hopefully, nobody even
remembers that those existed. Um other things took weeks or months um like homework free breaks. Um the blackout weeks in the summer when family families can plan time together, but later school start time took years.
And you know, we had a great team working with us, but sometimes they got frustrated. Um, and I remember a meeting with our former principal where one of our team members said, "You do realize that in the time that Jeff and Anne have been working on later school start time,
Ann's kids have all graduated from RHS, they've both graduated from college. And at this rate, she's going to be a grandmother before she ever sees this come to fruition." And we all laughed. I laughed. But the fact is, sure enough, I became a grandmother a couple years
before it was implemented. And last week, my third grandson, our third grandson was born. But the fun thing about being a grandparent is you get to watch Sesame Street again. And one of the things they're doing that I love is where Elmo asks the children, "What do we do when
we have a problem to solve?" And he says, "First we say, I wonder." And then we say, "What if?" And then we say, "Let's try. We have to do this." Well, in the genius of Sesame Street, they have just given children a formula that they're going to use for the rest of
their lives. I find myself using it all the time. You know, my husband and I look at each other and just say, "Let's try." But seriously, it's a formula that every school, every organization, every business should be using because as adults, we are pretty good maybe at
saying I wonder and maybe even what if. But we stall at let's try, you know, we let doubt and fear and it's never going to work. What are all the things that could go wrong, you know, get in the way? But young people are much better at
it. Um, in May, you heard a really outstanding presentation on AI by the principal's advisory board. And I love that both Miss McCalli and Miss Broen said they have no fear of AI. And there it is in a nutshell. they have no fear
of saying let's try and said some of their teachers were also saying let's try um they also said we have to stay educated as it continues to evolve as we know it will how does it help us where what are its limitations but most importantly they said let's keep this
dialogue going between us so that you're working side by side and the students are not just weighing in on policy they're helping to create it and they're not just involved in the process of their own education, they're invested in
it. And that right there is at the central core of the Smart Balance initiative. And as you can see, it can only lead to great things. So, in conclusion, I just want to say I'm so proud that Rididgewood High School is one of the schools that said, "Let's try in New Jersey." And I hope that tonight
you're all feeling really proud of that, too. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Well, as having two children at the high school, they before and after it truly did make a
difference. They weren't getting up before 6 because we are bust and they would have to leave even earlier and then after sports get home even later. Um, the other question I had, you said New Jersey is looking into this. Are they looking at the 8 or 8:30 time? I
mean, how do you think that's going to if that comes down as 8:30, would we have to then go from 8 to 8:30? Yeah. So, this they've been looking into this for at least three or four years now. So, it's, you know, we, you know,
I'd like them to it'd be a shift of 10 minutes for us. We're already at 820. Yeah. So, there's I already have some ideas in terms of what we could do, you know, to keep us in that time frame, too. So, Mr. Nice, what time did the buses arrive
before this change and what time do they arrive after this change? So they arrived before this change, they were arriving around 7:20, 7:25 and then after they they arrive between
8 and 8:10 at the high school. So the start time is 8:20 and they arrive between 8 and 8:10. So between 10 to 20 minutes before the start time of this. um about 10 minutes at the latest. Yeah, I I've I've monitored them
and have been outside. Um some of them come around 7, you know, I should say 7:55 se and and 8:10. So, but a lot of them like again the latest time I've seen them come in is around 8:10. Thank you.
And it's seven seven buses. So, thank you. I just um I want to thank you all all of you. Are are you on your mic? Is your mic? Am I Is my mic Wow, you can't hear me? That's very unusual. Um, can you hear me now? As I say,
um, air conditioning is live. So, I I I just wanted to say thank you. Um, this this initiative is something that I was always supportive of, but it happened before I got here. Um, but I I just wanted to thank, you know, I don't even I'm speechless after Ann's speech.
Um, I always learn from you, Dr. Robinson and um you taught me also you said tonight your theme was listen to the students and that was something you said years ago um maybe your first granddaughter or your grand first grandchild something like that but um
and it's something that I've always remembered and Jeff it's always something that I've seen you do and you're shephering this for years before I even knew you and I feel like I've known you a long time now. Um, you know, that's what we teach our kids, right?
Grit, persistence, you keep going. You, you know, uh, you adapt. Um, and so I I just think that, um, there are so many lessons here, not just for our students, but for the adults in the room. And finally, I I just Ryan, I've never met
you before, but you are incredibly impressive. um as many of our RHS students are. But I want to thank you for taking this of your own initiative and and for doing the work and for being an example, you know, to your to your peers and again to the adults in the
room. So, uh many great things ahead of you, I'm sure. Um thank you all really. It was fantastic presentation. Thank you. Do you have anything? Thank you. So, um great job. uh you know I I was on
this journey with you for a long time and um I was a skeptic in the beginning I'd say maybe about 12 13 years ago when the topic sort of start started happening and then I saw the changes with a a smart balance and what really
um sort of helped me to understand better is the reaction I heard from students when you had two uh late start mornings things a month, right? And the feedback from the students, we
got to sleep later. It was great. And then when teachers began to say that their students were more engaged when they had come in and I was like, "Oh, there might be something to this." And then I started listening to the webinars that you all sent me and thank you for
that. And um you know, and then it became yes, Ridgewood has to do this. So, um, so thank you for this and thank you for the information because these were the questions that were asked two years ago at the board table, you know,
at the transportation. I think the quote was like going to be $500,000 more and is like I don't know if that could possibly be right. So there were and there was concerns from parents about well we're going to um really just
allow a lot of lazy student a lot of lazy kids out into that world um and they'll never be able to get jobs because they'll be sleeping. So there was a lot of um concerns and worries about the implementation and so thank
you for this because this was something that was really key to making sure that what the science was telling us really did materialize. And so I I thank you for this presentation tonight and look
forward to, you know, other updates as you go along. um because it's it's great to see that consistency that happens. I did want to give an opportunity to any of our we've got four wonderful students here. So,
first off, thank you for the presentation. Unlike Brian, I'm not an expert at late start. I actually was came into freshman year when it was implemented. So, I never was at the high school when it had an earlier start, but I can say sitting here, I'm a lot
happier that school starts at 8:20 tomorrow and not 7:45. So, for what that's worth, it it really has made a difference. Um, I'm actually took over principal advisory from Harrison
and I was sort of after the we worked on that or you guys worked on that. But one of the best selling points for the club over the past couple years has been we were the ones who made late start happen. Like at the club fair, we'll say that and kids go, "Wow, that really
helped me. I want to go. I want to make those changes." Um, so it really has made a difference in the school. It's really helped students. Um, and going to your point, there's a lot of things that we're going to keep working on this year, stuff we might bring to the board,
uh, stuff we'll be working on at the high school throughout the district. Um, Mr. Nas has been so supportive of student voices, of student action, what we're trying to do to make the school better. He's always there to listen. It It's really great. This is such a great
program, and we want to do a lot of other things to make the district better. So, thank you, Do any of you any anyone else want to No. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ann.
All right. Um Dr. Schwarz, would you like to do your superintendent report? and we will also look at the 2526 district goals. So much of my report is going to be in the goals because the it's such a point of focus right now. Um but a couple of
things I would just throw out there for orders of business. First of all, I want to thank everybody in the community, anyone who's listening or listening the recording who attended back to school nights. We greatly appreciate everyone's time out of their day. I know that uh that can be an imposition, but I'm grateful for the community and how much they value getting to know their teachers and administrators because we
had tremendous attendance at all of our back to school nights. And uh it was it was it was a pleasure for me. I had a chance to speak with parent groups. We spoke about um expectations in school. we spoke about I emphasized for parents depending a little message is a little different each night but um but the
themes were uh really building a strong relationship with teachers getting to know what the students are going to be learning that year and then being able to engage with students and support them over the course of the year I did talk about a little bit about our conversations around technology and social media and some of the some of the conclusions that we're drawing around
certain social media platforms particularly Snapchat being very problematic and being associated with a lot of really poor behavior and poor choices from students but we talked just about just being involved and understanding what kids are what kids are engaging in and that conversations and concerns around smartphones are not just limited simply to smartphones.
They're really about internet connected devices um and about managing those devices well. So I just really I call to parents to just be attentive especially the parents of younger students um as they're just first getting exposed to those kinds of things. Uh I want to remind everybody that we have superintendent coffee next week. It's on
October 16th. So it's a little early this this uh this week because of a couple conferences going on the next week. So, a lot of our team is going to be away. So, if you want to join us though, we'd love to have you on October 16th. Uh, this will be an evening. We did get some requests for uh for a morning meeting. So, we haven't actually committed to one of those yet, but we're
going to put some of those. We'll put uh some opportunities like that together because we know some folks are not available in the evening, but more available during the day. Um, vision 2030, we said I would do a report on that each time around. So that's really going to be in my district goal report because that was a big point of focus there is making sure that this is
effectively year one of the implementation of our vision 2030 plan. Uh I would share that we're are in addition to the many things that are going on with the start of a new school year and many great initiatives. We also have um a CUSAC visit this year. So for those of you who've been on the board for a little while, you probably
remember that CUSAC stands for the quality single accountability continuum, which is a you which is an a New Jersey Department of Education uh compliance exercise. So effectively, you know, we have all these regulations from the Department of Education. Uh generally
speaking, the Department of Education does not really run the schools. The board of education is the governing body for the schools. So their key accountability system is to have these visits where they come in and they have a checklist of items. The process involves us self-scoring against a rubric system that they have. So again,
those board members who've been here, you've seen that before. So we'll be self-coring uh where there's a variety of different areas. There's instruction and programs, there's facilities, there's finance, there's governance and personnel. And so we'll we'll be uh we'll be demonstrating our compliance in those various ways. It is a rather
rigorous and comprehensive checklist. Uh so it's rare to be rated at 100% in any category, although it does happen from time to time. Uh we have to get an 80 to have a passing grade. If we don't get our 80, then we have to do a corrective action plan and show how we're going to fix our whatever systems are not meeting
expectations. So, we'll self-score that. We'll ask you as a board to approve it at the next meeting. That'll be our self-scoring that you'll be approving and then once we have a resolution where you're approving our self-scoring, we will pass we will submit that to the Department of Education and then we'll move forward from there. The QAC visit
will happen over the course of the year. Uh so, just and we have a couple presentations for those who are interested. We were going to we we had intended to to do a presentation on the New Jersey student learning assessment results. Um we wanted to try some different analyses and explore some
concepts and we just really weren't able to get quite there with with all the commotion at the start of the school year. So we have a 60-day timeline to do that presentation. So October 27th puts us well on that timeline. So we'll go ahead and and give that presentation at that point in time. We'll also have a student safety data system presentation
which is a presentation on our on um incidents uh some uh student conduct incidents in the schools. We do that you probably know we do that twice a year. So we this is we'll be reporting on the uh the full year last year in this report.
All right and I'll go ahead and get started on if you're ready I'll get started on the the district goal goal conversation. All right. So, let me I'm gonna need I'm gonna need the uh the presentation plugin. You all received the gold,
right? Sorry for the delays. I thought I had it pulled up, but I don't. just to uh just to recap. So last uh at our last meeting, Dr. Schwarz presented and all of the administrative team presented the
uh the five goals and um sort of the actions that will go with them. And the board sort of asked for it to be um trimmed down a bit um and workable.
um board member asked that we use a question to base it on and then um design the goals and the actions. So um it appears that you captured a lot of our feedback in what you presented what
you're presenting tonight, what you sent us in our FYI. So um be great to see that. Thank you. Thank you so much. So uh just so just some uh thank you for that introduction. You save me some save me some words there. Uh we did have this presentation last time last time around we presented
them in a draft form. Um just to be clear about our process. Um in prior years we have been identifying a variety of different types of priorities as a function of the state of the schools address. We did that this year as well but we also had the vision 2030 outputs
that we wanted to make sure that we were operationalizing for the year as this is the first year of our roll out of the vision 2030 plan. So there was a presentation that was and it's available on the website if anybody's listening and you want to see all this information. It's all available on the website. Uh there's some that's on the uh I think it's all there's there's
actually a dedicated page to vision 2030, but you can access it through the board's resources or the superintendent page as well. So over the course of the s of the spring and then the summer and then in the beginning of the return to the school year, we worked in teams. Uh again I I believe in making sure that
our our accountability for our goals is shared among our whole administrative team and our staff. So we have uh five team members who are responsible for each of these goals. So as a refresher goal one which is focused on journey of a graduate is led by Mrs. Murphy. Goal two which is balanced culture and
climate is led by Dr. Fenwick. Goal three which is finance facilities infrastructure is Mr. Matthews a business administrator. And then we have programs pathways and proficiencies. And he's not Mr. Ross is not here to hear me finally say that correctly, but uh Mr. Ross is the leader of programs,
pathways, and proficiencies. And then finally, we have an engagement goal and that is led by Miss Coralus, our public information officer. So last week, I presented the uh the language that we had all developed together. Uh it was rather ambitious. It was rather detailed
because of the nature of the inte the integrated nature of the vision 2030 plan. there was considerable overlap between goals within within the document. Uh I made after
and we also were adding a structure where we wanted to I wanted the goals to point to what we were trying to get to in future years so that people could see some directionality. After receiving everyone's feedback, uh I did follow through on making everybody do that. So, we did some additional work
and all the teams, the administrative teams, they did put together additional language that helped to point to where the goals were going over the course of last week. We had some different rounds. I put a lot of time in on Friday and I had a moment before I sent it all to you as a board where I realized that we had
been grinding so hard. You know, they have that moment where you're I'm realizing that I can't even make sense of this anymore. So, I decided to give it a good night's sleep, which I thoroughly recommend to anybody anytime you're trying to finalize anything, students included. got a good night's sleep and I got up on Saturday morning nice and early before the family got up
and I poured myself a fresh pot of coffee and uh and I looked at it with fresh eyes and I just saw that there's a lot of opportunity to just consolidate things. So I pulled up uh and I want to commend uh Eli, he did a great job. Eli, our student representative uh he actually put together he went into we gave him a copy of the document and he
already made a copy of the document and he put in a whole bunch of comments which were really great comments by the way. So, I incorporated the a lot of that feedback and some of your other comments. We'll connect you with Miss Corless and Mr. Ross, too, because you had a lot of really cool insights about other aspects of school that weren't necessarily uh for the goals. But, um,
so we incorporated some of your feedback. Um, Miss Macaui, you were very generous with your time and you wrote a lot of nice feedback. Did my best to incorporate your feedback as well. I hope I did an okay job. Um, thank you. And, uh, and then I then I also went back to the vision 2030 document. So I
kind of go back to where it started from and I really went through that slide by slide, item by item. Uh and then uh and then after I really felt like everything was included, then I then I looked for evidence of places where there was redundancies and I just was kind of
draconian and just cutting things out from different goals because it was already represented in another goal. So all the all of our team members are all of our our district goal leaders are going to recognize they recognize that they're going to have to coordinate pretty significantly with each other. Miss Corless basically every one of your
goals over everybody else's goal and the journey of a graduate is the same way but then again so is climate and culture right so there's a t so so we coordinate anyway so I'm sure this will be fine but when it comes to accountability we have to just make sure there's plenty of mutual accountability to keep everything
moving forward I also decided um and I'm kind of happy we did it this way because I wanted you all to see the level of detail with which we're already approaching the work that we want to do with the administrative team and leading this change but for the sake of a of a board level document there was a lot of detail that really wasn't exactly
necessary. It was really more tactical work as opposed to strategic work. So I really tried to uh incorporate things were needed as like for example we will something like that but a lot of the other language I actually just um I just just cut out knowing that that's something that they're going to do in
the teams. I also cut out the future language and then I noticed that the way that we kind of coined some of the sections was a little wonky. So I just went with much more simple statements. So for example, we had for each section we have uh the district goal with title. We have a guiding question that was
something that we added in response to a suggestion from Mrs. Macaui. And I love the idea of starting with questions. Uh each goal has a goal statement. So it's basically an overarching statement of what we're trying to accomplish. And then I listed key strategies. Um we also
had some feedback if I remember correctly. Mr. Donnie, you had some questions about measurability. So being that this is the first year of a new system, what I added particularly to a couple of the areas particularly about B culture and climate and academics, I made the first key strategy is identifying and agreeing upon KPIs to
monitor from year to year, which is something that we we sort of do already with the state of the schools address, but that hasn't really been something that we've worked together to decide is an appropriate KPI. We also look at NJSLA scores as a KPI. Whereas that's
important, that's a that is a an important and valid measure of student performance, it is one measure. So we want to make sure that we're not just using the the the KPIs that kind of society around us has determined is important, which by the way, they've only determined is important because
it's just what's publicly available locally. We need to make our own choices about what we think are the most important performance metrics. Then we can track them over time in a meaningful way. Um, so I don't know, but given all the conversation we had last time, I don't what I'm going to do is rather than just
read them all out or task the team with giving a little spiel again. I'm just going to highlight some of the things that I think stand out with the changes that I made in each area. So, first of all, I'm going to go back to Journey of a Graduate. So, uh, I noticed that we were using the acronym JG for Journey of a Graduate, which is a little wonky. I
know we love our acronyms in education, but I don't. So I thought it was a better a better shorthand way of instead of calling it the jog I thought we would call the journey of a graduate the journey. I mean one could theoretically it could like you know you go for a jog but I don't know it didn't really quite
work for me. So I think so I think the journey works a little bit better. So in shorthand instead of saying the journey of a graduate competencies we just say journey competencies. Um like I said I consolidated some of those but everything was framed around this concept of being on a journey. I also
took the journey language and I made sure that I used it a little bit more explicitly throughout the document. So for example, balanced culture and climate if you remember last time around the the concepts of wellness and well-being were coming up but those are built into the journey of a graduate. So
when you go back to the vision 2030 plan the the when you get into the competencies of the journey if you actually have and I and we also did never mentioned what the actual competencies were so I put those in the beginning. So the competencies are critical thinking, innovative problem
solving, empowered learning, effective collaboration, engaged citizenship, and then compassion and resilience. And compassion and resilience are really kind of pro very good proxies for well-being. It's a little more actionable. So I just said wherever we talked about like I mean I I didn't I I there are certain things where we had to
talk about because we're talking about specifically resilience and wellbeing, I use that language. But I did try to stick with our vision 2030 language so we're not saying too many different things. we're kind of focusing on the same thing. Um, moving into uh infrastructure, finance,
and facilities. There wasn't really a lot of need for much different for much change here. I eliminated the the next year section and I cleaned some of this up. There were a few redundancies. I also got I think we got feedback last time around that some of the items some of the language that we put in there were things that we really already
established that were priorities in prior years and we we were memorializing them because they're a big part of our point of focus this year even if they've already been sort of established and introduced but given that there are so many things that we're focusing on I did I I did take the liberty for the sake of
ease of re of reading to just take those things out if they're not really particularly new or at least very or recent. Uh there are a few except so for example in the in the um in the district goal three. Uh one of the items was to have you know to develop a a budget uh
that that facilitates um the strategic plan in the prior in the next year. We do a budget every year but I felt like that was important to call out. So that's number five. I chose to leave that there. However, uh when it comes to um there was another one that talked about doing a financial projection for
the for the for the current year. We we did that last year, but we didn't do it in as timely of a manner as I wanted to. So, I had left it in here because I wanted it to stay on our radar and be point of top of mind, but it was very clearly talked about and done last year. So, I figured we can just take that off, but I just wanted but but so that was
the kind of decision-making that I that I engaged in. Programs, pathways, and proficiencies. There was a tremendous amount of detail in here and I think some of that was was a little distracting. So I just really panned out and I really focused on where this fits
in overarching concepts with respect to uh vision 2030. Something that I think is worth calling out is we keep talking about a multi-tered systems of support. So if if you've if you've if you've heard this analogy before, if you've heard this acronym before, MTSS or if
you ha or if you haven't heard it, you will hear it. Again, I hate acronyms. I think that they become they become we just develop these free associations and they don't necessarily lend to understanding. MTSS is a generic term for what is
commonly what for for the name brand intervention system called response to intervention or RTI. Every district is doing this differently. And frankly, as much as I have so much respect and like have great relationships with my many colleagues, I know that we all don't agree with what
these things mean. And one of the things that's becoming clear to me, even as my wife works in a district where they're doing an MTSS initiative, their expression of what this is is very different than what we're doing. So, I feel like it's important for us that we do brand differently. I don't think that we should continue. We It's fine to
study MTSS right now. It's fine to say we're working on our own version of MTSS, but I think we need to get to a place where we're just we're we're branding the Rididgewood Public Schools intervention system or the Ridgewood Public Schools support system. We'll come up with our own nomenclature, but we are not doing what the the same way
everybody else is doing and I think that's a good thing. So, I just called that out as something that we should do to brand for our for ourselves. And then for engagement, again, I just tried to consolidate these things. These are all focus points of focus that we have going. They are all important. Um
there is some there there is some overlap with some other initiatives, but I do think that where there is new points of focus that they deserve that they should be called out accordingly. So board members, we did talk about this last week. Um so and and but I but I
know that you haven't had a ton of time to give me feedback. So please, if you have any feedback, I'm happy to talk about discuss it right now. I'm also happy to uh to um uh to elaborate on anything else you like. I guess I was um trying to see perhaps
it's over in district goal four but there's nothing to talk about the staff and because I know it's journey of a graduate but the teachers and the staff members are part of that journey and I didn't see too much about not
support for teachers but either professional development which is referred to here. But what the teachers may need to be prepared to do all the things that we want to accomplish. Do we not is that sort of implied?
So yeah, I think it is kind of implied and actually that was some of the language that I ended up taking out because we said all throughout it was like professional development for this, professional development for that, professional because because that's such a critical part of what we do. Uh there are some there are some pieces memorializing that. So for example, just just simply staff engagement is
something that's important. Uh it was something that we saw in some of the surveys that we to we did last year that we want to make sure staff are better engaged or at least that we are we are making more of an effort to engage them. Uh so in under engagement there's the la there's the launch of the monthly staff memo and there's also we're also
building some quick reference guides for staff. So that's like a new functional thing that we're doing. But um but I think that that was something that was part of the action plans that just wasn't really memorialized here in terms of that the professional develop component of all of these. And the other thing is that we have DEI
committees and things like that. By not listing or referring to that is that that doesn't dis diminish the fact that we still are doing initiatives in the culture and climate. That's that's so it is still part of that third initiative
in the uh in number two um we're investigating perceptions of fairness levels of student and staff engagement and whether uh students uh feel mutually respected. So, uh, it's it's it's a part of that without naming it.
Without naming it. And then then a little not just curious. Everything is numbered one through whatever, but the engagement has bullets. Is there a reason? Oh, I just Is that true? That's a That That's a typo. That's a
typo. I can fix that. I didn't know if that was a reason. The way No, they're more fluid. They can move around. No, that's just an oversight. Sorry about that. Okay. He's just I'll change that now. You're a teacher and you I know. Thank you for your
spelling mistakes though. You're the first one to catch that. Thank you for that. Uh yeah and with respect to the DEI I mean again there's a level of specificity that I'm trying to again trying to integrate everything together and that's where I think that the culture and climate a lot of that is expressed in that space. I thank you for
calling out Dr. Femick to focus on uh doing some focus work. uh uh Mrs. Corloas and I have been talking about some different strategies for digging into some of these phenomena that we've that we've seen before. That's particularly into identify and investigate climate and culture areas for improvement. In the original
version, I broke that out more specifically. That's what I guess I was but but again, you know, I'm trying to roll it up to a lower level of specificity. It's it's a good view from above and it it incorporates all the concepts and things that I remember
being presented and without getting it so specific that it traps you and you have to do things. And I like the way that it was sort of combined because it it it allows for some interpretation and understanding and for different opinions
to be included rather than be so specific especially with culture and climate um and everything else I think over you know overall I think was very good. Thank you. I appreciate that. And again to your point about staff too I forgot we also did have under invest identify
investigate staff engagement we have there as well. Oh, I appreciate the um I appreciate this the format and um the way that you incorporated uh you know the feedback that you got at the meeting and and I see you know some of
the questions and concerns that I wanted to make sure were identified I feel like were all um you know put in there. So, um I think it's good and and I I like I appreciate it's just a you know there's a lot that I appreciate about it and I'm
not going to um I'm not going to take us too long here. I'm looking at the time, right? But but like for example, one of the things that I remembered and it was actually in um finance and for um was where we talked about um you know managing uh monitoring and managing our new vendors, right? And I'm like well
we're supposed to be doing that. you know, that's that's basic good practice, which maybe wasn't done for a little while, but now is clearly there. And it should, you know, I when I think of a goal, I think of as something that's maybe, you know, elevated beyond what should be a basic good practice. But I
see that you said, we're talking about a newly developed vendor management system. So you you've identified, you know, it when appropriate specific steps that you want to take this year that will then build on the best practices that we've now incorporated. Um,
I very much appreciate the entire team and the amount of time that it took to go through this because it is in some ways it's very daunting and I mean that I say that with admiration and not with um concern because it is a big district.
We have a lot to do. Um, and you don't shy away from that and that I very much appreciate. Um, it's very ambitious what we're doing and I'm proud of that and uh, thank you really. So that's Thank you. I appreciate that. That's my back my feedback.
I was wondering too if our students had any uh, thoughts. Yeah. So first off, thank you. These look these look really good. Um, my my one comment that I kept having was and this is just because of my perspective like what is this going to look like in
the school, right? You can talk about stuff at the board level, at the ed center, but at the end of the day, what actually matters is what's happening in the classrooms, in on the sports field, in the club meetings. That's the stuff that really affects the students. And I
think that there's a lot of that in here. And I I think there's starting to be a better picture of, and I I talked mostly about the journey of a graduate, but like what does that actually look like? because there was a lot of like trying to align language and stuff but like we already teach those competence
uh those like those things how do we make this good? So just continuing on what is this actually going to be when it gets to the student level? Yeah, that's a great comment and that's that's like the big challenge of of
trying to lead these change initiatives at scale when you have so many different schools, right? So really what we're trying to do is we're trying to come up with some expression of what we're trying to accomplish that is creates a
framework. It's really because and then to your point like we haven't really done anything yet here at least in terms of the goals. The reality is that we're that there is good work happening. teachers are engaged in a lot of these things as are the principles, but really this is meant to represent sort of like uh the outer boundaries of like what
we're trying to accomplish. Like these are the minimum expectations. So it sort of feels like a when you look at the goals, it's sort of it's a concept. Sorry, I'm this this mic's cutting out on me too. We have another one. Are you got to charge these guys a little uh
more diligently before the meetings? But um but the that's the idea is that we're sort of like we're it's sort of like in a painting if you took taking your art classes how you you're basically you start by just kind of framing out the page and kind of and getting your spacing and and and and your your shading. But um then that's sort of
where we are right now. The color and the detail really needs to be unique from school to school. If I if I were to give like a like a really detailed rubric like some like you can find them out there and we've actually built our own kind of behind the scenes rubric that we're sort of using for
inspiration. But but if I had like a really detailed rubric of like exactly what it looks like in a school, but we made it up here and nobody in the school has helped make it, then it wouldn't really mean anything to anybody. So that's the point is is and and I and I love the spirit of the principles committee because I think for this to
act any of this to actually mean very much it there's got to be a level to which this is actually given color and life by the teachers and the students. Yeah, that's a great point and working with the students to get it and the teachers and the principles to get it implemented. That's exactly so and and
that's why a lot of these things like so for example the key progress indicators in my experience if I tell people this is the number that matters and we have to move this number but I'm I'm telling them that then they might do it because I told them to but it's different than them saying me saying what numbers
really matter to us and then people say well you know I really care about the extent to which students feel supported and challenged in school right that's very different and now we can say all well how are we going to measure that we can get a baseline line measurement and we can say all right well 70% of our kids feel like they're appropriately
challenged and appropriately supported. Okay, well let's work on that 30% right but now it's something that we all share that ownership in. So um I sort of had a followup to that. So, we're talking about of course the importance of bringing in educators and
students, but I mean just a couple when we're talking about AI, working on student leadership or um identifying underengaged students like how exactly are what's is go student involvement going to look like? Are we going to
bring in clubs um clubs like perhaps um student voices? I know that principal principal's advisories is a very active club and then the three of us we bring in a diverse background from the school but at the end of the day we're only three out of 2,000 students. Absolutely. So um how exactly do you plan on
bringing in these students to make sure that um for those who are affected by specific policies that they're actually getting avoids and how a system is going to look like? That's a great question and something that we really didn't clarify here is that the and you and and when you're when you're a student in the
school, you're kind of experiencing the school in real time, but when we set these goals, these aren't really actually things that are necessarily going to go into effect this year. They're going to be things that we build for next year. So the idea of like I mentioned key progress indicators like data points, those are things that we're going to be measuring this year, but
then we're going to be trying to improve next year. And these strategies are going to be things that we might be able to implement this year. Some of them we listed out, we know we're already working on them, but some of these items, so for example, the ones that you referenced with students and building like these journey of graduate competencies into the student
experience, that's what we have to work with our teachers and our principles. And frankly, I think we're going to need to put together some student committees just like you have at the high school to help advise the process. But if you if you think of any ways that that that might be really great to get any ways to get kids involved, we'd love to hear
your recommendations, too. Doc Dr. Schwarz, can I add to that answer? Oh, please. Yeah. So, actually there is a committee of students that was established last year for Journey that range from grades five, well, now they'll be grades six through 12. So, we are going to re-engage with
those students and then ask them for their recommendations of peers to add to those groups and then we'll start from there. Um, so they're going to be part of this work um, continuously moving forward because I mean the whole reason we went with journey instead of portrait
was because of student voice. The students in that group determined that in order for this to be representative, it needed to represent a student's entire process from beginning to end because you aren't just what you become
at the end. You're the sum of all the experiences that you've had throughout your journey. and they wanted to make sure that was represented. So that came from the students. Um and so we will continue to to work with that group and expand that group for those students and we will probably ask the elementary
schools to make some recommendations so we can add some fifth graders back into the mix. So very important for this. Just a quick clarification question. So when you um gathered this like diverse group of students and you mentioned
something about fifth graders were um how exactly did you go about choosing the students um was it through the teachers because I mean just thinking about it right now like as an elementary schooler I was definitely not an active or vocal person um and so perhaps would
the teachers prefer students who are more outspoken or more extroverted and then those um would create sort of I'm in AP stats right now so like I'm very into sampling um random sampling but I was just thinking about that like how exactly would that work? So when we when
we asked for the students last year, I did reach out to school ad to the school administration because they do know their students. They did talk to teachers. But when I asked, I specifically asked for students that they didn't need any to be any special
profile. We wanted students that they thought would add something unique to the conversation. So they might have been a student that spoke out a lot. It might have been a student that maybe didn't speak out that much in class, but we we looked for students that we
thought would want to participate, number one, and number two, have something unique to offer to the group. Um, so those were the two things we looked for. With the fifth graders, I did say, "Can you please make sure that they'll be okay talking even in spite of there being like high school seniors in
the room?" I have to say, those fifth graders who are now sixth graders were very, very outspoken. They probably did most of the talking last year. So, you're welcome.
So, I just um are are you is Oh, did you want to say something? Okay. I I um you know when I read this um over the weekend, first of all, thank you for listening because this document to me is
really the culmination of so many conversations that we've had at this board table uh through the vision and all that. But a couple of things struck me as um challenges that the district has been trying to address and that is
um identifying underengaged students and to engage them and how do we do that and this is something we've struggled with. So we always we talk about the students that are high performers. We talk about students who need more supports and then we talk about this middle student who's
neither but then gets sort of lost in in the shuffle. So, um I was glad to see that. Um we've talked about this college and career advisement and what's the process and where are we going and can we make it stronger and that has been um
a conversation piece not that the others haven't but they just struck me um this culture of uh for goal two the culture of resilience um how do we do that how do we make sure that we are embedding in
our kids education this factor of resilience because you need it all through life. Um and um the uh formalizing and expanding academic and social transition programs. We've been
talking about this fifth six transition 8 um nine transition uh and we've seen some leveling off at times in the in the test scores, but there's more than that. So how do we get at that? Um and so I just
look at this as a document that's really been listening. Of course when we look at our infrastructure we have sort of blown up our facilities uh team and and the structure and yes um that is key here to monitor it. We implement it but
to monitor it and to make adjustments if if they're called for our athletic fields that's taken up an incredible amount of time. um in our discussions um and these fixed costs, what are we going to do about um health care
benefits and utility rates, transportation costs, all of those going up. Um and again, I just look at this as a document that you've really listened um to us in programs, pathways, and proficiencies or are we going to just
call that the three Ps? um integrate that journey uh framework within all curriculums, programs and staff development. What a huge effort that is and and so much needed. And of course,
um looking and studying this AI technology. There have been school districts that have banned it. Now they've come back. there's been concerns about chat um uh uh GPT um and uh some
mental health issues for people using it um and this engagement. So um I I think we we'd be remiss if we don't really take a look at all the aspects of that, the good and the bad. And um I am
intrigued uh by our engagement which would distribution of a vision 2030 brand kit. I'm intrigued with what that will be. Um so but thank you. Um I think
it's great. Um and so much work. It is very ambitious. Um, and when you color code all this sometime, that will be a night where we'll probably all think we'll be here till at least 11.
So, thank you for that. Thank you for the Thank you for the feedback, everyone. I appreciate that. Okay. Anything else? All right. So, I um we Is it on there to vote? Yeah. under administration. I do ask I I
don't know that Oh, I see. I don't know that you're required to, but I just feel like it's a good exercise considering the fact that that this is the criteria by which we determine how we did this here. I feel like it would be appropriate to uh to to vote on uh and to authorize them. Sure. We would do so just with minor edits then with the ones
that uh that I made. And this goes into um the uh the eval your evaluation. Yes, correct. This becomes the criteria for my evaluation. Okay, great. So um in if everybody's prepared to do that, we'll do that under
administration. Um we will now just go um board committees. We didn't have our plethora of committees but there was some activities policy met um between on the 16th of September. So the day after
our last meeting you did meet. I didn't know if you if you had anything you wanted to report on. Oh, I I had a I had um a thing for the 16th of of minutes. Did we meet 16th of September?
I think we I think we might have had an ad hoc meeting for the fields fields policy. So, let me I can check. Hold on one second. Okay. Just more of a working That's Yeah, it wasn't a It was a work session. It was more of a work session. Nothing
definitive, but wasn't the policy the 16th? That was what um I saw. Yeah, I don't have any I don't have anything on my calendar. I don't recall. We did. We remember we cancelled one. Oh, whatever. I thought you postponed it if I'm wrong. Well, but but we I will thank uh Mrs.
McCall and Mrs. Handy for being a part of the work group that we have to revise the uh fields committee policy. We've had several actual meetings about that, but there's they've just been work sessions so far. But I will say that I I just really I I I sported them a draft
of a of a document after many many rounds. Talk about many rounds. Holy moly. Been on this for a long time. But uh but I finalized after having a final meeting here internally, I did finalize a draft of a document which I'll bring to the fields committee for everyone to actually see and review and provide feedback on. Um I'm sure there will be
some feedback tomorrow. Yeah. Um I do think that what I'm presenting is a sensible approach. Um I'm sure there's some details to work out, but I do think that uh we do have a good amount of consensus around a better way forward.
So hopefully uh it'll be hopefully I'm I'm confident it'll be a productive conversation tomorrow. There might be another round or two, but um it also could be good to go. We'll see. But thank you for your work on that. Okay. But none of the other major committees u met. We did though have a
meeting of our um are we calling it the susta s sustainability committee the green committee I'm not really sure of the title but it is with some of the villages green team the green team yeah I I'm kind of considering that a little more of a of a
administrative committee and that I really um uh similar to my district committee where um I really invite folks to come out and just kind of provide some guidance. So so we did did have some representation to our facilities team members Mr. Donnie and Miss Broen joined us. Um, but again, that's kind of
like an information sharing working group. Um, I appreciate you both being a part of that. Um, so that the minutes of that be put into the next FYI. So, one of the action items that came out of that meeting that I wanted to
bring to Mr. um enriched and mark your attention. Um there when we had Aramark um we had an energy specialist. So if I go back one a few years ago so we had
Christine um which was district employee she was a energy specialist and um when Dr. Gorman came on board, he made a decision to make that position when she was retiring that we'll not hire a new person and he made that position as part
of Aramar contract. So Aramar contract was updated uh to include a new position in their contract and that money was moved to them. So that money was always there in district's budget, right? So to hire a person that is energy specialist
then um that person was helping all the schools for the sustainability jersey efforts because that's a lot of administrative work. That's a lot of paperwork um to get all those certifications and HSA's uh representatives don't have all the
skills every year they change and you need yeah somebody from the district who's doing that uniform across all the schools. Um so the right now the application period is going to be open from January and a lot of those uh
sustainable jersey certifications are coming up for renewal and we do not have an identified person for that position and my understanding was that as part of moving from our mark back to district we are not losing any of the functions that
all of the functions will stay same. um that there there will be somebody identified for each job that our mark was doing. Right? So if we do not have an identified person um for energy specialist or somebody who's helping for
this process in the long term it impacts grants. So it's uh what do we lose it is uh we lose the um when we go to uh or the district employees and you guys go to Atlantic
City that we are getting those certificates and cheer and um like that that's one thing but as part of that process students learn green initiatives the students learn environment the students learn why these bronze silver
or gold certificates But so that's just like the soft uh gain uh and students learning but in the long run we can also apply for grants if we have those certifications and if we don't have the certifications then we
will not be able to apply for grants related to environment and Glenn and Ridge we can definitely get a lot of points if we are going VRF and high efficiency boilers this year. So, we do need somebody in that position to be
helping with those applications. Yeah, Mr. Matthews. Yes. Um, so tomorrow we have about seven people attending a lunch and learn on energy markets um from 12:00 to 1:00.
And we also met with uh DCO probably about a week or so ago and I'm meeting with them down in Atlantic City, but we are going to do a bidding process to uh get somebody identified uh as an energy person for the district. So we we
we we realize the need for that and so we are starting that process to be able to bring some money to either finance and or facilities regarding you know that that need for the district that we feel that may not be to the extent that we have with Armark but we need somebody
to represent us regarding some of the things that are going on regarding energy. So we we are um again doing a lunch and learn tomorrow regarding energy markets and we we we have somebody identified that we feel that can be a value to the district.
But this is more like a grant writing process. This is somebody who's educating internal employees and students about the value of energy saving like keeping the lights off, turning lights off when you're leaving and those type of things. what this
external energy person what's the role of this person will be I mean I think we're talking about two different roles I think I think I think I think we need to reconcile our expectations that's fine so let's just we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll take that into consultation we need a steward who can guide and
handhold principles and the HSA people and make sure that there is a uniformity across the schools when they are doing these initiatives yeah you're looking for if I'm hearing you correctly looking for a designated individual who would be a district employee who would the sort of the the organizer and the champion of
sustainability initiatives in the district. Correct. So, we'll we'll follow. Got it. We also had a JRC meeting um our first JRC meeting with the new uh custodian um
um vendor uh ACB and and then Manila was there too. It was uh for Travel and um the feedback from uh the Travel principal was that things were going well. But prior to that meeting, I know
that she had um sat down with um I think Joe Higgins and um I don't know if you were there. Um Okay. And Dave Clark, who's the um uh manager. So uh there was things that she
brought to their attention that they had already uh begun to implement. So JRC went well. That was our first one. You'll be getting the minutes from that um also. And then there was a meeting of our neighbors at the high school and um
to talk again about fields and flooding and it was a good conversation. And just so that you are aware, there was follow through on putting the cameras up to um see the stream flow and where water will
go. So if you go over to the high school um right now there are maybe four or five cameras, four cameras uh down the bridge, on the bridge, on a tree, and on a pulse uh next to the high school. And so there's about three or
four more scheduled to go on to Stevensfield on some of the poles at Stevensfield and on one of those light stansions down further to see the uh the war to go across Stevens. There's about three or four more um that are just um not in stock right now. And
there was uh some concern that uh some of the rocks that we'd put along the uh bed uh the I mean the bank of the um Hocusbrook um some students or kids
threw them into the water. So we need to retrieve those but and then we probably have to net those rocks so that they are not movable objects that uh will uh go sailing somewhere else. if I can about the cameras. Uh I did see that they're
there. Um I was over there with a gym class. Uh I think it would be nice though if there was just a sign. Students were a little bit concerned that there's just cameras kind of like attached to trees sort of sitting there and it's a little bit ominous. I was able to explain like what they were for
and everyone understood and was actually kind of pleasantly surprised by that and impressed. But I think just a sign saying these cameras are here to monitor this would go a long way. That was the plan. So yeah,
I will I will say though they are just on like normal cameras. So the the reason the impetus is to study weather patterns and flooding, but but there is an incidental benefit that we do have the ability to monitor anything unfortunate that's happening. But to
your point, Eli, and I appreciate this, in good faith, we should have put up some signage that says that that that you're being moni the property is being monitored by camera. That way, just people are like set up for success and if they're they're thinking about doing something
that maybe they don't want on camera, they can just go somewhere else and do that thing. Um Sheila just on the the Green Ridgewood committee. So, uh, via my position right
on parks and wreck, I somehow got put on a on a joint parks and wreck and green ridgwood committee. And the reason why I'm mentioning it is because I heard about the rocks as well, but there was also some discussion about, you know, the rain gardens that Miles Lou has been doing with the AP environmental studies
class and about some of the work they were doing kind of right adjacent to Stevens. And so it occurred to me that there's definite crossover and that he may be able to um help you uh either
brainstorming and or getting, you know, kids to be doing some of these some of this gardening. You know, we talked about with the neighbors at at Stevens and changing some of that landscaping to kind of help. So it makes no sense for people to be going on parallel paths. He's on the committee. He is. Yeah.
Okay. So Okay. So when I this Okay. He's on Green Ridgewood. He's on Green Ridgewood, right? And then he also because I asked him if he was part of that conversation that you were having and he told me no. So it may have it might have been a couple of days over. It doesn't matter. Sounds like we're in
a good place. So matters. I didn't want parallel efforts. That's all. Yeah. You know, I mean this is an interesting group there. Um, you know, a lot of conversation happened about, you know, are we recycling to the full capacity?
um we should um initiate and move forward our idolling campaign uh cars idolling. I mean that's been uh on the docket for bless you a number of years. Uh we had signs up so evaluation of
whether those signs are still are still up and you know you can still read them. um and reminders out in the school newsletters about um you know don't don't sit at the schools and idle your car uh remember the environment. So
that's important. Um there's some discussion about using tabletot um food that is not um is still wrapped but not used but can't be brought over to the next day. um and they are
Ptonians willing to work with them. So there's that chance. Um some just discussion about um grants that were out there for ebuses. Um and one of our vendors has purchased some um electric
buses. I understand DN DM I don't know how many, but they they've worked on that and have a few. And then um just uh you know again this would be into the goals would be you know are we doing
enough in professional development uh on sustainability and and and bringing that into the curriculum and and and could it be more. So it was a great conversation um and they even had done a uh
a survey of just where we are at our schools. you know, what are what are we doing? Recycling and um energy conservation practices, school gardens. So, there's a whole lot of things. And as I said, I asked uh for all this
information to come in an FYI to you so that we all knew sort of what the districts where are we now and that was an important question last year. What are we doing now? What are some barriers to moving forward? Where do we want to go as with
sustainability efforts as we move forward. I think that's sort of our trajectory. And so I just want to add a shout out to the um administration team whoever worked on this tableto table initiative. So Julie Yana informed us uh but if
there were more than her uh whoever was working Julie and the team uh because this will not just reduce um the district's expenses for trash removal because we'll be wasting less putting less to trash and food waste is heavy
but this will feed families right so they will as soon as district informs them or promptonian informs them that we have food available. They come within couple of hours. They take that food and you utilize that same day. And um she
also informed us that there was a lot of research and facts that were that she came prepared to back up like any question that the group had, she had answers to like liability and uh whether there will be any problems and she had
answers to all of those. And so this is really a good cause and this was a good find by by that team. So just a shout out. Okay. Thank you for the kind words. I'm sure Miss Johanna will appreciate that that she really she really has been a point
person for this work. So kudos to her. Okay. Com uh we'll go to consent items, regular and routine issues. Attendant attendance at conferences. I move attendance at conferences. So I have a second. Any
questions? I was somewhat concerned there's only $9,000 left in that budget of 140 and it's not quite it's very early in the year. I know in the past we've never as far as I can remember we never really
used all the uh funds. So, I was just concerned maybe the staff should know we're running out of money and they should if they're going to do something apply or is there some buffer in case something comes up? We're going to be discussing the budget line. I think something was decided to
reduce that number because we hadn't used it in the past. But part of all of the initiatives that we have in place right now requires a lot of professional development. I'll be reviewing that that figure with Mr. Matthews and we'll decide if we need to transfer additional funds in to make them available given the amount of professional development staff has been taking advantage of.
We we've you're right. We've never spent this much at at this time and I'm not even sure we've reached this amount in years past. So interesting. Yeah. Always move the money. We can always move the money from one fund to other
and some of these may be payments for a future training. Okay, we'll take the vote. Okay. Moved by Mr. Broen, second by M. McCalli. Um, Mr. Donnie, yes. Miss Handy, yes. Mr. McCalli, Mr. McMoo, yes.
Mr. Broen, yes. Pass 5 Z. Administration. And this does include approval of the 2526 district goals. Someone like to move it. I'll move it. I'll move administration.
Second. Moved by Miss McCalli, second by Mr. McMood. Mr. Donnie, yes. Miss Handy, yes. Miss Malli, yes. Mr. McMood, yes. Miss Broen, yes. Pass 5 Z. So your work has be your work will
continue now. Uh curriculum and instruction. Um and uh this was basically just the approvals for uh field trips as listed on attachment B. I move um I move curriculum instruction.
I'll second my Mr. Bakmoot. Mr. Donnie, yes. Miss Handy, yes. Miss Malli, yes. Mr. Mcmood, yes. Miss Broen, yes. Pass 5.
Okay, we have human resources which is uh bulk of the agenda. Um and we do have one uh retirement uh that has been submitted um resignation for the purpose of retirement and that's um Gilla Elburn
Elbum um who is school psych psychologist with 25 years of service um to effective on the 1 of January. We wish her luck. I'm sure she'll probably be here right at some point.
I'll move. I wait. I just want to point out uh attachment E. It's the list of all of the club advisors for just some of the clubs of the high school. If you haven't gotten a chance to just read through it, I would. There's so many incredible
clubs the students are doing. And I think it's just worth highlighting that all of this work, all this time, all this money is going to help kids do incredible things. So, I just thought that's worth pointing out. A very wide variety. If you can't find
something in that list and I mean they have everything from pizza to whatever. Thanks, Eli. Human resources. Oh, before we before we Oh, sorry. You're moving. Go ahead. Make sure we
Miss Murphy just has a uh is gonna just has something that she'd like to uh to she'd like me to pull. Uh, can you just share that again for the with the with for the record? Sure. We're going to just pull on. You really do have two, right?
Too many page. Um, on page eight, we're looking at 7E. Um, we're going to full Ridgewood High School chapel uh for MJCL convention temporarily. We just have to get a little more information. What do we I'm
sorry. What are we pulling? So, I'm I'm going to be So, I'm going to be withdrawing my recommendation for 7E, the last item, the NJCL convention. There's just a there's a detail we have to check on that. Okay. There's a small typo on P if
you're doing that now. Page seven under Caitlyn Funch, it's returning on January in 2026, not 25. The very first item on page seven, the year is just wrong. Which I'm sorry, which item the lunchroom. Lunch roommate.
Oh, no. Uh, special ed teacher. Top of page seven. Second line. Thank you. Good catch. Wait, where where do you have it? Cunch. Yes. Oh, not her return date is in 2026. The return date is right. It's not It's
the It's the first column. It says 12125 to 11625. That should be 11626 just the end of the first portion of and I guess yeah would that also be the same for Kelly Lee? No, no,
no. Hard started last March. But those aren't return dates. Those are the those are portions. The return date is the last comp. Okay. So, you want to restate the motion? Yep. I'll move human resources with the modification.
I second. Motion by Miss McMull, second by Miss Andy, Miss Broen. Broen. Oh, sorry. Hold on. That's right. But that was in my head down. Mr. Donnie, yes. Miss Sandy, yes.
Miss McCalli, yes. Mr. Mcmood, yes. Miss Rogan, yes. Motion pass 5-0. Okay. Finance. Um, I move finance. Motion by Miss Broen, second by Miss
McCalli. I'll just read into the um record the um acceptance of restricted donations. Uh Ridgewood Early Development Association, $6,000 to be used to purchase new playground equipment. Somerville Dad's Night,
$7,373, a gift in kind for school assemblies at Somerville Elementary School. Maria Panetta and friends $700 a gift in kind of a memorial bench in honor of a
friend and again $39.52 to be used for the installation of the donation of that um memorial bench and Rididgewood Women's Soccer Booster Association $1,11352 to be used to pay for coach buses for
the team building trip. Are there any any questions about that? I don't see much in finance. Ready to vote. Okay. Mr. Donnie, yes. Miss Handy, yes. Miss Malli, Mr. Mcmood,
yes. Miss Broen, yes. Motion pass 5-0. Thank you. Um, sir Rob, um, approval of of bills. Yes. So I move the bills uh for the
approval. I second. Okay. Motion by Mr. Donnie, second by Miss Broen. Mr. Donnie, yes. Miss Handy, yes. Maui, yes. Mr. McMood, yes. Miss Broen, yes.
Motion pass 5. Um board member announcements. Um just briefly um CPAG has its uh first meeting of the year this Friday uh October 10th right here in this room right at starting at 9:30 in the morning
and there is an access access week is coming up next week. Um and uh the first sensory um dinner of the school year I'm going to put it that way is at Smith Brothers on the 16th of October Thursday night
between 5 and 7. Did I do the steel steel wheel? I say Smith Steel Wheel Tavern. Yes, that's it. Used to be Smith 100 years ago. Okay, thank you. And our students already mentioned homecoming which is on the the following
Saturday 18th. Um, other than that, did you have any The Cambodia Project is pleased to announce that Arnorn Pond, a international humanitarian who has spoken before in the district, is coming on the 8th and will be speaking to the
eighth grade classes at BF and GW. He was a um a genocide survivor, started the um Cambodian living arts and they go out to the community to revive the arts that were decimated during the genocide
in the 70s. I've met him many times. He was a survivor and adopted by a family in New Hampshire. So, he went to school and college here in the United States and received a humanitarian award from
President Carter. Um, and he's quite the remarkable person and he's coming to speak to both middle schools on the 8th. So that uh uh Wednesday. Yes, on this week on Wednesday. Yes. Great. I believe he spoke at the high school my
freshman year. Yeah, he was he did. Yes, he spoken to the high school. Now he's doing the middle schools. Great. uh discussion items. Just a a reminder, I did send you an email. Um I had been in touch with New
Jersey school boards. I have done my first portion was to put in all the board goals. Um and you have a link to the self evaluations. You had an email and I've asked you to complete it given you a nice long window I think by
November 3rd. So that hopefully um is a doable timeline for you. At that point it gets all um you know she correlates all the all the information that she uh or school boards does and then um I've
asked her to put it on her calendar the new rep to come and speak about the self-evaluation at our December meeting and that would be December 8th. So that gives her a window to do um a report, gives you time to do it. So I think we'll be in good
shape. Okay. Um acceptance of minutes. Uh we've got the August 25th regular and executive and the September 15th regular and executive uh minutes. I move those minutes.
Second. All in favor? I I I just to recuse myself from August 25th because I wasn't there for this. Got it. So you have August 25th. Uh you have five
would not be here. September 15th regular and executive and five for August 25th. No, four. Four for August. Four for August 25th. Five through September and five. We were all here for the September 15th meeting.
Yes. Okay. Yes. 4 August 25th and five for August 15th. Other business. Okay. Comments from the public. Not seeing anyone here. Is there any comment from
people listening online? Not seeing any um I will close public comment and um make a motion to adjourn the meeting. May I have a second? Second. Second. All
in favor? Okay. All right. I said it 9:22. Mary McCauley. I think so.