good evening everybody Welcome again um tonight we are going to give notice as we always do that in accordance with the open public meetings act chapter 231 the laws of 1975 notice of this meeting has been sent to All School offices
officially designated newspaper fil with the Township Clerk and posted in the Board of Education Office 48 hours in advance of this meeting roll call vote please certainly Mrs assour here Mrs burkowitz here Mrs Pinelli here
Mr rosini yep I'm here 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 Li and okay well with regard to my report first
I'm going to say happy holidays I hope everybody enjoyed Thanksgiving and now we're off to the uh other holiday season so I'm just going to start off by wishing everybody that um and hope it's all healthy and enjoy a new year um with
regard to uh other matters that have been on my mind I just want to talk about just mention men that um Mrs sori's newsletter which I read at the beginning of this this month I just want to make sure every redirect or direct everybody
to read that because it's very interesting and I enjoyed reading it and it's really talking about all the improvements and benefits for our students and teacher so um thank you for that and Mrs dling and whoever else is working on all those things thanks
um I really don't have anything else to say other than that though so I'm going to move on um to the committee reports Mrs burkowitz buildings and grounds I have nothing for tonight just want to wish everyone a happy holiday happy New Year and have a great winter break okay
thank you Communications and policies Mr White is not here do we have anything no other than we have a bunch of policies on the agenda tonight for its second reading right that's all um a curriculum technology Mrs sand is not
here anything that we have to talk about nope okay um Finance Mrs Pinelli nothing to report tonight okay uh negotiations I have nothing to say tonight either about negotiations and um Personnel Mrs Austin
is not here either anything with regard to Personnel no okay all right um please take note of the committee meeting schedule um with regard to the public comments on agenda items only um I'm going to open up the meeting
at a approximately 7:03 p.m. and um I want to remind everybody and I may not remind everybody at the end but I remind them now that the Rivervale board of education is committed to encouraging the citizens of Rivervale and employees of the Rivervale
School District to speak directly to board trustees in order to facilitate this communication residents and employees are requested to one sign in before speaking two to maintain an appropriate sens of to Quorum and three to limit their remarks to no more than 5 minutes the board will also take under advisement the written comments and
opinions of non-residents and are submitted to the board secretary um that are submitted to the board secretary being mindful of its responsibility to maintain the orderly conduct of meetings the board retains the right to rule on such matters as the speaker's right to address the board as well as the appropriateness of the subject being
presented the board's decision in such matters is final the board also reminds all members of the public that while it subscribes without reservation to the principle of keeping the community informed by policy and law it cannot allow public discussion of personnel matters nor trustees comment on any current or pending litigation if a
matter concerning an employee of the riveral public schools is of Interest or concern to a resident the matter should be referred to the responsible building principal or the superintendent of schools by telephone letter or email so um I actually already opened it at 7:03 but I'm going to open it reiterate that
704 and it's officially open to public comments on agenda items seeing nobody who wants to make any comments I'm going to close it at 7:04 and move on to the superintendent report okay thank you good evening everyone um just as we approach the New Year it's always a good time for us to reflect on um how well
we're doing with our board goals and implementing um some of our plans that we've had for the 2425 school year uh the board is going to get a full progress report probably sometime in January that will update you on our progress of everything we've been doing in regards to the to the goals that you
guys approved um last spring but just a reminder um some of the main instructional goals and wellness goals that we're focusing on is uh goal one is to foster a dynamic educational environment that tailor instruction to diverse learning needs ensuring all
students are empowered to excel academically and reach their fullest potential goal two that we've been focusing on for the first half of this year as well is to implement newly revised curriculum and resources to provide students with learning experiences that are aligned with the
New Jersey student learning standards goal three is to enhance the well-being of our students and our staff by fostering inclusive and supporting learning environments that cultivate positive behaviors Elevate academic success and nurture compassionate School
communities and number four is to elevate and modernize communication strategies to nurture a transparent and engaging environment that Fosters strong connections with stakeholders that's just four that I'm highlighting tonight we have many more goals um and like I
said the board will get a full update you probably see some of those goals already um out there for example a communication survey was sent to Parents Principal sent out new um newly designed newsletters um and so what we'll do is
I'll go through all those goals and I will give you guys a detailed report on how we're meeting them the structures we've built to make sure they're successful and what we plan on doing for the rest of the year so um keep an eye out for that after the New Year any um other than that just want to wish
everyone a happy and healthy New Year enjoy the holiday season enjoy the winter break and we'll see you in uh 2025 thanks okay thank you um board secretary's report Mrs Zito okay um just a quick reminder for
those of you who have not yet provided me with your school board Workshop reimbursements uh I need your easy passes and your parking please the district audit has um almost been complet completed they've completed the
fieldwork now they're going to go back and review the workpapers and I expect that sometime in the New Year I'll be reaching out to the finance committee so that we can have our audit presented to us we are scheduled for monitoring our qac monitoring we are going to have the
county superintendent who is actually going to be walking through our buildings on January 16th then the actual monitoring is February 20th 19th the 19th it's the day after we get back from the two days off
so that's what our schedule is so thank you to everyone who has endured all of our walkthroughs and and we've gone to the teachers and said this is what the monitors are looking for and we have to clean up and get ready for that and
now's a good time because this way everybody can take their items if need be home and during the break also the um I had sent out to the board
any uh the board committees any anyone who hasn't provided me with their preferences on the board committees just a reminder and I will also mention that the township civil engineer stopped in
to see myself a couple weeks ago and I'm sure you've all noticed that throughout probably the past 8 to 10 years they've been working on the sidewalks so the township received another Grant and the area that they're going to be working on
is roughly roughly from force salotti all the way up to Woodside so they're finally going to address that sidewalk it was extremely helpful that he came in and spoke to Mr Tracy and myself to get our
feedback because our major concern is obviously closest to Woodside unfortunately because there is um no impervious surface it digs in the water runs down and you get a gully so
they're going to address that for us which is going to be huge they are aware of the timeline that it would take it's not going to just be a two-day thing so they won't start that work until the summer so we had that
conversation so I think that's great news again they've they've really done their due diligence to try to improve the community for the town and for the students and then I will also share that we have met
Miss sori and myself and the the team have met with our architects in regards to this building just preliminarily because they're still taking measurements and we're starting to get a game planned together but again that really won't
start until the summer other than that I wish everybody a happy holiday and best wishes for a healthy and happy 2025 and that's all I have here here thank you um uh we can
move on now to General resolutions G1 through G3 may I have a motion please I'll make a motion second I'll second uh any discussion on G1 through G3 anything nope okay roll call vote please
certainly Mrs assor yes Mrs burkowitz yes Mrs Pinelli yes Mr rosini yes moving on to business resolutions B1 through B15 motion please I'll make motion second I'll
second and [Applause] discussion so I was just a followup from what you said before on 13 we're moving forward with the um the annex Renovations and we've to that end we've started putting aside some of the money
that we need to do that um and again it's from our capital reserve so it shouldn't really have any impact because it's from our capital reserve right that's corre y do you mind explaining certainly we have uh typically when you
have a contract you can increase the contract that would be considered a positive change order or you can have a negative change order so we had this contractor who did work at Woodside school just after the pandemic and we
did not pay them all of what they were owed because they did not complete the job so at this point it's been over years and they're not providing us with the information that we need to pay them so we are now liquidating the rest of their contract
okay okay uh anything else um Roo vote then please certainly Mrs assour yes Mrs burkowitz yes Mrs Pinelli yes Mr rosini yes and now moving on to Personnel resolutions P1 through
p7 uh a motion please make a motion second please I'll second okay and discussion so I just notice U P3 that we have managed to hire a new person uh for Jim teacher for Woodside which I think
is a good thing right yes and we're very very excited would you say yes and we're very excited about uh him joining us so he'll probably I think his start date is in February so yeah we look forward to
that that is good uh anything else any other comments no nope okay roko vote please certainly Mrs assor yes Mrs burwitz yes Mrs P Elli yes Mr rosini yes and now I'm going to move on to the
public comments on General items um the same rules apply as I previously discussed um with regard to uh comments by the public any comments on General items did you raise your hand or no okay all right all right don't want to miss
you um okay seeing nobody who wants to make a comment um well first let me open it at uh 7:14 and I'm going to close it at 7:14 seeing nobody wants to make a comment um any old business new
business do we have to go to closed session okay we're not GNA be going to closed session so um the meeting is adjourned anybody who is not in favor of adjourning the meeting okay it's unanimous okay happy
holidays everybody thank you thank you