##VIDEO ID:Yg96tcwL1gQ## at 6:46 p.m. I call this River Edge Board of Education meeting to order um roll call please Miss Brown here miss creso m elisandro here Mr Cohen here Mr Langley here Mr Sim here and Miss Kang here uh can I get a motion to move into close session to discuss a Personnel student roll call please Miss Brown yes Mr alesandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes and Miss Kang yes we'll be back in public at around 7:30 p.m. e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right it's 7:30 p.m. we're back in public session uh roll call please Miss napalitano Miss Brown here m crbo Mr alesandro here Mr Cohen here Mr Langley here Mr Sim here and Miss Kang here let's all rise for the flag salute I pledge allegiance 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 Mr Langley could you read the mission statement for us tonight sure the river ed school district is a partnership of students parents staff and community members we are dedicated to providing a supportive environment in which all students can reach their maximum academic potential while developing as responsible citizens who respect individuality our goals to be achieved because curriculum and instruction are aligned to the New Jersey student learning standards all decisions reflect the academic social emotional and physical needs of prek to sixth grade students cooperation and ongoing communication exist between the school district district and the community and school administrator administrators and the Board of Education work together to assess and adjust procedures in response to new mandates and the changing needs of the community thank you uh miss nalana the open public meetings notice pursuant to the open public meetings act notice of this meeting its date time and place have been delivered to the post office the municipal building the record and posted on the district website at least 48 hours prior to the time of this meeting thank you uh at this time um I will open it up to public comment set agenda items only um as a reminder first and foremost please remember that we aim to maintain a level deorum in our board meetings and we expect everyone to be kind and model the type of behavior that we teach our students each speaker should be courteous and direct comments to the board president not individual board members and as per policy 11:20 a participant must be recognized by the presiding officer and preface comments by an announcement of his or her name residents and group affiliation if appable and to maintain fairness each speaker will have 3 minutes to speak so at this time I open it up for public comments on agenda items only no okay all right moving on to uh reports the superintendent report Dr Bernice uh good evening thank you uh District enrollment we have um 1,171 students enrolled uh I'll do comments on agenda items first um fire emergency and uh bus drills were completed in October um there is the purchasing man manual in the uh on the agenda tonight that has to be approved annually it's uh 40 49 Pages if you include the cover of um anyone's cure for their insomnia I'm sorry um but it's a but it has to be approved as a qac item and of course we have to abide by the uh the 48 um pages of uh um protocol that's in the purchasing manual in curriculum and education items there's regular travel buildings and grounds the health sa health and safety evaluation I want to thank Dave Cabrera uh M napalitano and Cindy Riley for completing all that documentation those things have been signed and this is the submission um uh resolution there regular Finance items in section H in Personnel appointments resignations leaves there's a termination as well uh as well as a new job description for the coordinator of educational technology this is not a new bu it necessarily but a push in the evolution of our efforts to Stand Out Among our our um like District peers working under the supervision of the supervisor of innovation assessment and special projects this leadership role is designed to plan strategically and initiate uh tactically River Edge's efforts to remain on The Cutting Edge of the rapidly advancing wave of Technology breaking at our feet here in 2024 where I realized the job description uh a high I think we are much more likely to find the right person and train them to fit the mold rather than find the mold itself I'm I'm not sure that exact person's out there but we will post and see uh who applies in special education there are not items tonight this uh region five has standard resolutions to support their operations I did want to report on policy quickly we are in the 12we dwell period for stra last May from the initial on board uh on boarding meeting which took place in late September until they delivered the initial draft of the policy got and that will likely take about 6 months to to do once we uh have that delivered I have a number of closing items um tomorrow is family steam night for four five and six uh grades four five and six families that's at 6:30 p.m. at the Roosevelt School I I do intend on being there at 6:30 um as a science teacher in that capacity I spoke to Dr Murphy today about the strategic planning effort that will take place in the spring the initial at meeting uh will be on December 6 with the internal um team for that and then after which there will be four stakehold meetings from January through April weeding up to the finished product uh more information on this effort will be forthcoming however we do need to build a stakeholder groups so that'll be very public people can sign up anyone can participate um I would likely um uh send uh invitations to um very specific groups uh PTO probably the mayor and councel uh inviting them to the effort um this way it's it's more specific than just opening up to anyone um and then um we'll build those groups and and those folks can participate in those four meetings I think that they're on like the third Tuesday or third Thursday of each month but those days will um be published in in the uh in the information that we'll public that we will publish in mid December before um or around the same time as a December board meeting I have some celebrations um for the 2020 selections of teacher of the year these teachers will be recognized at the January 2025 board meeting so we have to select these folks early uh that report is due at the end of this month otherwise our teachers are not eligible to participate in the governor's teacher of the board um I'll call it competition so uh we had to move this up a little bit in order to be able to um submit their names these names have been submitted um these uh nominations if you will are the products of the selection commit comme and we accepted 22 initial nominations the nomination form was placed on the website it was placed on social media um anyone could have anyone from anywhere could have nominated anyone I think that the that the governor's teacher of the year award does not allow you to nominate yourself um but we had no self- nominations as far as they know um those nominations were record were scored up against the rubric based on the governor's teacher of the award scoring guide on which I actually built a nomination form for River Edge uh there are five components on is the education I'm sorry is the educator an exceptionally skilled and dedicated educator does the educator have a superior ability to inspire students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn does the educator demonstrate leadership and innovation in and outside the classroom does the educator have the respect and admiration of students parents administrators and colleagues and finally does the educator play an active role in the community as well as the school nominees had to fill out each one of these components on n nomation forms um I did place on the form that uh like a weak nomination May likely end up with a weak score so if you were going to nominate someone try to make it robust and we did have some very very robust narratives so uh we have three uh three te teachers or and District education Support Services of the year so for Cherry Hill it's uh we have uh Miss Leah Del I looked it up Del Del G Del Gus where get as an Italian um deuch uh for Roosevelt we have uh Linda Marini um and for district education Sports Services Personnel Lauren Port valit um and they will be recognized uh here at the board meeting in January these Educators support represent the best of our our teaching and support faculty and I can graduate them on the recognition and that's that there is one more um interesting um item for Teacher recognition two weeks ago Christine Moran received a wonderful email from our account director and educational consultant at linkit now linkit of course is the is River Edge's benchmarking and assessment platform for ELA math and in fifth grade science Link's research team recently completed the unique analysis that found a strong correlation between the number of logins to link it and student performance growth over the last two years both on the linol benchmark assessments and the njsla for tested grade levels Ln informed us that one of River ERS teachers ranked in the 95th percentile Statewide for student growth in grade five English language arts and that teacher is Caroline Kelly so Caroline Kelly uh will if she completes a survey will receive a $10 gift certificate from linol um and a certificate that's signed by me um and I'll deliver that to her this week um so congratulations Caroline that is those these folks are examples of the kind of uh exceptional um teachers that we have in the district and um I'm pretty sure uh that if they were here they would um be thanking their colleagues and their students as well um there was another uh interesting ranking report that was um very uh complimentary of River Edge that was um a little it was posted in social social media but also publicly on uh traditional media Outlets um about River edg's ranking Statewide according to Niche now I wanted to take a few minutes just to talk about this the niche is a widely recognized platform for evaluating and ranking schools across the United States these things show up on real estate sites right you go on Zillow and you cook around I think Zillow uses great schools and and all of these um um platforms have different criteria so I wanted to talk about the criteria that left um River Edge with two of the top 20 Bergen County elementary schools um which is of of course pretty um pretty awesome need uses a comprehensive methodology that combines stats and user feedback but what was some of the key factors and I'll talk about them now so they use public publicly analyzed data or publicly available data sets and then they go ahead and do their own analysis so I wanted to talk about that analysis for a second for academics it's 50% of their analysis the academic performance of a school is the most heavily weighted Factor each evaluates standardized test scores which of course is only the njsla these proficiency levels in math and reading our source from State education departments and then we look at student progress they look at student growth in performance over time on the njsla they look at 20% of that evaluation is the quality of teachers through metrics now we do report these metrics as part of our state reporting student to teacher ratio lower ratios indicate more individualized attention so so they assert um and kind of makes sense teacher salaries compensation as an indicator of investment in quality educator and then teacher surveys ratings and reviews from teachers about their work environment and support the first two are reported to the state annually by the district as part of our annual um reporting requirements and then teacher surveys is just what people go on and do culture and diversity is 10% we do have to report e ethnic and economic um diversity a representation of different backgrounds among students and then parent and student surveys I didn't see any on there but perceptions of inclusivity and accept are part of this um ranking and because it is 10% if there's only one thing on there and if it's glowing it helps you but if it if it's um if someone writes something um I don't know not so flattering on there it can also tank that score so um it is important that we be mindful of uh what we post um on the website resources and facilities are 10% the availability and quality of resources are measured by per student spending how much money is allocated for each student this is a widely um uh used measure of uh how um districts value their spending and value um a student essentially I had a professor at St John's who would say show me your budget and I'll show you what you value right so if you're placing value on um per puple expenditure and inside that per puple expenditure measure certain measures of certain things we can figure out what you value and then access facilities libraries technology and extracurricular infrastructures I'm almost done with the percentages and I have some more but um parent and student satisfaction so there there are surveys involved with within each ranking uh rankings parent and student rankings are the overall St student um school and student experience and then written testimonials that are in Niche we don't have any of these so that 10% just gets disregarded and everything else becomes that much more um heavily on the week there are additional considerations such as extra curriculars safety and crime rates in the school's vicinity and reported incidents as you know um we have to report uh through the student uh school safety data system that uh we do report um any um violent crimes or used to be called uh violence and vandalism um those things do get reported uh as well as suspension rates and responsiveness and support from school leadership I'm not sure how they collect that data they don't say so most of that is um reported through our typical reporting and is publicly um available through State websites I don't know why the rankings matter but they do uh Niche goes ahead and asserts that rankings serve as a helpful tool for families and selecting where to live in schools however it's best used in conjunction with other factors such as school visits and discussions with administrators to assure alignment in a unique child's needs and goals but that's not indicated at all in the ranking we just know that we have an A which is fine and other schools have B D's C's D's I hope that no one has an asked but maybe um so uh th that's part of this uh I guess analysis of local schools that is not necessarily available so what do we do with this uh and it that's a a more difficult question to answer because some of this is um hard to influence but there are some things that we can do so to continue improve academics that's 50% of the rank now Riv happens to do very well on the standardized test test so but we need to continue to analyze student performance and data to identify areas of improvement link it helps us do this as we take those benchmarking assessments three times a year but njsla data can also help us do that at which is a summary um a summit of tests that we get at the end of the year some of that is helpful but keep in mind by the time that data is sent to us it's and finalized it really we we just got it right we talked about it last month so that October we had already started the school year so the benchmarking assessments are are a very good way for us to to kind of sit back look at analyze and say well where can we make improvements and do things earlier in the year to help influence the um the test scores uh the summit of test scores where this ranking comes from link it does not report to Niche so our growth on our benchmarking assessments is not something that they consider it's only growth from year to year uh in I guess student cohort as reported by njsla and then Target of Assessments in with for struggling students and we have a number of programs that help struggling students but also help um I also think that uh you also have to have to continue to help all of the students so there's a wide spectrum of Learners and you need programs for each of those Learners and River has these um uh has these programs enhancing curriculum and keeping Uh current on curriculum which I think that we've W we've talked quite a bit about Ela and Mathematics programmatic changes over the last two years especially over the summer um EA was given uh a very strong Polish in um brand new units and the teachers were working just the other day on reading assessments we're building our build our own assessments and uh I think those will will be very informative as we begin to use them uh mathematics as you know we have a five6 program this year as a pilot um we are investing uh heavily on professional development in that pilot and I think that uh teachers are beginning to report that it is making a difference and the students like The Amplified as most programs so I think that if uh those programmatic changes will be helpful we have not made a final um determination on if we're going to roll down the pilot uh through Kate to well K to four next year or if we're going to wait an additional year to see what the um see what the program looks like but we uh that'll be reported later in the year uh promoting student growth using growth met metrics and best marks in teacher evaluations and school Improvement plans I think that there's a number of ways that we can do that and talk about them more publicly and widely with um stakeholder groups and a lot of that is going to be um spoken about during the strategic planning initiative um strengthens teacher quality supportive teacher professional development I think that we have a that our school Improvement panels um do have a pretty uh significant influence on how um the teacher professional development time is being spent there are uh the teachers have brought to me that they'd like that some of that time spent in other ways however I think that ultimately um the PD that we are providing is both um significant critical and helpful uh improve teacher retention if you looked at one of these um surveys are uh 20% of the staff is here for less than three years so that's something that um we need to kind of take a careful look at part of that might have been due to retirements or or um movement and there there are people who are going to lead the profession for whatever reason but I think that we need to be mindful of um who we we are attracting to the district and and how can we um professionally develop them and then how do we keep them um it's hard for me to look at the salary guide and say well if we hire everyone on step one we're going to attract the best talent I don't think that's true so uh the best talent sometimes cost a little bit more money than um perhaps uh the step one on the guide um affords and it is hard when we budget because any vacant positions have to be budgeted at step one but in the end I am very and anyone um who seen where we hire I am very open to hiring higher on the guide for um higher uh more experienced teachers um and this has enhanced teacher compensation and better possible sure a lot of that's out of our control um increase engagement encourage teachers for par participate in community events and share successes via social media and newsletters I am coming up with social media Doctrine so that we can have more robust um I I mean I said it before and I'll say it again I said it 100 times to many people like I'm not exactly sure what what good comes out of social media but when people feel that they're informed about the Going's on um then at least they feel that they're being informed about the going on so uh I think that if we have more robust Doctrine on that the doctrine will will dictate frequency the doct will ask questions about why why are we posting this on social media and how does it Advance our academic um narrative um to the community so those are the types of things that uh we'll be working on and I have a little work group working on the doctoring um promote culture and diversity and celebrating them host cultural awareness events and activities that highlight the school's commitment to inclusion and then in the end resources and Facilities is that last one of those last 10% items and this calls for enhancing the playgrounds buildings and grounds I you know the PTO have spent a lot of time and effort fundraising for the playground that's outside there and it's used every day I see it from my window um and uh Roosevelt's doing the same thing so those are things that the community is helping us with and then uh we already talked about the safety and uh reporting that we have to do so we are doing things to the buildings um and we're very fortunate to have buildings and ground screw that is very Mindful and um forward-looking so I think that there's been a lot of things done to the uh buildings before my arrival in regard to Safety and Security specifically that have helped uh quite a bit and these are things that we use every day in fact today we had a i i we had a kind of a false 911 call student was calling out of the thing uh the classroom by aake and um you know they didn't do it on purpose but right away we got notified so and then we very quickly realized oops this is not a big deal um nothing's actually the matter at all and uh with the SRO we were able to communicate with the desk right away and it limited the response um instead of calling out the Cavalry for no reason so um these things are uh these upgrades have already been done and the these uh systems are working which is are both reassuring and helpful um and then increase access to technology ensure classrooms are equipped with the most up Tod devices this is very hard in fact right now we're coping with a platform that teachers use that doesn't that we've been notified by the the the software entity that um it's simply not going to work on PR books that are older than 5 years old so it's time for us to look at our um availability of uh I was just say student um access to platforms and say well we have I don't know you know 100 Chromebooks that are over 5 years old well it's not going to work on this partic this particular piece of software isn't going to work on that thing so maybe it's time to have those siness and and we have to budget for another 100 Chromebooks for to replace those next year so it's budget time and those are the types of questions that we have to begin to ask ourselves uh prioritize safety I talked about the the security measures that we have so and then and um improve Administration visibility publish detailed School Improvement plans and goals online so uh part of the strategic planning effort will be to just create a new tab on the the website for strategic planning and then as we're updating those documents the surveys that will be sent out I those things just have to be posted there so that if people want to look at them they can if they don't want to look at them we can talk about them maybe they'll hear about it and either a it will inspire them to go ahead and look at them or B they will continue not to want to look at them which is also okay um but knowing that that that that kind of information is out there is helpful the board goals and the district goals are are always posted online every year that is a requirement anyway so in the end um River red receives an a which is um very impressive the Roosevelt School is 56 out of 1,422 schools elementary schools in New Jersey Public elementary schools and charry Hill school is 15 out of 1, 1422 schools in New Jersey these are incredible rankings uh based on the criteria that um I just laid out and I think that River Edge has a lot to be proud of in regard to um those rankings and um that concludes my report thank you Dr benice uh any questions from board members I just want to thank you for going into each area and explaining it because I think that's um a real it's really important for the community to also understand each of these areas and how hard we're working how hard you're working with the administrative team to make sure that um we are doing the best for our kids just one quick thing about the niche is updated every year or is it I my suspicion is that they will update that once a year because as the njsla data comes out they can take that cut that's published in late October to the public and they probably go ahead and do their work pretty quickly because they have all of their analysis tools probably already set up so once they can download that giant database of performance data they just probably load it into their thing and the bot goes through and ranks the ranks the schools we don't necessarily have trending though from prior like is this about where we usually land or is it better or or worse I don't know okay I will get you an answer though I find out where we were last year the the trouble is that there's so many factors that are involved in this that I usually and because there's so many different types of right you US News and World reports does their own um Great Schools does their own now Great Schools is uses even more factors that are even more Amorphis um I think that the fact that that Niche uses 50% just on the data is kind of helpful um because it really is uh if you think that the njsla is a good indicator of learning right which kind of we almost have to agree on that because there is no other that this the state publishes so um that being 50% of this and then then the other factors that are also reported um by the the school district fueling these rankings is helpful there's a lot less sub subjectivity to this particular um although there is right there is 20% that's based on surveys and and data and if you don't have that then it's disregarded but if it's um if it's skewed in any way it can really kind of hurt your rank um so it's it really is how much weight do you want to put on these things and we can ask ourselves do we want to spend a lot of time pursuing like one narrow band of this so that we can improve the ranking I think that that could be a discussion I don't know how much effort you want to put into one thing when we should be looking at this at the global entity and the one thing that really matters which is the teacher and learning so um I would like to spend more time talking about that and less time talking about some other things um but knowing that it that the entire sphere needs to kind of be covered uh um will allocate our time accordingly and to make the best choices for the children thank you any other questions or comments from board members okay um moving on to the board secretary report uh Miss Nal Tano thank you um this week is packed the pickup for donations of holiday turkeys and food um it happened Monday and Tuesday at Cherry Hill and it'll be tomorrow and Friday at um Roosevelt School um this is our yearly tradition of giving to local families in need and to the food pantry um if anyone's wants to come to Roosevelt stop by drop off tury or non- perishables and you get a cup of apple cider um on the agenda as Dr Bernice mentioned there's the riveting approval of the purchasing manual which I find very interesting um which is updated and approve yearly based on best practices for governmental purchasing um also the approval of the health and safety checklist which is approved each year um the approval of Ida carryover funds from the prior year is on the agenda approval of additional student contracts for hopstone Academy and approval of bid contracts as per our bid opening awarding bids for special education transportation for our member districts thank you any questions or comments from board members uh moving on to the president's report um I just want to let board members know there's a uh Bergen County uh board members meeting a hybrid meeting on December 5th um the topic of the night would be addressing teacher shortage as something that all school districts are facing um they have a list of panelists um legislators that are going to come to speak on how they are um addressing the shortage um I know that ranging from teachers Subs AIDS um it's um there's a lot of shortage so um I think that's a really great session for um board members to participate you can do it virtually or person um on December 5th um and I just want to say um congratulations to miss delandro Mr Sim I think I saw Mr Fus here um congratulations on your um election and uh the reorg meeting is uh January 7th so that's when you will be sworn in for your next three years as board member so thank you for your time and dedication to this District um any other questions for me high school so not so if you want to go I actually registered for it virtually already okay uh moving on to committee reports we'll start with Mr Langley uh with the finance and facili Report yep so we met on the 13th uh it's a fairly short meeting we talked about the budget but the budget is tentative uh for now the calendar is tentative uh no details other than we expected to be challenging um we discussed a contractual matter which we talked about enclosed and then we touched briefly on some items uh we had discussed at a prior meeting alphab best weight list we believe that's been cleared at this point um there was a brief Network outage which was resolved um Roosevelt roof is done and we submitted the reimbursement paperwork which is going to take some amount of time a while to uh but that's all done uh the boiler up and running at Roosevelt they're fine tuning it and then um the CD that we had invested in is coming due at the end of this month and we're going to decide whether we want to rein reinvest it uh and then yeah the next meeting is on December 9th at 7 any questions from board members okay moving on to the personnel and management report Mr Sim yeah personel management met on November 11th uh 5:15 p.m. length was 57 minutes Mr Coen Miss Ken uh Dr Venice Mr napolitan and myself were present and the discuss was um on the district calendar in next year um so discussion around the aligning the calendar with neighboring districts like Li and also as well as adding uh Luna New Year's Day as a day of the agreed to survey the community on their uh preferences for the February break and other calendar decisions before finalizing the calendar so instead of we making a decision we want to feel what the commun uh Community is thinking about and if we have to give a day as a Luna New Year's Day U we also in a way we can actually recognize and celebrating the day so that they may the community can bring their days in as to celebrating their uh the holidays and the other word uh another topic was the administrator contract uh contract is up for negotiation so we will discuss around the contract also a request input from the legal council and then this will be ongoing discussion and then we'll let the board whole board know what's uh coming and there was a update on the uh technology coordinator and computer networking technician role um the change uh aimed to shift the technology coordinator position to be more on education and Technologies focused on professional development and coaching for teachers um and the budget for the next year is um ongoing and was so there's a concern about potential budget sholds given lower enrollment and rising cost of the committee of advised taking a a conservative approach to the budget um and the next uh meeting committee meeting will be on December 9th 5:15 any question or anything you want to add a question so the calendar will put out a survey to see what the community would prefer and then we're bringing that to River de like how are we working with them to match it or from what I remember from the committee meeting there was a suggestion of a survey I don't know if the whole committee and Mr Coen you can chime in if that's the best way I think the next step was for Dr Bernice to speak to the administrative team and and then um go from there um I think the the whole takeaway with the calendar is that um our priority is always the education of the students and Dr did point out every day we have prior to uh testing day right in May April May right is always uh more valuable than after so the other part you know the discussion has always gone back and forth in previous years as to you know when we acknowledge one holiday you know then there's other holidays to to acknowledge to and before you know it we're you know going into you know having to cut other days um so you know we also brought up in discussion perhaps you know when it's not aligned with Riverdale um it causes a lot of issues for families along with um while we might want to have our calendar identify and celebrate the diversity of our community not everyone's um jobs are allow them to take those time off then it becomes a child care issue so those were a lot of different points that were brought up during the committee meeting um my understanding was that Dr Bernice was going to speak to the administrators to see what their thoughts were and then go from there I don't know if you want to chime in yeah I so I don't want to restate what you just stated because that would be kind of a waste of time but I do very much feel that way there's a way we just went over how this how the district's ranked publicly and if we start taking away too many days before the test right we know that the the way that we can improve the test scores and improve student performance in in a measurable way is to get them in front of their teacher and have more time with them so more time is actually what should be the goal in not before the test not last time I there's a way to gain this system which is to start in August and we could spring everybody out of here and on on May 30th or something like that and then we totally gained the system we got two more weeks before the test and we'll slay all these other districts right but I just know that there's not a whole lot of appetite for that so what we have to do is continue to work within um the uh I'll to say traditional parameters of a school year but perhaps um do some things with professional development so that we can give families time well I'll say community families time off and um where we can have contractual teacher days here while students have off or minimum days or some other um solutions to these things so um the other that's step one right how do we maximize time before the test that's the first question the second question is um about what you were talking about with alignment so I do have a monthly meeting with the tri district superintendent of of Riveredge and Riverdale and Ordo so um we're going to want our we're going to do our best to look at the calendars the draft calendars are different than the draft calendar that I was thinking about from the other districts so we do have to look at that additionally um region five also uh we were talking with Lisa Bernardo um she collects all of their calendar so we have a lot of access to what um C wers that districts are kind of proposing for next year um Region 5 has them specifically because we service a lot of their transportation so we actually we absolutely need those calendars so it's a way for um River to kind of gain the system a little bit and have access to a whole lot of calendars so we'll look at um what's kind of the the Zeitgeist on that and then um try to align with whatever the trend is um this year I did have a meeting initially this year one of my first meetings with parents where they work they did bring to me um uh a concern a desire to observe one or New Year um this year that happens to align with what would typically be a a February break um however the there are other districts that are not giving a long Fe February break this year so because of that it actually short circuits that conversation um so we have we have some decision to make about the calendar that and I would have liked to kind of had it done already in draft form but there's a lot of interesting things next year that um present some challenges and I'd rather not be um in school until June 22nd because we know that that whole month after that test is kind of not measured so we can still be making progress and growth with the children um but at the same time it's not going to yield any results for next school year so we have to be mindful of that as we create these calendars it's the reason that um survey uh what was it the asking Community about their feedback is uh the surrounding communities has a a very similar competition of uh ethnic groups so it may work I mean if and it doesn't have to be follow the high school uh Regional School's calendar we can Le their uh calendars also so uh you know get the feedback from the community and then we can make the decision based on it and then we can uh uh bring that up to the uh Tri District uh uh meeting or I mean and then communicated out to the other districts so that align the calendar also any other questions or comments okay um curriculum did me um I just didn't not get a time to write the reports I'll report on it at our uh December meeting um moving on to uh motions to be approved starting with D1 uh approval of the minutes starting with Mr simp uh move to approve D1 as stated any questions or comments from more members roll call please Miss Brown abing Stella Sandra yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr Sim obain Miss Kang yes motion for E1 through three motion to approve E1 through3 as stated second any questions or comments roll call please M Brown Mr alesandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes Miss Kang yes uh motion for F1 move to approve F1 as stated second any questions or comments bov please Miss Brown yes Mr elisandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes Miss Kang yes uh motion for G1 I move to approve G1 is stated second any questions or comments roll call please Miss Brown yes Mr alesandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes Miss Kang yes motion for H1 through six move to approve motions H1 through H6 as stated second any questions or comments roll call please Miss Brown yes Mr alesandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes Miss Kang yes motion for I one through nine so moved second any questions or comments voll call please Miss Brown yes Mr alesandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes Miss Kang yes um there's nothing for Jay uh K motion for K1 through 13 13 move to approve K 1 through 13 F second any questions or comments the question about uh the fines uh to the for company uh I mean we've been doing that uh I don't know how many years uh is it working okay uh so that bu companies they are aware of and they follow the whatever they supposed to follow so they have to take seriously um transporting our students our special education students um most especially and so they have to make sure that they're timely that children aren't left at school too long they're not on the bus too long so that was something new that we had started a few years back with actually incurring fines to them and I think it has helped improve their service say but uh we see this I mean it's uh keeps still happening so is there any way you know can make it doesn't happen at all we hope so that that's it's a deterrent right it's anytime it costs the bus company money we hope that we're deterring them from um not keeping their timeliness in their contract so okay do they pay the fines yes okay behaviorally this is it's all stick there's no carrot right ideally you You' have a bonus or something for ontime transportation but writing that contract would be kind of strange so we're left with questions so now it's call Miss Brown yes Mr alandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes Miss Kang yes is there any uh New or Old business that the board wishes to bring up um seeing that there are none we'll move on to the second uh public comment time so as a reminder please remember that we aim to maintain a level of decorum in our board meetings and we expect everyone to be kind and model the type of behavior that we are teaching our students each speaker should be courteous and direct comage to the board president not individual board members and as per policy 11:20 a participant must be recognized by the presiding officer and must preface comments by an announcement of his or her name residence and group affiliation if appliable and to maintain fairness each speaker will have three minutes to speak um we also request that comments related to individual student matters be directed to the child's teacher principal or the superintendent as not all issues especially ones involving children can be addressed publicly in board meetings so at this time I open it up to the public thank you my name is Eric Modell I live at 178 bogert Road and uh my family moved in in 1951 I'm a member of the historic commission and also from the Bergen County Historic Society and my third hat is I do postings on Facebook Facebook about uh Journeys into River Edge about gives a sense of place I call it offbeat off the beaten path overlooked and forgotten and try to tie the dots together from the River Edge I knew to where we are and hopefully provide a vision for what River Edge can be about a year or so ago I came to visit superintendent Den with to share with her some of the things that were going on in the Commission in particular there was a uh QR program by coincidence uh we happen to post the first QR uh decals today their four streets in the first stage of it and uh as part of that we got into a broader discussion she happened to be a a soccer mom as I was a soccer dad from years ago so we knew one another and I was explaining what we were talking about in this whole sense of place what distinguishes River Edge from orod delno Milford any other town and provides Pride I you know intuitively I go to July 4th back activities in Memorial Park and I'm so proud with the parade and there are other moments here walk down the street people say hello to one another it doesn't take a dog to bring people to engage people into discussions but I wanted I appreciate you know that's the secret sauce and there's a broader discussion in terms of professionally being involved in this trying to find out as a fan of the late Charles caralt what America is about what a communities about and trying to tie that in so in my efforts in the historic commission I've been talking about rather than just preserving old buildings and old artifacts it's that spirit and trying to tap into what the DNA what makes a special what makes River Edge so so um we've been working on a number of projects so I'm coming here number one as I said I started introducing the idea of Riveredge stories that's my thing uh telling these stories and these stories put together become part of what I call a smart Community narrative so this little discuss disc turned into a broader discussion about sense of place and the role of students and parents and the schools as part of the broader community and uh what students can contribute we've had on our commission uh Riverdale student for the last six or seven years prompted me to go up and do the same talk to the Riverdale board about a week and a half ago and the response was favorable and I tell you what I told them number one it was the particular project but number two the stories here number two the idea of there being a local curriculum uh I've heard stories of people not understanding the connection between New Bridge Center and the actual New Bridge Landing and the sense of history there I write about history because uh now it's the 1950s and 60s when I grew up it was just how I live but there's whole history there and trying to maintain that that we are on the shoulders of those who preceded us we just did an exhibit at the cultural center about post-war uh River Edge from 1946 to 1964 this building open in 1948 so many of the institutions in town to make people appreciate just what it's all about and even if they don't stay here the idea of what community is about because it's such a great community so to make it sure number one was the projects we were doing number two was the idea of being a local curriculum that as you're doing New Jersey history or whatever that part of the you know hopefully what you're educating people about is the sense of not Civics but the sense of from inside out members of the community what that means uh those who were here before how we relate to one another and what we leave to those afterwards number three is me in terms of the storytelling I use it as stories an old picture uh story that was passed on to me from the neighbor I'll spare you if I talk to you again I'll share some of those stories but the idea is part of a curriculum there's an intergenerational part where you can explore in a neighborhood uh you know talk to a neighbor what was the neighborhood like before somebody in your family how did you grow up and I have a dozen different ideas that I'll share with someone else finally part of the historic commission 2026 is going to be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and uh the start of the USA and I informed the bureau here in terms of programs on a federal level a state level and a county level and there's a lot and a lot speaks to you as Educators so I wanted to inform you of that so I here to introduce myself I know my time is long up so thank you for indulging me but uh last year at the time I started this conversation with the superintendent and when she wasn't here anymore you know I was told knocking on the door wait we've got a temporary and so here is a year later and I've been calling and emailing and I thought I'd give it a human face and showing that like to work with you guys in terms of partnership whatever that is and hope to be in touch with you thank you okay thank you anybody in particular I should follow up or should I leave my address or anything I would say uh reach out to Dr Bernice I think it's a great idea I mean I I I've read your post on I think it's I've learned so much about River Edge and I know so many of us do and we really appreciate the the educa weekly education of the history of river Ed and I know that'll be so rich for our students too also there's so many different voices I don't want it to be one voice and that's what I'm trying to get I think that's important and I think we've had conversations in the past about um which is where the many uh the community event that we have in June um about stories that we all have different stories to tell and that's how we kind of come together and connect so I think um from that and from what you've spoken I think it's a great place to start with our students so okay if is there a card or is there I call tomorrow I'm sorry do I get a card from anybody do I call tomorrow and get the contact information okay all right appreciate it thank you thanks for thank you thank you allk everybody I think here loves what you're doing apprciate it it's it's nice to see the name and and now meet you in we all know your name so now you know why I like writing better than in thank you um I'm Megan mados 194 Beach Drive North um here in River Edge um my daughter is in the first grade at Cherry Hill and her teacher has been on leave since the start of the year and tonight the board approved the extension of her leave through the end of the year of the three other sections in the first grade at Cherry Hill one other teacher resigned another is on maternity leave leaving only one teacher in all of the first grade one section in all of first grade with a foundational year-long permanent tenear track teacher I'm not here to debate or raise any issues with teachers you izing their leaves they're all legally entitled to do so I was happy to take my maternity leave respect that however I do want to ensure that the board is aware of the current situation in the first grade at Cherry Hill as I do believe if steps are not taken to address the learning Gap that is occurring there will be long-term Ram ramifications for these students it was bad enough that the grade was reduced from five sections to four this year increasing class sizes across the board we now have 75% of these students being taught by either an uncertified substitute or leave replacement teachers I understand that the leave replacement that was able to Shadow the classroom teacher since September and has slowly transitioned she's doing wonderfully from what I understand so I'm not speaking to that class here however I do want to ensure that the board understands that two of the four sections in this grade have essentially received the bare minimum of curriculum instruction this year parents do not receive any work home that these kids are doing a class I've received one piece of paper home from my daughter's class this year one none of us know how our first graders are reading from the teacher perspective we genuinely understand from our students that they're not doing phonics lessons we certainly have not seen any proof of reading or writing occurring at the school that is coming home in their folders or in their stories from school comparing notes with parents from the other two sections those students are further along in the curriculum and progressing at a normal Pace I could go on with my any more specifics however I've already outlined my specific concerns to the board and Dr Bernice and I don't believe it's appropriate to single out a teacher in this form however it is clear that at this point the student are the students are regressing falling behind and frankly they're aware of the fact that they're not learning anything upon learning that her teacher is in fact not returning in January my daughter broke down hysterically crying that she is not learning anything she's been holding it in waiting for the return of a woman she doesn't even know my little girl has gone from loving school to hating it in 2 and a half months the district has already let these kids down there needs to be a concrete plan to ensure that the needs of all of these students are appropriately addressed hoping that the teachers that are joining in December and hopefully January will be some magic bullet to come in and turn these classes around is not a plan we cannot be in a position where 50% of the students in this grade have not been adequately taught the curriculum going into second grade this will have long-term ramifications for the grade for for their entirety of their Elementary School career it's not fair to them their classmates nor the teachers who will have them down the line I want the board and the public to be aware that this Gap exists already in November the parents are waiting with baited breath that it doesn't get worse the district has a responsibility to all of these students and the parents expect a concrete plan to ensure that these students are not left behind thank you thank you um thank you I we did the board did receive your email so thank you for uh sending in thank you for coming for all everyone that came here tonight uh we did discuss this in uh executive session and as it is a public for we are not able to speak specifically about a teacher but uh the board was assured that there is a plan there just needs to be some steps taken before that um I'm certain that Dr Bernice miss Heitman will communicate that to to the parents once those are more concrete um Dr bise do you want to add anything or I'm a little afraid it's it would be commenting on a Personnel item so I'm so that I would I would I don't think I don't think we should I just no and I want to be clear that I'm I wasn't coming here to I personally think the particular teacher was dealt a very bad hand coming in um however what is making me concerned and parents here are not just from this particular grade there's other classes represented here is the fact that it is 50% of this student body where are like these K we are not seeing a single worksheet nothing our kids maybe did hegerty one time this year don't know about fundations I mean we don't we don't know what's going on in their classroom and for 50% of the entire first grade at Cherry Hill to be this behind in November is not acceptable thank you uh my name is Patricia Brian I live at 377 Windsor Road my son is a first grade student at Char Hill uh his teacher started the year but was absent for much of September and resigned soon after the her students had different subs for the first month of school while she was out and then the temporary sub who took over and is still currently there is not yet a certified teacher other than the handful of days in September when his teacher was present my son and his classmates have not received instruction from a certified classroom teacher for essentially two and a half months it will be three full months by the time the permanent replacement teacher starts which is right before the long holiday break I understand the teachers leave for various reasons I also understand that the administration cannot always anticipate this and that it takes time to fill positions and make adjustments however I have two main concerns that bring me here tonight evidence of learning loss and lack of a plan to address this moving forward we are now nearly a third of the way into the school year and it's clear that the frequent interruptions and instruction frequent changes and who is delivering instruction for my son's class lack of a certified teacher in the classroom and lack of collaborative and cohesive grade Team Planning has negatively impacted this class's learning and their ability to stay on track with the curriculum some examples since the original teacher left the students have not had a single phonics or writing assignment for homework nor has a single example of writing done in the classroom been sent home for parent review there has been no communication regarding reading progress or skills being practiced um it is unclear who will be writing report cards moving forward and how students will be assessed for reading moving forward I have some concerns about my own son that I'll just save for I'll email the board directly about that my concerns moving forward I feel like what our kids need now and urgently is for the district to come up with a concrete plan to address the learning gaps caused by all the disruption in instruction um I'm asking the board members to consider directing resources to address the following the need need for a concrete plan to address learning loss I feel like the district needs to be proactive about assessing how the in Interruption interruptions in instruction and lack of access to a certified teacher of impacted students and how can resources be directed to assess kids according to where they should be right now in the curriculum at this point and where they actually are with regard to learning objectives and curriculum benchmarks um how can the district offer students targeted support moving forward to address learning loss and how can we draw on existing resources to support new incoming staff to address the gaps in instruction and I know I'm over but one last thing is there I have really tried to do my due diligence as a parent and taking my concerns to the teacher to the principal I have gotten very vague responses and so I just felt like I needed to come here tonight and let my concerns be known thank you thank you hi my name is Elizabeth bfii I live at 159 Valley Road uh my son is in the first grade class uh at Cherry Hill who also um is being taught by one of the substitutes or or leave cover um staff members um a lot of what I wanted to say has already been said um but it's really scary to parents I mean I'm I'm going to just even scratch that what I what I wrote It's first grade is so important it's like the beginning of their journey of Education you know you've got these kids who were two when Co started and I don't want to throw the co card out there all the time but these were babies who were shut in for so long who might not have even gotten to go to preschool because life was insane they started kindergarten and now first grade is is up and down you know I ask how was school today did you have a regular teacher did you have a substitute I don't know what the plan is is the response I get from my son um they don't know what's going on and they I'm seeing it at home I'm sure other parents are seeing the effects of it at home um and I don't know what the Gap is because while I work in education I am not an educator um and we're relying on the school to be able to know that what are you doing to say okay this is where our veteran teachers class is and they're doing great and it shouldn't all fall on her she's got a the largest class I think of all four of the classes because people got Savvy and realized that and asked to get moved over to her class um everybody is entitled to their time for whatever reason that may may be um but we just have a large amount of teachers that are out in this one grade um what does that look like for them when they move on to second grade what does that look like for a second grade staff does that mean that they're going to turn around and leave too because they don't know how to fill that Gap is that going to just continue to create people leaving and trust me I'm an education I know they're leaving in droves and it's hard to get them in uh Dr Bernice I am so thankful that you spoke to hiring Educators and paying them for what they're worth and and not looking at starting everybody at step one because not everybody deserves to be starting at step one um I'm hopeful that we can continue to find Educators that my fifth grader has had wonderful experiences so far we really haven't had that much difficulty um but I'm really concerned um from a parent of a child with a 504 it's a lot so I just urge you to really remember that we've got little kids who've gone through a lot and a a really short period of time and um we just want to make sure that they're not behind the aall thank you thank you good evening my name is ponie Maddox I live at 191 zisy place in River Edge and I am a Cherry Hill first grade parent as well I also actually have a fifth grader and a sixth grader at Cherry Hill who have been there since kindergarten and gone through the whole process so this is my third and final child in the school and the difference I've seen this year for my first grader compared to what my now fifth and sixth grader were able to experience in the first grade is just has been like worlds apart and it's it's very upsetting to a parent to see that the learning loss the Gap and the instruction in school the difference is I I want to say it's comparable to the covid year that we had when we were at home that's the level of instruction our kids are receiving except it's almost even worse because at least we were being communicated with during that time period we were receiving emails from the administrators and from the teachers and we were receiving um information that we needed to be able to help our students at home that's not even the case now and that's I think maybe one of what makes this even worse is kind of just adds insult to injury that we're not even receiving any information any communication from the school from the teachers from the administrators anyone at all about the situation and and how it can be resolved I think that a lot of what I wanted to say has already been addressed here so I won't go over it again but I do agree that the Board needs to consider providing resources pointing them to these classes specifically the classes need assessments at this point who is assessing to see where they're at and what they need I mean we might have children with learning disabilities that need to be addressed at this point and we wouldn't even know no we need recommendations we don't even have logins for the apps that the other kids are using to be able to work with them at home ourselves because we have no teacher providing us this information I mean when I tell you we have substitutes when when people are telling you there's a substitute in place it's it's really like having somebody there who has no information about your child and they're providing you with no information in return so it's it's just there's a there's a big gap already at this point and I think the only way to correct it now now is I I know we have new people coming in and that's great but the only way to correct it now is to look back and and look at our kids that are in those classes now and try to address assess and address what has been lost to this point that's it thank you thank you okay all right well thank you so much for being here tonight and thank you for your comments um while we cannot speak on any to okay okay um we will touch Bas with Dr renice um on these matters and um that is it for tonight uh motion I just wanted to just uh respond generally sure so I I just wanted to say I recognize so my son went through Cherry Hill from kindergarten to sixth grade he's now in the Middle School uh and just wanted to just comment on a couple things one I understand that what it takes for you all to come out to a meeting and to openly share your concerns it's reached a kind of a boiling point and so that it it it takes a fair amount uh of commitment of of of severity of concern uh to get to that uh and I also uh uh understand how important every grade is especially first grade as you start out and how troubling it must be to not have uh that that that experience that that we all want our kids to start out with my son's first grade was a tremendous year and I'm thankful to the teacher uh for and then the school for providing it um you're all aware and you mentioned that there's sometimes very little control over the teacher shortages and when people submit their leave and and so that it you know understanding the reasons doesn't make the situation any better though but I just wanted to share with you that that we we were shair we received email of the superintendent Dr reice did share with us and he did share with us that there are plans into place uh in order to address some of these real concerns so um without getting into specifics I just wanted to personally thank you all for coming out uh uh and understand uh and share with you that that that I do understand your concerns I believe we all do uh and we all understand how truly important it is for each of you so I just want to thank you for that all right um motion to adjourn this meeting so move thank you roll call please M Bron yes Mr alesandro yes Mr Cohen yes Mr Langley yes Mr sim yes and Miss Kang yes uh thank you everyone for being here tonight we will meet on December 18th uh the last meeting of the year