all right uh it's 7:01 PM we're going to begin this regular meeting of the Rutherford Board of Education February 24th 2025 can I ask everyone to please stand in face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance i al flag of the United
States of America to the stand and justice for all ask Mr Whitford to please take role Mr B present Mrs Co here Mr KY present Mr Healey here Mrs Jones present Mr
maone Dr rine here Mr Sprayberry drot here you have a all right the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced noes have and to attend the meeting of public bodies which any business affecting their interests is
discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Rutherford board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place posted on the bulletin board outside the bur clerk's office mailed to the herald South bergenite and the Record newspapers and filed with the burough
clerk hard copies of the agenda are available in the meeting room and the agenda is posted electronically on Friday before the meeting date on the district's website at www. Rutherford schools.org subsequent to the meeting a video of the meeting will be uploaded to the district's website www. Rutherford
schools.org the video link can be found by opening the Board of Education link and clicking on public meetings and then videos uh so board members in your packets there were regular meeting and executive session meeting minutes from January 27th any comments questions
about those uh seeing none I ask Mr Whitford please enter those uh and now I will turn it over for the report of the student represent good evening to begin tonight the senior fashion show went very well the senior class had a lot of fun and there were
over 400 prizes raffled off the 8th grade students from Union School recently visited the high school where they toured the building and got a chance to see some of the high school classes student council members led the tours and talked to the students about some things they can expect next year um
the consumer Bowl team won the county competition and we will be going on to compete against other County winners in the regional competition in April winter sports are still going strong and will be concluding soon recently the boys basketball team won the division and
Conference Championship additionally four rhs track athletes broke the school record at the njic championship meet three rhs students were selected to perform with the New Jersey region one honors choir at Morris NES high school earlier in the month which is a great
accomplishment this past week some of the physics physics classes tested their balloon powered cars that they made to see which students traveled the fastest and the furthest this was related to Newton's laws and helped demonstrate force and motion some students in Mrs
Leonard's honors accounting class got to visit an accounting firm last week to see some of the tasks that accountants perform and look at different real tax paperwork The Experience provided more insight into what the accounting profession can look like in the real world and some more students will be
visiting next month mon this month the future healers Club has been selling lollipops to raise money which will be donated to the American Heart Association last year $300 was raised and and donated so the goal is to raise more this
year next week members of the future teachers of America Club will be visiting Lincoln Washington and the Kindergarten Center for read across Rutherford day where they'll be reading to the younger students and leading various activities the rhs spring musical Mary Poppins is coming up on the
14th and 15th of March the cast crew and band have been working really hard to get the show ready and can't wait to perform the theater department is also hosting a Mary Poppins tea party this Saturday March 1st with appearances from members of the cast from the other Schools Lincoln School shared that they
collected food for the Rutherford food pantry recently students got to place their donations on the table corresponding to the team that they predicted would win the Super Bowl and and in total Lincoln School collected over 300 items Washington school is looking forward to one of the students
favorite events scooterville they have been practicing navigating the course and following directions along the way and they will be putting their skills to the test this week a new addition to the course this year is nurse mcshan's handwashing station which teaches kids how to properly wash their hands and
encourages healthy habits fear Bon school has their virtual author visit with the author of their one school one book novel this week also sixth grade students are getting ready to choose their seventh grade classes Union School shared that the school play The Lion
King Jor was a great success thanks to the students and staff who put it together Additionally the student council has some fun activities planned such as a trip to Lincoln School to teach a lesson about te tessellations and a trip to Washington school for Rada Across America week that's it for
tonight thank you nice job Sarah now you're going down to the lower grade yeah that's one of the things really L that you've added this year is is looking at other schools and what's happening in the schools to give us really a well-rounded view so thank you for that um questions or comments from
board members I'd like to comment that um you know I think we had about in the communication I sent out to you board members I think there's about 13 or 14 um maybe more students in U Middle
School and High School who either won got selected to the highest level of choirs in the in the in the county and state one uh Regional County and moving on to state in a couple of different writing competitions and and video competitions and art competitions in
both the Elks and um the um PTA and uh you know it's just those numbers have grown we've always had winners but they grown uh you mentioned the athletic program I think uh probably uh both for in Winter we maybe didn't
have that one team that won everything but I don't see I don't remember too many years when we had so many consistent um successful teams individuals uh the play um Union School was fantastic the um if the Instagrams
that they're putting out for the high school are uh any indication what the play is going to be like it's going to be fabulous um I I never thought number one that I'd be emailing two teachers congratulate them their Instagrams number one that I'm on Instagram and number two that I'm congratulating for
it um but uh it really has been a very uh remarkable um year in a lot of ways and you know we I guess metaphorically with baseball we're probably maybe in the fifth inning or six so I don't want to you know pack up the bats and say
we've won already but to date this has been a really remarkable year um I don't know if sah if you want to say anything about this but uh Miss Cole you had asked last time about the midterms and I did some inquiry and uh the teachers and
the students you know all seem to think they were worthwhile I mean the students are a little bit arduous I guess uh but see the value in it and the teachers um also thought it was a really good universally the the consensus has been pretty good I don't know if you want to hopefully you don't contradict me after
all those nice things I said but no I agree I think they they were definitely preparing us for the future like college and stuff um and it was a good way to just like kind of remember everything we learned from the like first half of the year because it's definitely important to like keep in mind and just not forget
it after learning it and like everything we do we try to learn from it so uh Mr Mirano will tell me that the only or maybe not the only but one concern was makeups and how to get those those all done in a Tommy fashion and uh they're working on ways to make that a smoother process you know going forward so anyway
congratulations to uh the student body now you have this old encompassing report we can't we have congrat everybody is stud body but but um you know a lot of times the younger schools do a lot of of community service things like that not as much as the older kids obviously and it often doesn't get noticed so it's great that you've included that as
well yeah I was just going to say that uh in our memo that we get from Mr Hurley that it was there were so many students to be congratulated and we really appreciate those updates because as a strategic board we don't know those things unless we hear from you or we hear from Jack's memo and no offense to
Jack we also like hearing it from from the students as well um and very uh well-rounded as always so thank you thank you um so feel free to stay if you'd like for any other portion of the meeting and uh if you do have to leave early for homework or other commitments
we understand as well thank you thank you have a good night thanks SAR well so next up we have our uh academic committee report we're very excited to hear all these wonderful updates so let's uh Mr H to it up before I
introduce U our first Speaker uh my in my u in my report tonight I was going to talk about this but I think it's tied in now to um what they're going to be talking about I I'm sure you uh remember the email I sent out and then you hopefully saw the article that was in uh
this is Rutherford about the accomplishment but for the sake of public record and for people watching um and we're Al this will be coming out in our newsletter as well um you know we we were one of 100 Schools approximately I think it was more like 107 or 108 uh
schools across the country uh who based on a study from Harvard and Stanford universities uh showed um that we've rebounded from the pandemic and we are quote fully recovered uh there are five school districts in New Jersey that got that
um name attached to them and and made the great they are Princeton Montclair mon Montgomery Township and Livingston and again when you look at those areas and the way they're perceived socioeconomically and educationally that's a really nice company to be
in um in addition to that we were but a handful of of schools that actually showed increase during the pandemic um most schools lost or at best stayed flat
and we showed slight increase there so coming out of the pandemic to go up uh approximately u a quarter of a grade level in our math scores and half a grade level in our our reading scores is a remarkable um achievement and the reason why I want to mention that ahead
of what they're going to talk about it's going to be a brief report right brief report on uh things we've been doing but you know partly I think credit you know goes to obviously the administrative supervisors the teachers the kids uh for what we've
done and the community and the board we used uh I think there's two things I want to comment on the article comment on first of all we took a very proactive approach during the pandemic I think we didn't lose that much because we kept schools open uh we also kept
them open for elementary kids uh we kept them open for special ed kids full-time not many schools did that um the article mentions that we had 95 administrators and teachers uh get together on probably the biggest Zoom meeting I was ever on
uh when we came out of that year shutdown and we divided those people into six or seven committees and they and they had about maybe eight days to come up with recommendations and then we had a steering committee that
met um two two times a week three times a week because we had to have a full plan out to the uh state by the end of July and they didn't tell us what the plan had to entail until July 1st so you subtract the Fourth of July in a couple
of weekends didn't give you a lot of time and um miss odonnell and miss Saxon and Mr cisi Mr Ryan Mr barano Dr vko those were the individuals that worked with me on that plan and I think the
plan gave us the groundwork but we didn't lose ground and then what we did as a segue into what you're going to hear is we use the pandemic and we use the concern of learning laws to motivate The
Faculty to take a deep dive into all of our academic programs you know it was it was a good time to say hey we're doing okay but how do we know how we're doing coming out of the pandemic and how and can't we do better so starting in I guess it was 2022 uh we started putting committees
together and we had a whole bunch of committees that have now sunset that worked during 22 and 23 into 24 we have a couple of others that are working now and we have the the aftermath of what those committees did going forward so I
did send a lot of um of information or some information in the mid-year goal report but I thought it'd be good to hear kind of a brief overview of what's currently happening with some of our academic programs so I'm going to start off with uh Mr Ryan who has a very long
title he is the supervisor of research Arch evaluation and testing right is that right planning research planning research anyway very long time we're going to work on shortening that title up a little bit and uh Mr Ryan's going to kick us off and U we do have a little
PowerPoint if you want to position yourself to see there's just kind of talking points and Mr Ryan floor is yours yes thank you for inviting us here tonight we appreciate it we appreciate to have the opportunity to come meet with the Board of Ed and present what we've been working on and meeting about
um so as Mr Hurley said we proactively to mitigate learning loss uh the district created several academic committees um to do a complete internal audit and part of that audit through this audit we completed an academic overhaul based on our needs um and we've been meeting with you and you've been
hearing about this for the last since 2022 um but we wanted to give you kind of an update where we are and then where we're going the ELA uh this year we have fully implemented the 2023 New Jersey student learning standards during the last two years school years our teachers have been working with Reading Coach to
enhance our student targeted reading skills increase vertical and horizontal articulation opportunities between the reading and ELA teachers districtwide we're in the process of updating a new phonic program which will be implemented during the 25 26 school
year for math we' fully implemented the 2023 math New Jersey student learning standards we are in the first year of our 2-year math resequencing uh we fully implemented our new math program and vision throughout this school year we provide a multiple professional development sessions with
the enVision Math coaches which has been ongoing very successful in helping our teachers deliver instruction based on new math program in science we have been working on claim evidence reasoning CER writing it's a formulaic writing and this has been integr fully integrated
into our K through2 science curriculum the science committee is also continuing to meet and they're working on choosing a new District science program a lot of what we attribute to this is our committees and some of the the other work that we've been doing is data analysis we've really been focusing
on going through the test data um in every building we've had a major focus on student data using linkit iel and njsla data we've been able to drill down on individual needs of the students which has helped us increase our academic growth through tiered
interventions we've also speaking of interventions uh working on a response to intervention RTI program we're in the process of restructuring our RTI teams in each building ensuring that our RTI program is both both systematic and consistent throughout the district we've
also worked on our honors requirements um this year is the first year we've implemented these new standards for our honors program we're in the first year and uh we basically scheduling is gone very smoothly it went smoothly this year it's going smoothly for next year and as we talked about earlier Mr Hurley talked
about our midterms and final we've been implemented at rhs midterms in janary went well the supervisors administrators are currently working on the end of the year schedule benchmark assessments are also being piloted and rolled out this year at Union school so I'll now turn it over to Washington School principal Mrs
Saxon we'll discuss updates to the profile of a r graduate if I if I could um because I'll forget um you know a couple of the data that Mr Ryan spoke about uh you'll see that many of the school goals and District goals
involve data uh link it is something that we use uh uh primarily K to8 and really more like grades 2 to8 uh it's aligned with the state standards but it also gives us a lot of data we do uh three testing during the year three
times testing during the year uh and what we're seeing for example is we're seeing some improvement in um in math scores that where we were looking and you know which is nice to see as we're putting this new program in so the data
really gives us both positive uh news it also gives us areas for to look at critically to make some improvement okay so um we we've we've done a lot in two or three years and again I want you to understand these folks are speaking here
tonight all these committees are made up of teachers um and all these recommendations came from teachers so the buyin has been very high because of that okay so now profile The Graduate hello good evening thank you
for letting us hijack some of your board meeting time to highlight our accomplishments and explain the road that we continue to travel with these initiatives um the profile of a Rutherford graduate I'm going to link the past and the present because with this initiative the past is the present
because it's constantly evolving um so where we are we've had a strong um communication and and awareness opening day for the staff um we introduced porg um to The Faculty um just ensuring ensuring that we would have awareness from the start um visual displays all
over the building the schools the community the district we have banners and posters in every building which serve as daily reminders and the most important thing is the language a common language for for the community and for the students as well even at the the lower levels they're starting to see the
language in their classrooms and around the building and we talk about it constantly the communication the critical thinking the creativity um in fact if you see um a lot of the um I'm going off the script a little bit but a lot of the um Facebook um the schools
that put together some activities and some blurbs highlighting you'll notice that every single activity really is aligned with uh profile R for graduate so what we've said from the beginning is that we've always been these competencies have always been in our curriculum but this initiative allows us
to put the pieces together the puzzle pieces together and highlight um what we've done and if we could even tweak it a little bit more to be stronger um we have a website a link on the Rutherford um website there's link to profile of The Graduate click on that every school
through our Advisory Board there are the liaison with the staff every school contributes to that website highlighting um we hit every competency and the activities that you'll see that's going on in every school um there are and this gives insight to everyone the community
community educator Educators and the students as well U we are infusing curriculum The Advisory Board met twice so far this year and there's a third one um on the way third meeting on the way they took apart and dissected the entire curriculum from K through 12 took a
piece by piece and aligned every competency that we've identified from the start to pieces in the curriculum um let's see so the this initiative has gained some great momentum with our strong communication and identifying pieces of the curriculum
so where we're going now in the future is we want to develop identify and develop these what we call these profile projects or we could call them Capstone projects where students apply their skills in in meaningful way but real world experiences and again I'm going to go off the script a little bit I was
listening to um Miss aoro Sarah my former student and she was talking about a project that High School the um Newton's cars the balloons and I'm looking around the room and I've probably had most of your kids in my stem class and that's a project at the lower level that you know we started at
the Pier Pond of the elementary school and it's interest interesting to see a project like that also in the high school the same skill sets but they we're enhancing it as they go so these are life skills we're preparing them for Education Beyond so you can look at it as P pom bridging over to the next
levels but also preparing them for Life Beyond uh the Rutherford um their Rutherford education so we'll be looking at these profile projects and we want input from um administrators from supervisors from all staff but also from students as well at various levels uh to
demonstrate these competencies the we're exhibiting these skills so they can advance and finally um we will join forces with the atlas curriculum putting the pieces of these curriculum into our new platform which I believe Mr cisi will be
talking about the atlas um so joining forces with the profile competencies this porg standard shall I say aligning it with the atlas platform that's profile of Ro for graduate so as Mr Ur elisi makes his way up to um the
microphone the um The Advisory Board uh did a mammoth job they took every piece of curriculum through K to 12 and align competencies to areas in the curriculum which now is going to be merged into
Atlas eventually so you know to to show how the skills in profile are the skills that we are embedding and hoping to embed in our students uh that that connection that was made was an orous task and a good effort Mr mrissi Atlas
good evening everybody thanks for taking the time to to listen to this um uh piece on Atlas Atlas is a platform that will allow us to I'm just going to move that away so we don't get that feedback sound uh that will allow us to create living documents when it comes to
curriculum often times um a curriculum document is written it ends up in a binder or it ends up in a Google Drive and it sits there and teachers don't have daily access to it and they might reference it two or three four times a year just to say well what's next what
am I supposed to be teaching next and the idea of a curriculum document is that it is supposed to be fluid it's supposed to be aligned to the standards but it's also supposed to be aligned to local sensibilities our sensibilities and it should change on a regular basis
and what Atlas will allow us to do is put the curriculum in front of every teacher every single day so this platform puts the the the the curriculum document in place not in place but in front of them as they get ready to do
their daily lesson plans or their weekly lesson plans or their unit plans so they are constantly referring to not only what am I teaching why am I teaching it what resources am I using uh am I going to be using what standards am I going to be hitting and not only this is
something new that that Atlas will allow us to do we're not just teaching the standards but how are we assessing the standard s and what data can we get back from when we assess those standards okay that ties into directly back to the data slide we saw in the very beginning that
Mr Ryan shared um when it comes to looking at where our strengths and our our weaknesses are on the njsla those specific standards we can now drill down into the the daily or the weekly or the unit instruction and find out well we were maybe deficient on the
njsla in standard X well let's see how often was standard X taught how often was standard X assessed and what resources were we are we using to do it so at this point every curriculum document has been transferred from a Google doc into the atlas platform it's
all moved over there is a committee of 32 teachers that have been working hard in various subcommittees creating templates coming up with common language Universal terms all the supervisors have been trained and we've had targeted PD days for key members in every single
department so World Language social studies um the stem Department PE fppa Ela everyone has had at least a two-hour session but in most cases it's been a full day session of key members in each
department or grade level now those have become our Atlas ambassadors and moving forward we have a a halfday PD coming up on Monday March 3rd those Atlas ambassadors are going to turnkey to their departments or to their grade
levels um and we're basically going to roll this thing out districtwide on Monday um and then that will dovetail into a bigger PD Day on June uh June 10th I believe is the the change date uh because of the primary um so we are
excited it's really been very exciting and it has created a lot of interesting discussions as we've gone through simple things like well wait a minute in in 11th grade we're teaching or we're using Hamlet here well what if we moved it
here what if Hamlet became a ninth grade text because that ties more in with the idea of um feeling isolated and maybe that would work a little bit better with Lord of the Flies um there have been some great discussions about phonics readers workshop and writer Workshop in
the lower grades and how those can be better embedded and better intertwined with one another and that's all a direct reaction to having the curriculum in front of people every single day and I just think it's going to get better so thank you before you introduce Miss Coy
yep I want to mention that Miss Coy co-chairs this with you yep Mr Ryan co-chairs profile with uh Miss Saxon so a lot of people wear multiple hats here but I think uh both Mr Lei and Miss Coy and I think everybody there could agree that every one of those teachers who
have been those ambassadors right are are really excited about this uh there's been I I I've I think all the Committees we've had there's been a great deal of enthusiasm this one seems to be even Beyond um in terms of of how they're
buying into it and going through the qac process right now that we're going through in anticipation of our um April 2nd visit um you know until you see something else and you dig into it I didn't realize you know how you know I'm very proud of everything we do I say
we're ahead of most places well our curriculum model really wasn't okay and this is catching us up to where we should be okay um so and it's going to make all those wonderful things we're doing become even I think more uh it
become better but also make it I don't want to say easier but make it more uh practical and more and more usable by the teachers when they use it I think the Synergy between um profile and Atlas is great I think the articulation that will happen between grades and between
disciplines will be greater because the fourth grade teacher now has the fifth grade curriculum right in front of them they don't have to go to a binder or go search on the website or set up time to have a meeting everything is there and again the resources are there that's
going to be the biggest component when we roll into that next year I'm going to turn it over to Megan but I just want to go backwards to to the student representative I was in Atlantic City the past week for the music educators and I did see the New Jersey All State treble choir and we had two of our uh students performing and it was
outstanding so just to dovetail on what you said about the great things that are happening in our in our schools and in our classrooms it was really wonderful to see so I'll turn it over to miss Coy hello everyone thank you so much for having us here tonight I think tonight um I'm sure actually all of your
meetings are super energetic and super exciting but I feel like tonight's meeting um I hope gives you a good feel of our school district from our staff from our administrators what the teachers are doing what the children are learning and I hope you feel that energy
that we've had come through I think um our initiative to make Parent Academy even more robust than it's been in the past has been a great segue into educating our parents in our community about different topics that are new for their children within the school district whether it be the new envisions
math program that we had a workshop for to introduce it um or on Phonics how do we teach phonetic instruction what does it look like when to be concerned what does dyslexia look like opposed to just a child who's struggling with phonics and giving parents some real tangible tools to work and support their children
have allowed the children to grow and been um beneficial for all I also um if you think back to the beginning of the school year with a message from Mr Hurley at all the back to school nights and if you attended more than one you may be heard it a few times but um he
talked about the anxious generation and really the impact of social media and technology and how it's impact ing our children the the youngest children all the way through to our older our older students so the parent Academy was able to provide parent training and education
for two separate age groups we did a k to3 Workshop twice and we also did a 4 to 12 Workshop twice focusing on the benefits of free play how to develop executive functioning what overp parenting looks like allowing children to fail and really explaining to parents
you know what not how to parent but what to do to encourage your child to grow as an individual and made those connections back to why it's important to do at home to be able to translate that into the classroom so it's really been exciting the parent feedback has been overwhelming I have had Parents reach
out to me afterwards saying oh my gosh my girl scout troop is doing um a mom book club and we had a great time so now we're going to go talk about what we're going to do with the children this time and I've had other parents say okay so if I call my PTA and we're going to talk about like grow which is an initiative
to help students grow independently what do you think would be some resources or where do you think are some places to go and and get them moving and getting them acclimated into being themselves and going outside and playing and why that's important to their education so the parent Academy this year I really feel
has um provided not only some information and some resources to the parents but it has also allotted them topics and just kind of provoke conversations that may not have been had before so um it's really exciting what we have done we're looking to continue
to maintain providing our parents with productive and informative workshops throughout the remainder of the Year our next parent Workshop is actually on this Friday it's on um executive functioning and that was really parent driven so as
we're going through these what are some things that have come up and what are some topics and um from feedback from some of the other administrators in Sachs talking about where are some gaps that we need to really provide some some takeaways and strategies so that's this Friday and one of the best things about
um Parent Academy this year I feel is that the resources are available online so if you're unable to attend the workshop you're able to go back and look at it and say oh this is great topic or if you weren't able to hear about the anxious generation for your age group or you have a child that's on that cusp and
you want to see what the next conversation is the parents have been able to have that experience and and just really stay a breast of all the information um so I'm exciting for the ones that we have coming up this week we're looking into planning some other ones um and I'm I'm thrilled where it's
where it's continuous to go um I think it's been the most successful year we've had a lot of good programs in the past but in terms of attendance in terms of of feedback right I think it's I think we've hit we've hit an area where where we're able to unite with
parents it's not us telling it's not them telling us it's we're an area where we're seeing the need for something and what is that something is something that only can be identified through collaboration so it's been really um I think throughout the district just a really great conversation starter if
nothing else yeah I think the presenters and we've had numerous presenters right for all these topics and um like at least three or four at every workshop and various people um I think we we've kind of modeled the profile stuff of collaboration has been more of a it's
been more of a Socratic kind of discussion than just straight presentation absolutely so they've been very successful and um we're going to be doing in fact I'm meeting with uh Charlie and Megan and a couple of other people uh tomorrow Brian uh a few other
people who have been involved in the anxious generation because we're going to be developing a program for the high school kids the middle school kids and grade six students uh to talk to them about some of the things you know to that that apply to them things they should understand about the overuse of
social media or the improper use of social media and things of that nature so uh you know we're kind of walking into a tough audience on that one okay but uh I think it's something we really we really should be doing so I for sure thank you um and I am looking forward to next year
also giving some um or planning some new workshops on artificial intell intelligence that um Miss odonna will speak to today thanks Megan and thanks for having us here uh tonight so artificial intelligence is the latest technology to
make its way into our classrooms um so while new technology in our schools is nothing new the speed at which artificial intelligence has made its way into our classroom is unlike anything we've seen before really so to put it in
perspective you know it took 2530 years for the overhead projector to make it from the bowling alley into our classrooms um um artificial ai ai has happened literally overnight but this is not the first time
we have faced a techn a technical technical change in our classrooms when I started here 34 years ago I taught in the first computer lab in Rutherford Public Schools Nelly fader you might
remember Nelly looked at me and she said they're taking my typewriters away Barbara I'm out of here here and we actually had meetings Jack was in some of them where we discussed how are we going to disable spell check
on the computers because if the kids use the word processor and they have spell check we're really not being able to evaluate them on their spelling skills and then a few years later when we got the internet we
put bands on it kind of we said with research papers only one source from the worldwide web can be on your research paper and no more so we've been here before okay so just as we adapted then
we have to adapt now and we have to provide guidance for people to keep up with this AI Evolution so the knee-jerk reaction in some districts has been to ban AI or to adapt AI Checkers so we can
catch students quote unquote cheating with it but in our district the focus has been since really last year is to get our teachers up to speed and teach our teachers and students how to use AI effectively and
responsibly and as always there's that Core group of teachers that step forward and they're willing to try anything out and they have and we've added an AI tool sections to our Tech website where other teachers can take take a look and explore the AI tools that we've kind of
looked at and recommend and we've also provided professional development at faculty meetings um for teachers to use AI as we integrated it into our schools though it became apparent that both our students and teachers are going to need
more formal guidelines to use this and that's why we formed the AI committee and it's a group of teachers from all of our schools all different grade levels lots of the media Specialists and we're exploring the role of AI in education and developed in some informed
recommendations so the committee has a couple of goals our first goal is to explore AI resources to engage students and support personalized learning to continue to identify some AI tools that will help teachers with their productivity and along those lines Brian
correct me if I'm wrong but part of Atlas as an AI tool for the essential questions that they can just use AI take a look at what a AI produces and then tweak them and make them their own and establish guidelines and safeguards to
promote responsible AI use we also recognize that the use of AI looks very different at different grade levels the bottom line is using AI with students requires a thoughtful age appropriate approach that considers students
developmental stages can it be used at K3 absolutely but it's going to look very very different than what we do with our high school students right now we do have a draft framework of our guidelines in place and Jack has seen those and on
in two weeks on March 11th and 12th members of the committee and others will attend the njcc conference at Montclair State University and this year the entire conference is dedicated to Ai and their goal their goal this year is charting a
course for teaching and learning in an AI integrated world and what we've done is we've got a Google sheet and we're going of kind of divide and conquer among the committee members and we're all signing up for different sessions then we'll come back we're going to regroup put the final recommendations
and we'll share those with Jack when they're done we're also um keeping a very close eye there is two bills in the New Jersey assembly and the Senate that would require the teaching of artificial intelligence in our schools and usually
with those bills comes along a mod curricula so we're just keeping an eye on what's happening with those but by taking this proactive approach um to train our teachers and prepare our students we really want to make them
informed ethical and responsible AI users and being ready for whatever the future holds and we know that this is going to be a work in progress which it has been and um to Echo I I did read the draft and I think the draft is
outstanding I I know there could be things that we could we will the committee will and Barbara will um based on on the workshop they're going to and other things you know add it and uh tweak it uh she's done she and the committee has done a remarkable job of
reaching out to districts that have developed um similar guidelines and look at some of the things that they've they've done and make a decision of what may or may not work for us um and U you know then they went to chat gbt
and said write up a draft no I'm kidding um but the um but you know I I learned a long time ago from a mentor of mine you know that uh moving slowly but but pragmatically and forward is the best way to go you
know if you rush to judgment uh you wind up doing a lot of rewrites and um so we're we're taking a good look at this and I think when the final draft comes U The Faculty the staff and I think the board will be be happy with with results so that's it
right Dr a turn it back to you if there's any I I thank uh I want to thank the four of you for um for all the work you've done but also you know coming out tonight giving up your time and uh you know instead of just taking a written report of mine and giving it some
personality and life and some insight so thank you thank you I I just want to say a couple of quick words of gratitude and thank you um only because this is also my My love language as it is yours I'm sure all this work hard work that you're
doing um I hope that a lot of families in the district watch tonight's video and really can hear about the types of things that are going on and the types of things that you're doing um just a
couple of examples just from my experience in the field that really stand out um you know it is not uncommon for school districts to have a profile of a graduate um but to integrate it
into every aspect of website curriculum um you know in all of the ways that you talked about it's super deep and super meaningful you know when you have new curriculum to share um you know here's what enVision Math um is like or here's what we're evaluating you
know those things are really important and helpful with families especially because they when the kids are young they want to help them if they know what they're doing which previous math program may not have been quite as easy as maybe this one is to actually help their kids um but to do workshops on things like executive functioning and
the anxious generation and kind of really looking at the whole child is is really phenomenal um I was not aware of all the things going on with AI and the AI committee and I I really applaud you for leaning in um my board I just had
had a conversation earlier today and we were talking about some work we're doing but I didn't use the word processor I didn't go back that far in time uh I went to when I started at my yeah I went uh to when I started at my school in 2012 it was really the infusion of
social media um and that was kind of a big thing and so my version of we've been here was with social media but um absolutely um also Mr Ley when you talked about Atlas as a living fluid document that's like music to my ears because often times with curriculum
mapping programs you know teachers sort of view them as where to put curriculum so that the next teacher knows what to do and what to pick up as opposed to like how do you use it as a living document um so I think all of these things that you mentioned are phenomenal and I just wanted to take a moment to
express like how appreciative we are and like how much great work is really happening so thank you for that um questions or comments from board members Mr y yes uh I would just like to comment and say thank you for the collaboration with the parents that
seems to be very successful it's good for uh I think it's all of us to know that the parents are actively involved um I have a question about the uh Atlas platform um I think it was Mr ursi um you mentioned
strengths and weakness weaknesses are reported so you can actually see um from test results how is that generated uh from the sure so um usually in August we get the um reports from the state on how we did
on the njsla or how we did on uh the NJ GPA uh and it gives us anywhere between the the 12 and 15 most assessed standards in ela or in math and then it puts us on a on a Continuum with the
state average um with other schools that you what used to be called a district Factor group it's no longer called that but other schools that are in our our our Target area and then where we fall within uh schools that are in our own District so we can see were we above the state average were we below the state
average we're consistently above the state average but we're not always consistently above where that same group of students were the year prior so if there was a standard for example that said finding uh being able to identify the main
idea and our third graders didn't do so well in that what I will now be able to do in Atlas is say okay find me that standard in the third grade curriculum and show me how we are teaching that standard what resources are we using
what uh activities are the teachers using and what assessments are we using and then it'll help me um communicate with the teachers and the teachers can do this themselves too um look and say oh you know what I really need to bolster what I'm doing in that standard
because we weren't hitting uh the level we think we should be it's wonderful it's pretty wild I mean it's really it's it's amazing and bolster could mean we're not doing it enough it could also mean we're not using the right resources right it could also mean we're using doing it the wrong time of year we're not building on it we're doing it once
we're not going back and revisiting it all that's going to be a lot uh simpler and easier to to find than what we currently are doing absolutely yeah thank you yeah no thank you other questions your comments yeah yeah so so just like the
students we're going to say that you know you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting but we really appreciate you if you have homework you need to attend to uh it's all good drot asked me if that was okay with that I said absolutely not they should stay here you could have waited till he was
done with the sentence said how exciting the meetings were I wanted to stay and actually see how exciting they were you fall asleep right okay thanks for coming tonight thank you so much thank you thank you again gu I'm next
right uh yeah so we will move on now to the report of the superintendent uh very quick report tonight I'm simply going to mention um the embedded um report on on violence vandalism sub
hi I have to give this twice a year and I will tell you that uh going along with the theme of things being really good this year those numbers are down uh we've only had uh for example one alleged Hib um that was unfounded so far
the entire year uh you know from previous years those numbers were never extraordinarily high but a lot higher than that um we have had fewer incidents of you know violence is a tough word that just means two kids are shoving each other uh we've had none at the high
school which um again is is very unique there's usually at least one or two that happened um we've had very few uh throughout the district um and the ones that have happened have been like I said young kids just getting a little carried away you know maybe playing basketball
at recess or something like that um the one thing that is up a little bit um is the U substance um with uh eight cases this year at the high school that's a higher number than we've had in previous years I attribute that to the
change in um laws involving marijuana where uh kids would you know get access to it and they're using the Vape and they get caught so the numbers are higher because it's something that's a little more prevalent right now in
society and um we we do invoke our policy with that which both is a a punitive consequence but also a counseling counseling consequence um when a student is um found to be under the influence of of any substance okay
um the Hib trainings again are pretty consistent in terms of you know the uh the trainings for the faculty of Staff programs are geared towards kids that goes into that self um uh analysis evaluation that we do annually and something they added this
year because there you know restraint and seclusion our teachers in our uh self-contained special ed classes as well as some of the administrators have to be trained in properly restraining a student if need be and um they are trained but as you see we've had no need
to have any reported restraint or then seclusion um in any of those classes so that's the report I knowbody has any questions or comments I'll be happy to answer I mean I think the numbers are really pretty extraordinary I mean it's
less than 2% of all like what we have 2,700 students in the district um and and I mean the high school numbers I mean that's sometimes where you see the higher numbers I mean that's pretty incredible it's been remarkable yeah is there anything that you attribute the the reduction in hibs too is there is
there any correlation or I I don't I I can't put my finger on anything I mean we've been we've been doing a lot of the same programs I mean Pier Pond and Union have had that pbsis for a couple of years uh we do the same kinds of you know preventative and
instructional I I really wish I could pinpoint it uh because then we'd say let's keep doing it right um I just think um it's been that kind of year um you know I think we've had a lot of um and this might be a simplistic thing but you know we've been talking about the
the um the increase in academic success uh the increase in artistic success and athletic success you know when people buy in and they're doing well you have you have less problems fewer problems sure uh when people are a little bored
or they're not succeeding or they get frustrated that's when you have it so there's no easy answer but I am pleased that there's such a decline and I always do mention those other incidents leading to a removal meaning a a suspension or something or in school suspension those
are things like U excessive tardies or cutting a class or things that don't make the the heavy hitter report but you know there are things of that nature but even those numb not extraordinarily High you know compared to other years they rather low and the only other thing I will say
I'm going to give so my time to uh Mr whiffer to give an update on the budget we will be doing a full budget uh presentation at the next meeting and then again at the hearing I'll let him uh take that but I am very um I'm very proud of and very pleased with uh the
work that's been going on for the last couple of years um a really a deep dive and a very honest look at what we're doing what we could do better and um I think you could see how they're representing the teachers and that are on the various committees uh the pride
that each of them are taking uh in what they they're putting forward uh the ownership of that uh is really is really remarkable so I'm very pleased I'm glad you had a chance to hear that not just from me but from others as
well Matt um I'm like the gentleman from uh this side is CD buing making time to uh The Honorable Mr whiffer so as Mr Hur mentioned I want to give a update to the 2526 budget process uh you'll see formal presentations at our March 10th meeting
and then our late April meeting I think it's the 27th um as this year as every other year the board's approved a budget calendar um and we've stuck to that calendar almost to a te since November uh so late November early December Mr Hurley and I meet with all of our
administrators uh that goes to supervisors building principles um to hear their needs their wants their concerns they have for the next budget year the next school year in addition we meet with um obviously our board committees uh
buildings and grounds uh curriculum Mr herley will meet with um our finance committee meets a number of times in the past three months and we'll meet again next week before our preliminary uh budget presentation on the 10th just so it all aligns with the District goals
board goals a number of the aspects that you heard of tonight for the port of The Graduate how our curriculum is being designed the different um achievements that are desired from the board and from our Administration that the you know business administrators selfishly say
it's our budget but it is very much not our budget it's the board's budget it's the the district's budget we're just you know tweaking numbers here and there to make sure that the the programs and initiatives that we have or focused on are included in that budget and that's
driving it the other large or more significant to be honest as a financial standpoint drivers for the budget are salaries and benefits for our staff so no less than 80% of the entire budget is made up of
salaries and benefits for All District staff um the other 20% includes uh extracurriculars programs uh special education services technology buildings and GR s all of which have seen increase in costs um over the past year and
obviously over the past few years so during the rollout of the 2526 budget software that the state sets up for business administrators and superintendents to submit our budget uh districts would notify that a state allowable adjustments to the tax levy cap were granted for health benefits and
for enrollment uh using these State allowable adjustments and our normal 2% cap would result in a 4.46 School tax lever increase the state's allowable adjustments are only 90 cents in the dollar to what actual increase in
costs are so you know if my health benefits Bill actually goes up $100 that state allowable increase is really only $9 to that 100 so it is a a significant help um and at financially standpoint a need uh it's only go so far so there's
still a number of aspects of the budget that our normal 2% cap have to uh take on so the using these adjustments allow the district to maintain programs and staff while still taking on a number of these increased costs in addition to
local tax levy which is a significant portion of our Revenue historically Rutherford's always gotten about 7% of our revenue from state aid uh due to possible fluctuations because state aid is never guaranteed either positive or negative uh we usually focus on using
that state aid numbers or additional funding from state aid for one time expenses right you never want to you know buy a new car or lease a new car with your bonus check because that bonus check might not happen the next year so any kind of one-time Revenue sources we
usually try to use for onetime expenses to make sure that our our budget sustainable over time Doo state aid figures will be released to school districts this Thursday after Governor Murphy gives his budget address tomorrow so the finance committee will meet again on a week from today March
3rd and this board will get a full preliminary budget presentation on March 10th um that budget will get sent to our County Office county office basically um reviews it for compliance with uh code and then sends it back to the district
if there's no other issues um and then a formal adoption of the budget will be happening on our late April meeting I think again it's the 27th that um that full adoption of the of the budget will be for the 25 26 year I do want to thank
a lot of the district administrators and the building principles our board committees themselves uh since I've gotten here I've definitely added a few things uh added maybe updated a few processes that you know I've brought from experiences from other roles um but
the things that Rutherford has in place before I got here were very strong very positive very streamlined so I think anything that I added just helped that process and the administrators really took on any updates that I had um with
Grace um were very welcoming to them and I feel like it became a much smoother process this year so I want to thank them for their cooperation and their communication with me throughout this whole process thanks I want to thank Mr wher he's done a great job of this is a you
know a tough task um really tougher this year I've I've heard today from five different superintendents um who have said me are you are you running into these problems are we're running into trying to get things you know get get our budget to to
balance to hit the cat uh cost as we all know in our day-to-day life and in our whether it's our personal life or our business life um are escalating and um you know the cap uh we we would be facing some really really serious uh
consequences if we didn't get this Lael increase that um Mr wiford referred to um you also may be hearing uh there was an article in the in the north jersey.com today the Bergen Record um
about the state of Aid being cut no greater than 3% if you were to get a cut um last year there were some districts who got double figure surprises cuts and um so now they at least said hey for the
purpose of budgeting you know if you're going to take a hit it's not going to be more than 3% of your state aid that as Mr wiffer and I have discussed the interpretation of those messages from the state you know like any governmental body right you begin to say
what what are they trying to say are they saying everybody's getting cut are they saying we're all going to expect a 3% cut um we've heard from right Matt some reliable sources that say yep it's going to be flatter or cut and then from other reliable sources no no no there going to be some increases so the bottom
line is like everybody else will wait to hear what the governor says tomorrow morning and and then come Thursday right is when we actually you know we could do a guesstimate but even that guesstimate doesn't matter if if state aid um the he'll give the holistic number tomorrow
the whole number that number doesn't really apply to us because some districts makes out and some don't so we'll wait until Thursday but knowing that if we did get a cut it wouldn't be more than 3% uh does not make things good for us but it also isn't
catastrophic um we could we you know we'll work through that so once we hear you know we'll probably uh let everybody know what the state aid figures are so at least you're aware then we meet with Finance on Monday night and then the budget you you know you've all been through this before right the the
preliminary budget that goes to the the county uh borring some something the county puts a red flag up on or something that we discover in the interim that whoa we can't do that or we should do that that does that is the budget that's going to go forward so uh
you know the meeting on the third the meeting on the 10th are important meetings all right thank you um I appreciate what you're saying Mr whiffer about building on a strong foundation and how everyone's working internally it's great I uh evidently some board members at the last negotiation meeting
said that I compliment Mr Whitford too often so I'm not going to go too far in my compliments but no I'm just kidding um but uh it really seems like things are moving forward very efficiently and and uh you know really appreciate all your work any questions or
comments uh so we're going to go on then to the report of the president uh I really don't have much else to report beyond all the things that were reported tonight and really proud of all of our students with all these Great accomplishments um I really personally professionally Blown Away by the
academic committee's uh presentation I thought it was really uh very helpful to kind of see how they're thinking about things really deep um and I think it's all you know going to pay off and getting teachers Buy in I don't undervalue that statement the fact that teachers are working on this and
that they're part of these committees that are recommending these changes is super important um so yeah that's uh keep my report brief tonight any questions or comments extend thanks to Dr vko and the
Lincoln School's students for these letters that uh very nice yes they're wonderful sorry I just I just saw them I actually have one from my [Laughter]
granddaughter thank you so she's waiting for some ice cream this weekend awesome uh all right so then at 8:03 p.m. we're going to open the meeting to the public and at
8:03 p.m we're we're going to close the meeting to the public uh just cuz there is no one in the public here this evening we're going to move on now to new business with action to be taken so we will start with uh Personnel Mrs Cole hi good evening Personnel did meet
this month on February 18th via zoom and tonight we have 24 motions to be put forward at the recommendation of the superintendent uh number one is to accept the retirement of Michael stco English teacher at the high school with regret number two to accept the
retirement of Paul bazina bus driver for the bref school district with regret numbers 345 and six are resignations number seven is the approval of an extension as a leave replacement number eight to approve a
longterm substitute teacher number nine to approve an adjustment in the hours for a part-time bus assistant number 10 is to approve a lunch monitor this is a replacement position number 11 to accept the resignation of a lunch
monitor number 12 to approve a lunch monitor this is also a replacement decision number 13 to approve a transfer number 14 is to approve the following new job descriptions which are supervisor of educational technology and
student information it manager and network systems Administration administrator sorry and data coordinator Administrative Assistant for information technology number 15 to approve the coordinator of the summer Enrichment
Academy number 16 to approve the following teachers to revise and edit curriculum for the summer Enrichment Academy as listed number 17 to resend approve the following High School co-curricular assignments and stiens as listed number 18 to approve the
following coaching assignments as listed number 19 to approve a disability leave with pay number 20 to approve an adjustment in disability leave with pay number 21 to approve the following teachers for
supplementary after school Title One programs as listed 22 to approve the following substitute teachers as listed 23 to approve the following substitute teacher assistance as listed and number 24 to approve the following travel
reimbursements as listed all right questions or comments um yeah 10 and 11 is what we all have the same question what's going on there well you know again I'm talking about Personnel so I have to someone you know
we we have part-time employees who can't exceed a certain number of hours because then they become full-time employees so someone in a position I saw another opening which they thought they would like to do it would still keep them in a part-time status they tried the other
one for a day or two didn't like it didn't fit right so then they said we really don't want to do this so that's where it gets a little confused okay yeah I I as I was look you know it made sense to me but as I heard it being read tonight I'm like I'm gonna have I'm gonna get a question about this um I do
want to mention Mr stco uh 32 years in education 23 years here uh did a lot of work uh early on in his career with school plays uh been a class advisor uh has also did a great job of building the uh speaking public speaking class into
what used to be a small elective into really almost a full-time uh program and Mr Bina has been a bus drive with us for uh I think about 12 or 13 years so ium more retirements that will be at the end of the year I think my my son will be
disappointed to hear Mr stos retired um I I also just wanted to acknowledge and uh just appreciate the work you did on number 14 just how you're thinking about since Mrs odonnell is uh retiring just how you thought
about um holistically making sure the district has what it needs from an IT and educational technology standpoint and going over that in a couple of committees um Personnel strategic planning just to uh be able to share more deeply so right thank you and just
you know general statement for the members who Who board members who are not part of those committees uh you know Mr Don's job started off 25 years actually before her 35 years ago with another individual and the job has grown the responsibility has grown where um
it's really not a one person job anymore so rearranging some current positions uh reshaping them a little bit uh re you know allows us to replace the supervisor uh spread out some of the work and uh still get the job done if
officially any questions or comments hearing none Mrs Cole do you want to move those I would like to move motions 1 through 24 under Personnel all right we have a second Mr KY any last questions or
comments hearing none Mr Whitford please take roll Mr mosan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr KY yes Mr Hy yes Mrs Jones yes dren yes drot yes motion to carry
all right thank you uh we'll move to curriculum and instruction Mr Jones thank you tonight there are four motions that are put forth by the recommendation of our superintendent one out of District placements two field trips now totally 142 three summer Enrichment
Academy which is change from Lincoln School be at Washington School this year and home instruction for nine students that's it all right uh any questions or comments from board members I do want to say as I informed
the board we're raising tuition for the first time in six years at the summer Enrichment Academy by $50 um you know it's a totally self-funded program right there's no budget allotment for it so the tuition pays for the whole program
and as salaries have increased and cost of everything has increased after six years we felt we had a raise tuition and we're still really we did our homework and we're still a lot lower than most programs similar programs all right uh Mr Jones you want
to move those I move resoltion resolutions one through four all right and we have a second Mr Haley any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Whitford please take roll Mr ban yes Mrs Cole yes Mr KY
yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Dr Ren yes Dr yes motion to carry all right we are going to move on now to finance Mr bazian good evening uh we had a finance committee meeting on February 10th focused primarily on the budget uh
tonight on the agenda we have six motions to consider number one is the routine approval of bills number two is the December treasurers report number three are budget line transfers for December number four is to ratify amendments to our workers compensation
pool number five is is to acknowledge exceeding our bid threshold through the use of a purchasing cooperative and number six is to approve reimbursement for Parental Transportation expenses all right thank you questions or
comments Mr be so on the workers comp pool thing each one of those things are new insertions into the agreement a amendments to the current bylaws yet other questions all right hearing none Mr be want to move this I'd like to move motions one
through six under Finance all right we have a second Mr Cole any last questions or comments heing none Mr Whitford please take vote Mr ban yes Mrs Cole yes Mr KY yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Dr yes
drot yes motions carry all right thank you we'll move on on now to policy Mr Hy yes uh we did not have a policy committee meeting since our last board meeting uh we have one motion with seven policy under regulations as a second reading uh for
this evening and uh I'd like to uh move the one motion as listed okay uh do we have a second to move that Mr beian any questions or comments this is the second reading seeing it's nice to see The Spectator
Cod conduct what that The Spectator Cod cond it's nice to see that it's it's a policy well you know it it's uh kind of what we always did but now there's policy behind you know policy you know means that
gives you a little more um clout when you have to deal with an issue oh yeah and and credit to the njsia because they really came forward and said you know we want to see every District have a policy all right any last questions or comments uh we have it we had it moved and
seconded so Mr Whitford please take a rooll Mr pan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Hy yes Mrs Jones yes Dr rine yes drot yes motions carry all right thank
you next is building and grounds uh Mr Sprayberry is not here but there uh is nothing to report on so we can skip over that and move on to old business is there any old business M Jones I did get the chance to see Lion King Jr at Union
School that was the seventh and eighth grade production it it was absolutely wonderful and Maddie rine was part of the stage crew and Cooper con and also you were mentioning here that you helped
also wonderful with the lights they they they do such a great job you don't think that you're looking at kids performing it's so good a real credit to um the teachers that that assisted and
and did it um Jackie man um Brienne Bilbo alah uh Jordan it was just wonderful now the next one's coming up is going to be in in high school Mary Popkins Mary Popkins um it's going to be
um Tuesday the 11th Tuesday the 11th is the senior citizen dress rehearsal at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and then Friday night I think 7 o'clock I'll get that in the next because we have a meeting ahead of that
and Saturday there's a Mata at 2 or 2:30 and a performance there is an afternoon performance two performances on Saturday and then the afternoon on the Tuesday Mr whiffer you might think about bringing your girls to that one Matt a performance go they love it the I mean
you know anyway and you'll see our kids in action too but you know Mr Jones your point uh the theater group again there's a lot of good things happening in the district so what was always a very independent you know Pier pun Union the high school did their now they all work
together and this year all the plays are going to be Disney theme um you know a lot of the same folks are working on all three plays um so really the concept of building a not only good plays but a program right where the kids will know
as they move along you know because they the the play director of Union isn't a stranger to them when they move up there you know that kind of thing yeah I'd like to add to that that uh uh one of the things that was really nice about the play was that there was an RF grant that was handed out uh for uh for some
new lighting equipment there and I'm a little biased obviously but uh it was awesome so I thought it was just nice to for the RAF to see actually see it uh being used and everything so thanks to the RF well the the addition of the
speakers in the high school last year I guess it was maybe more yeah I think it was last year what a difference that made you can really understand the students speaking and that's just so important yeah I have been the fan of the plays since my kids were in school
which goes back to the 80s and early 90s and went to them they weren't in it but I just like to watch the kids I knew a lot of the kids in it and I'm always moved but the performance is just so wonderful my first four years of principal I did like Alfred Hitchcock I
had a a walk on in every play I took a role and always had to be a role that I would have to be holding something oh isn't that so I didn't so I didn't have to worry about going to rehearsal with memorize lines so you know like for example in bye-bye birdie I performed the wedding you know things
like that so I think so but then after I didn't get any uh Tony nominations I stopped doing it H what you were you did take part at the Christmas celebration didn't you what's that didn't you take part at the Christmas celebration Christmas I well I was Santa Claus and I did other things later on and I
performed three times in pop CER twice as Elvis once as Tony Orlando renaissance man there you go uh other old business I'll just share one quick thing uh now I think it's going on last week
maybe the weekend before um I went to see my son run at forom and uh he took second place in a 60 meter hurdle which was pretty incredible it was like a six College meet and it was the first time I got to see him in person and the assistant coach was there afterward and
he was talking about how kind of disciplined James was and you know work ethic and kind of really enjoys being a multi-event person was giving Kudos and compliments to his high school track coaches and just saying like that doesn't come from nowhere not that I was expecting a thank you for being a good
parent but no I'm kid um but it was really just it was a nice moment so I owe the track coaches uh you know also a thank you and I think they'll appreciate hearing that uh you know all of that work that they put into their um athletes in high school that's wonderful you PS off that's
great uh all right so move on to legislative update M Jones yeah one New Jersey assembly Bill 52 81 just introduced on February 10th just like last week or so uh by representative
Michelle Nas cool I'm not pronouncing that right Republican permits joins your commission to provide transportation services on school buses it owns or leases to local school districts without public
bidding I'm not sure I I can't imagine how you're going to award bus routs without so I don't know if that's going to have much legs on it right Mr wiford I mean how are we going to how will a joint your commission award busz routs if we don't have public bidding my my only
thought is that it's the jointure employees it's not a third party contractor that's going through it but I'm not sure how many Statewide joiners have their own bus fleets and their own bus staff for that right it doesn't
really affect our area no no all right sorry that's all right look for a better one uh all right thank you Mr Jones uh so at 8:20 p.m. we're going to open the meeting to the public for any comments uh and we're going to close the meeting to the public not having anyone in the
audience at this moment uh we do have a need for an executive session to talk about one student issue and contract negotiation update should be out about 10 or 15 minutes uh so we need a uh no action to be taken uh a motion to go
into executive session Mr bosan seconded by uh Miss Cole and all in favor I all right we are going into executive session