##VIDEO ID:c2PWCNcswEA## good evening I would like to call this meeting to order may I have a roll call please miss capiello miss carbonel here Mr Cohan pres Mrs K macki Mrs FIA present Mr McDowell Mrs Mani here Mr nasta here miss Santana present Miss uh Mrs Scott heeden board member GA Bia would you please lead us into the flag salute I Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all board member GA Faria would you please read the mission statement the mission of the township of Union Public Schools is to build on the foundations of honesty Excellence Integrity strong family and Community Partnerships we promote a supportive learning environment where every student is challenged inspired empowered and respected as diverse Learners through cultivation of students and intellectual curiosity skills and knowledge our students can achieve academically and socially and contribute as responsible and productive citizens of our Global Community Miss please read the open public meetings act statement good evening in accordance with the provision of the New Jersey open public meeting act the township of Union board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the daytime in place there are public in the Star Ledger and Union County local sources posted in the administrative building of 2369 Mars Avenue Union New Jersey F Township Clerk and mail to all persons if any who have requested said notice the Board of Education offers members of the public an opportunity to address issues regarding items on the agenda or on any issue individuals need to identify themselves by name and address public comment is limited to 3 minutes issues raised by members of the public May or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asked all members of the public to be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking comments regarding students and employees of the board will not be responded to by the board Madam president thank you so much Miss the board will now go into executive session to discuss personnel and legal issues and action Maybe be taken may I have a motion to move into executive session who moved the motion Mr Michael um Michael um and who second it Santana any discussion this motion has been properly moved by Michael Cohan and seconded by chassid Santana can I have a roll call please miss capial Mr Cohan yes Mrs FIA yes Mr M oh sorry Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes 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 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 back into our public regular meeting so so second this motion has been properly moved by Nancy mani and seconded by chassid Santana can I have a roll call please miss capiello well done uh Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta Mr nasta n yes Mr nasta here Mrs Scott haeden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes approval of the minutes may I have a motion to approve the following minutes so second seconded by Miss Anana um approved I'm Sorry by Miss Scott Hayden I apologize for the hyphenated names and and Miss Sana um seconded by Miss Sana roll quote please miss Capell Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki Mrs Faria Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott Hayden yes Miss Santana yes Miss caranel yes next we will have our communication are Communications that are reflected on personnel and operations agenda um but before we do that I I do want to allow Madame vice president good evening everyone and thank you so so much for being here tonight um I know it's very cold um I would like to allow Madame vice president to say a few words good evening to everyone um at home and um in public um wanted to take opportunity this evening to actually send my condolences to the families of some of our staff members who have currently passed away at the start of their school year it just seems like every day this list is growing more and more and I just felt it was very important to acknowledge their contributions to our school district um and also offer condolences to their loved ones at home so first Daniel Str he was an electrician he started in the district um January 2nd passed on January 20th with 3 days of service to our district the second one Candace West she was a bus Aid started 910 2024 pass January 6 with four months of service Kathy Gil Martin she was the secretary for special services started here in January 1st of 2000 passed January 3rd um with 24 years of service and Loa Ross she was a security guard at Connecticut Farm she started with us on October 11th 2023 and pass December 19th with one year and mon of service requesting that we hold a moment of silence on behalf of each individual so the New Jersey school CL thank you thank you so good evening everyone thank you so much for being here um and I said this at the last work session one of the things that we deserve the right uh reserve the right to is to continually grow and improve and as we reflected back um one of the things that we heard L and clear was greater communication on behalf of the board as well as greater transparency um while there are a number of items that we cannot discuss in public session we do have an opportunity and will be taking that opportunity to provide you with more information about the work that we do behind the scenes so moving starting with this meeting and subsequent meetings one of the things that we are going to do is provide you with the committee meeting presentations from our co-chairs as well as any special committees um the superintendent will provide you with a more focused presentation every month of new items but also how we are improving um and creating initiatives for academic growth and Improvement as well as Hannah updates and any resolutions that Merit further discussion um with that said I would like to take a moment to thank you all for being here tonight as we begin the public comment portion of this meeting I want to remind everyone that we value your input and appreciate your time and effort in sharing your thoughts and concerns as miss school stated previously I ask that all comments be respectful and constructive and that we refrain from calling out yelling or any disrespectful language each speak speaker will be given 3 minutes to address the board please remember that we while we are eager to hear your perspective we may be unable to engage in a back and forth dialogue during this portion of the meeting however your comments will be carefully reviewed and taken into consideration by the board and if feasible the superintendent or design need will respond to questions in real time or provide a response at a later date thank you so much with that said I invite our first speaker to please approach um Miss Susan lipstein good evening good evening good evening nice to see you it's Susan lipstein 2569 Jackson Avenue and I'm talking at this moment as uh representing the township of Union Education Foundation you can see that we have a communication a request for the use of Jefferson School for our spring reception on May 15th and I wanted to just uh let the community know a little bit about us we started in 2001 we went to the board I don't think anybody even here was around in 2001 and concerned citizens interested citizens wanted to start an Education Foundation and the board was very appreciative and supportive and I mentioned Nancy min's uh brother Ron Manel was on the board at that time the foundation is a totally separate charity we are separate from the Board of Education in the Township school but we have always worked cooperatively with the district we gave out our first grants in 2002 and at at this point every school every subject every grade level has received a grants and we've given over $250,000 in materials what we do is we ask the teachers what do you want what do you need need um we get a grant application from them that application is signed off by somebody in the front office before we even see it so we know it fits the curriculum guidelines of the district the grant applications come to me I remove identifying information they go to a grants committee that's made up of Educators and then we decide and we vote and we award the grants and um you know we've been doing this for a long time and I think at this point in time I think you can understand how something like this donations from the community and Grant grants to teachers are probably needed more than ever times times are not going to get easier for schools I'm afraid so I look forward to using the school seeing you at our our function and keeping appr prised of what we do with our grants because we ask the teachers to give us a midyear report we then forwarded to the superintendent we're in constant communication with the superintendent on the grants what we've given out and then of course the board uh accepts the donation of materials once we've ordered them thank you thank you superintendent report Madame President sorry that's kind of loud uh first up is our Auditors and I'll let Miss introduce them sure can we fix your microphone please thank you good evening um under the New Jersey state law all school districts are required to have their annual um uh their Finance audited by an independent auditor uh essentially the scope of the works is to look at our financial records transactions and to make sure that the district um is in compliance with following the rules and regulations tonight we have Warren Ki who is one of the partners of our supply and Clooney as well as the lead here we have Eric Zimmerman uh the Auditors have been uh with us uh starting this audit since October and we completed it finally last week um so without further Ado um Mr Cori please provide the community and board uh the results of the your findings sure all right good evening just like to introduce myself my name is Warren correct the engagement partner uh this is the presentation of the AUD for the year ended June 30th 2024 um it's required to have an audit every year it's in the statutes that way the report is filed the State Department of Education as well as the county uh superintendent of schools um you should have received two reports one's the actual um annual comprehensive reports with the financial statement and one's called the auditor's management report this is the report it's required by the state department of Ed has nothing to do it's more dealing with compliance areas of your operations instead of financials there's U seven or eight different areas where they ask us to go to this uh the smaller report is backed up they actually give us an audit manual it's about two or 300 pages long and there's a lot of compliance requirements in it um and in this report it's talks about the you know administrative requirements School purchasing School activity funds cafeteria bidding requirements and this is where um as we go through all these compliance requirements if we have any findings in this year we do have uh one finding and uh it's required that the recommendation at least be read into the uh Records um it was under School activity funds with the high school it was about depositing and a recommendation it just reads that uh all Student Activity funds collected he deposited with a reasonable amount of time so anytime the schools the activity funds that are maintained at the different schools collect money for funds they should try to get into the bank as soon as possible at least three times times a week if you can maybe even twice a week you know what I mean reasonable amount that's what we're we're considering you don't want the funds hanging around someplace where they could just uh be misused or you know just walk away from you sometimes but everything else we tested everything else was fine it was it's considered minor in nature but we we just thought it was uh you know U egregious enough that we mentioned it in a formal recommendation okay the second report is the actual financial statements everything in this report comes from all the records and that are maintained in the business administrator's office uh the budget documents revenue reports uh budgets things like that there's a lot of information in here uh the presentation goes in three different ways there's budgetary there's what they call Gap reporting there's budgetary reporting and compliance reporting um a lot of confusion uh because there's three different formats but the uh as I always point out to the different boards there's one schedule in this here it's called the uh C1 schedule and starts on page 88 and goes to 98 and the only reason I really like this report because it's very detailed of how the operations came about during the year in 2024 24 it starts with your original budget it starts with transfers the start to actually realize in revenues and if there's any excesses in the revenues or unexpended appropriation and it also acts as a profit and loss there's not very many schedules in here that really show you the information um on page 90 8 it gives you the bottom line how you ended the year I mean you started with 15 million for in Surplus you ended the year with 164 in Surplus so your Surplus did go up a million dollars for the year end however that Surplus is broken down by different components it's not all free and clear so it sounds like a lot you have 16 million it is a a healthy number but there's different components uh you have encumbrances of a million4 basically incumbrances that's just orders that were placed by the business administrator at ER but they haven't been completed yet so they were probably and a lot of those were spent in the next like July August September you have uh EXs Surplus the way the state calculates it of a million5 that has to be used in the 25 26 budget you have a capital reserve of 3,282 that's for all capital purposes in your long range facility plan you have a maintenance reserve of 949 that's to maintain the facilities it's put away an emergency reserve of 725 that's for any emergency that the board uh comes across during the fiscal year you have what's used in your 2425 budget you're using 2,495 to fund this budget up as you're in right now and your unassigned Surplus is 4 million6 so that's the you know the money that you can start using for your 25 26 budget okay there's a lot of information in this report there's not just Financial numbers there's a lot of Statistics demographics and debt schedules and things like that also takes care of the single audit which deals with your grants and your uh federal and state operations okay uh if there's any question questions about anything we do or anything you know you like to know about more about the report I don't know if you had a chance really to look at it but if you didn't get a chance to if you have really any questions you can just call us at the office and we'll larly answer any questions that you may have on this any questions on anything you have any questions so in reference to your recommendation what were the findings of the time that we're currently using um as opposed to your suggestion okay I'll I'll ask her he had the work papers for that question so just to reash no he just currently said I'm making a suggestion that it's timely like three days so what did you find we we're currently using well again there's no have to do 4S and is a reason amount of time so what's a reason amount of I guess you could have that argument but the discrepancies that we yeah can you come to the mic I'm so sorry I apologize sorry uh so the discrepancies that we had when we were doing the audit were anywhere issues anywhere from like two weeks up to over a month late from that goes the date of receipt to the date that it was deposited into the bank so again for us if you have a board policy that dictates something stricter than a reasonable amount of time that's what look for to see okay you have to be compant with your your board policy uh if if you don't have one that's more specific we kind of use our judgment and if you have a couple that are you know a few days a week we're not going to make a big deal about it but this was more egregious than than that that's you know and it also depends on the amount you know what I mean if you have 10 bucks I mean we're not going to say run to the bank you know within an hour or something like that but if you have a couple hundred dollars and it's all your cash we suggest you get to the bank as soon as possible thank you for that thank you uh Mr Cohan yeah I was going to hold this until the report of the fiscal committee but I i' just first of all i' like to thank Mr kreen and his colleague from sule uh for their work on our behalf every year because it's this is one of the most important things we need to do in our accountability to the public is to make sure that they know that we're using the funds they provide to us through their taxes for the purposes that that they're intended uh but on the the finding and and the question that M Santana asked Mr mcdal and I did discuss with Miss  the possibility that we asked the policy committee to review our current policy and place some strict parameters on that based upon her recommendation so that we don't have this recur uh we were very concerned about it because we we know of history at Union High School where there was there were a large number of funds kept in the school and they were missing like a lot of money and we need to make certain that we comply with this or we make certain we remedy this finding so that we are never in that situation again thank you thank you Mr Cohan anybody else and I certainly agree with you is not just though creating the policy it's monitoring that the policy is being adhered to and addressing those that do not so thank you so much gentlemen okay thank you thank you super attend thank you uh Madam president welcome everyone so I'll get into uh um our report tonight um like Madame President uh spoke about it's going to be con concise to uh some areas uh uh that we're going to be kind of following up on monthly so first I just wanted to talk about a little bit about education and some of the things we're doing different than we did in the past as you see uh our our curriculum team is looking to continuously create School Improvement movement uh and this is one of the models um that where we're utilizing uh data uh ongoing and it's just it'll it'll keep going over and over again the one I wanted to highlight tonight as you could see we talked about in internal benchmarks the culture and climate State assessments skip uh teams and their uh how they impact our school district but I want to talk about something new are walkthroughs so we started uh we're starting we already started doing walkthroughs which is going to over uh the course of this rest of this year given us 500 plus additional data points that we could use uh within our decision- making um and it's very simple for our administrators going in there uh we made it this is the first uh kind of level of walkthroughs um where we're just trying to gather as much data as we can to see what's going on in that classroom we we spoke about this uh in the past about what is going on in that classroom you know we w it came up when we were talking about uh uh how much time allocated in certain areas uh we really need to know what's going on so there's four essential questions um that were asking what's the teacher doing what's the students doing uh what part of the period uh did they go in uh as well as the subject and we're going to gather all this data we're going to utilize it with all the other data that we're Gathering and and utilizing and uh just in addition to that um kind of um lean on this to say say what is going on are the students engaged uh how they engaged is it is it the teacher just talking so I'm really interested in now that we're collecting this at the end of the year kind of summarizing uh for the board um what what do we see and getting in the classrooms itself uh administrators getting in having to do a lot of uh walkthroughs throughout the rest of this year I think is also going to um uh make a difference because you you have to be in the classroom see what's going on uh but but it it's going to be very valuable to us uh in the in the uh future um really to again impact um our education and and what we're doing in our classrooms so Hannah Caldwell um I just wanted to give a brief update on where we're at some of the things we're identifying so first I wanted to just uh kind of highlight what we really identified in in as we were progressing through the building still progressing in some areas the building has broken down for the company in seven zones and they're addressing the areas by zone so as zones get completed Zone one is complete ready to be put back uh uh doesn't need to be addressed that in any any other fashion um and I I'll next month highlight the different zones so everyone knows but we broke the building bound into into zones so they could uh immediately uh kind of start working within the zones so one thing we we identified which in a lot of circumstances we couldn't see behind the walls but as they started investigating there was uh uh some uh Plumbing failures um why that's important is it's something we're focusing on as we keep progressing with our insurance company you know if you see in that picture to the right um there was sheetrock there we couldn't see that that that that was uh impacting us now it was it it could have been a minor leak but it was causing moisture obviously to to um be in that water absorbed by the sheetrock what does sheetrock do it absorbs the moisture uh then what you need uh where it ends up going south is if you don't have the right humidity levels um air circulation so um we this is only three we have a lot of Plumbing failures that we identified um next is uh with the plumbing failures is the work they're doing they're doing demo work but they're also doing detail cleaning there's a process to go uh in place the Contin this is a continuous task uh as they progress through uh different zones um with the uh if they identify another area uh that needs to be addressed they as you could see in parts of our building sheetrock is removed and they got to identify the source um they so they're as they're working through the zones they're continuously um you know identifying when I was in the building last week they showed me one or two new points that they were starting to address but but as you see there um it's not just they're just randomly going it the environmental company put together uh uh what areas need to be impacted and they're progressing through the advice of the environmental company that did a lot of testing throughout our district I mean throughout our our building so as you see there those listed there and I'm not going to read all of them uh were areas that this company as you see in those pictures addressed in in in many different ways it might have been uh ceiling tiles it might have been sheetrock it might have been uh heing so they made the recommendations based on every different area and that's how the companies progressing through the building so essentially um we need to continue to fix our plumbing failures uh as we identifying we got to uh continue to fix them we got to make sure there we can't there's there's none left to identify I just want everyone to know Zone one which I'll I'll kind of give you an overview of what zone one is is completed it was tested and and now they they made sure that uh there would be no contamination in that zone uh so the last part of that zone is to put it back together uh but we won't do that until all the um uh you know masonary work and any other exterior work that that is needed uh happens um but with that they've been addressing uh our clocking of Windows clocking of doors things that uh they identified as as areas that needed to be um work needed to be done to ensure that no water is coming in so uh after that there the HVAC uh cleaning and encaps encapsulation has to be done um so the way they explain it is where it can't be cleaned they encapsulate where there's it's not an impact to you anymore um so that still we're I just want everyone to know we're still on date right now for June 1st to be complete it um so that's where uh our hand call will update monthly I'll kind of keep progressing through different areas and different zones I just want to update the community and board on where we're at with realignment um tnm is is continuing to work through our data and they will uh give the the district a report um our our tenative timeline is February middle of February so as soon as we have that we could really start progressing forward uh but we're we're at the point now we want to uh combine our committees down to three main areas education fiscal operations and Personnel we're working um main those are going to be the three main areas um and uh I'm very excited and Mr Shannon just walked in the UTA president but we committed to making realignment also part of our uh Labor Management collaborative which I think is huge um Miss Shannon um already I think helped me uh with suggestions that I didn't think about um where as we have this grow through our Labor Management collaborative that'll be also I guess I mean I know it'll be a group which is representation of the whole district and in different categories administrators uh teachers uh central office um and uh providing uh ideas feedback and uh it just shows that we're going to work through this collaboratively which I think is going to be help us tremendously and I I thank the the Miss Shannon as the leader of the UTA but as well as our Labor Management collaborative Group which we've gotten through a couple items already this year and we're going to continue to grow and lean on that process to bring in change or updating things in our district um but you know I I put up a question there why do districts rign well there's many different re reasons but I want everyone to know there's not one alignment that is good for every District you have to look at your district and see your needs and things that need to improve and then kind of go from there so research will show you benefits for each one but not every benefit is going to help you in your needs and what you you need to to do so and I just want to make sure people understand there's a past this has been discussed brought about boards boards and Boards before you nothing ever kind of uh came to the Forefront to make happen happen and you see we're we're still talking about it which what tells you what there's still a need we still need to do this so with that I I would like to highlight some benefits that we kind of um and um uh some people in our district were part of looking at uh K to6 and some benefits and then uh research also kind of shares some benefits so um you know in a k to6 configuration you could develop uh the leadership and Community you could uh have academic uh social preparation and connectiveness uh there's parent uh you know benefits to parent involvement student well-being um you know they say that that transitions effect so right now and I understand like when we first do this there's going to be a transition period but in the end year after year the benefit to not separating our kids after fifth grade but also right now fifth grade we can't get a lot of data out of because it's a one grade uh uh school and then the kids are gone so having that a k to six we could really now get gain more data and and also um um you know Jefferson again we we talked about the students not being on a bus for an hour hour and a half some of those kids going across town but there's also fiscal impacts uh positive fiscal impacts uh you know you could overcome some AC academic challenges that you're dealing with um you know we what came up in the past is the social emotional side of it and and having students K to six um can really help with that social emotional making sure they're ready for Middle School um it could address behavioral issues um and again the Middle School brings in a very specific set of needs for students and we could really hone in on what the kids need in in the seventh eth grade when they move on to middle school so in the end like the K to6 uh grade level configuration offers signific ific benefits by providing a stable environment that supports academic growth leadership development and emotional well-being so I really want to hone in that leadership development there's a lot of things you could do in that K to 6 to make sure the students in the upper grades are getting that opportunity to lead um you know where the younger kids will look up to them um it's also data uh research also shows that you know the sixth graders with the younger kids are more like Mo role models and the behaviors are better uh the sixth graders in in the K to6 versus the the behaviors in the middle school so um you know it'll reduce those Transitions and uh it it could bring some continuity uh to our learning uh and again impact our social emotional health so some resolutions I want to hire and and our Auditors hired highlighted one that I I picked out but I wanted to also reiterate that audit uh report except um the action plan uh where we are going to make sure that um practices in our place and and making sure our operating procedures implemented uh to address that but um I also wanted to highlight E11 uh the equivalency application and why is that so part of New Jersey QC which we're going through this year uh for the 25 26 school year we were able to uh submit for approval equivac uh application and it's uh it's they will use a formula with instruction and program instead of uh kind of looking at just proficiency so they're looking at growth so they allow you to get points based on that just so uh and this is something that the state allows you to apply for we did uh we we will be asking for approval on that uh application um and then I just want to highlight the sidebar that's on the board uh meeting tonight uh for approval um it is something that um the UTA and Leadership worked on years ago um however it was never brought for board approval Pro previous administration never brought it to the board for approval so it's just kind of uh um now getting it approved uh what we uh agreed upon to do the last thing uh um with this is I want the community to know to look out for oneclick check-ins we're trying to get community feedback but we want to make it simple and easy um there's a way to sign up with text messaging and um that was put out so please uh you know uh go through that so then you could receive these uh oneclick check-in surveys we're going to ask one question that we want to know data on one simple question maybe one a week maybe we want to do two it might be on your your thoughts on cell phones it might be on uh our realignment it might be on maybe lunch uh uh lunch recess it could be on anything that we so we could hope y get a lot of community input it's just another way I want to try to uh engage the community and then look out for the monthly lose letter real quick I got to highlight our hibs so that's our Hib report for the month of that we're uh reporting only one uh for that time period from 19th to January 31st that's the ones we're affirming six and five and then uh this is our biannual report September to December it's reporting period one on on Hib the things I have to highlight I I I'm supposed to highlight is the total reports 53 uh founded 3716 and as you can see there those are the the the breakdowns by school as well as well as the the categories so um that this full report the full report of Hib will be on the link online but there's uh what we were supposed to do and thank you madam president for that's that'll be my uh presentation for tonight no thank you Dr benaquista for a most thorough report any comments from the board uh Michael Coan then miss Anan just a quick question for Dr benaquista when you were talking about the walkthroughs uh as data points just for clarity for the board and for members of the public these walkthroughs are not evaluative in nature but rather opportunities for district administrators to take a look at a macro level of what's going on in classrooms and then engage the collective staff in conversation uh in what they've obser oberved relative to what kind of General agreements have been made by the staff in general about what they were going to try to accomplish as their goals absolutely yes so it's really just to look in and get that information like you said not evaluating what's going on and then we could bring it back to the skip teams to really digest as well thank you thank you sorry then miss thank you so much so um what I was happy to see was the Labor Management collaborative the seeds that were planted in yesterday year because I I think that we started here with my peers getting together with uh UTA to to start that strengthening that great Labor Management collaborative and now kind of and enveloping and growing into um realignment I I think that that's how the work gets done and it gets done well uh that's the comment I wanted to make and then the a question but I don't know if it's going to be answered today um in Old in the in everything that I saw as far as retirements I thank everybody for giving their time um I I have relationships with most those people that are retiring um but I do want to concentrate on our nurses we're losing uh uh a fixture a fixt a great fixture Jeff um Mrs suner is uh those that know her those that don't know her uh was a world of a nurse to Jefferson and to this district and as they retire we are going to have to think how we are going to be able to replace these nurses as the mother of a type 1 diabetic um my baby became a type 1 diabetic and then next year went into Mrs suner and she was a godsent so for all of our babies to have someone like her and us to support her to support the district and our children on in all buildings not just one is a puzzle a piece that we are going to have to put together because from what I hear school districts don't pay what hospitals pay so you know that that that's my question what are we going to do moving forward with the nursing situation in the district so so real quick and I apologize it was on my slide but we did have two administrators put in the retirement uh Mr Matthews and Mr grety but at the same time uh and um and uh and then uh Mr Hoy is on a leave we do have Chris K covering that building right now um that's on the agenda uh but yes Miss suner I I added on their same kind of sediment she's been here for a long time she's done some amazing things in in helping our community and our students but uh Mr Zer is already working on uh interviewing and uh we have a a leave coming up as well uh for a nurse that he's already has uh I think he has that covered and he has some leads on some nurses so we're going to keep pushing forward and making sure that we're filling all our nurse nursing position positions thank you anybody else question Mr M yeah um I want to uh thank M Dr vqu for his presentation on the realignment uh and uh we're going uh K through six but how will we handle the uh the preschool groups so right now we're still uh we got the reason I say k to6 is is it's not that I'm excluding prek it's that uh prek again isn't mandated we do have a full day prek we're very lucky we have a great Grant um but um at at uh in the update on realignment I thanks to one of our Labor Management and Miss Shannon given a suggestion I think we're really uh I think we could end up um creating in a sense a center right uh possibly two locations but where it's not uh throughout our district uh part of the realignment so that is coming soon um but we're still working on on a pre- center outside uh uh that takes time to to R do some some building improvements and stuff like that uh I was out last week looking at another facility with uh the township ba and and seeing if when it's vacant when it will be vacant uh when we could take uh ownership of it to then start adapting whether it be for prek or another initiative of the district so we're constantly looking for facilities but in a sense I don't want anyone to think we're leaving out prek just our configuration is essentially prek to six um but in a in a sense we are looking for a prek center that's why I brought the question up and and I thought we were leaning towards a centralized uh prek and I'm glad to hear that but I think the public need to know it too thank you so much Miss man I just um last week at the meeting um when we talked about the hip report and um Dr Rodriguez at I don't know when he's going to do it but um just to see our numbers compared to other districts that are are comparable to us you know in in the county maybe outside the county to see if our numbers are similar or if we're higher or lower than than other districts so I just wanted to let the public know that we're looking into that information well and I didn't highlight all the programs anyone that looks at the full report will see everything our school counselors under miss ahern's leadership and then Dr Rodriguez we're doing a lot of uh counseling whether it be small small group in pushing the classrooms uh a lot of counseling uh we we speak to parents over over uh conclusions of uh investigations and bring them to the table of of letting them know how we could kind of help uh and they could assist us with that so there's a lot of different things we're doing not just some are disciplined but the the highest number I believe in the report was counseling which is the most important and and our counselors do do a lot I want to say what you know I don't have data in front of me but it seems like our numbers are are less that's good than they've been in the past so I think I'm hoping it's because of all the things that we're doing and and remember the board approved our own mental health clinicians in District which now we're helping a lot more students so thank you um I have a motion here to approve the resolution recognizing January 2025 a school board recognition month so yes um and we started this last year the school board's Administration does recognize the board members uh and asks you know and I support uh how much work that board members do and and don't get recognized so uh this is the month that to honor what you guys do and I just want to say thank you on behalf of the whole district and and how you advocate for our students and our community and it's just a small token of a resolution um uh that of saying that thank you in in a sense and it's the school boards Association that that ask districts to recognize this CU it it sometimes goes unnoticed you you know you put in a lot of time and energy so I just appreciate it on behalf of the board I would like to have this resolution um recognized and and approved well thank you I I definitely move that resolution is there a second I would love to Second it thank you Miss Sana uh bro please miss Capell Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes and for those of you that were there last week at the work session um I got the glasses so thank you um next we will have the education student discipline committee chair Miss man and Miss far to present the resolutions that will be voted on tonight before the resolutions I just want to give a little bit of an update of some of the things that are going on in the district um so some of the work was already shared by Dr benesta but I wanted to add on some of the things that are happening um so have shared with us we're approving tonight uh curriculum for science K5 um the district has created a Five-Year Plan where we continuously review you curriculum using a new program called Rubicon Atlas which allows to have great access for the teachers lesson planning and also just to be available and have all of The Curriculum maps and all of those documents in one central location so for science we're going with into science for grades K2 and generation genius so this is allowing students to have more Hands-On approach uh for science we also were updated in math um so one of the things kind of like was shared with the internal uh benchmarks is that we now have common assess Ms through the use of linkit and what that allows to do is for the instructional coaches to really be able to provide information to teachers beginning at the start of the unit where it allows them to High um prioritize what are the Big Ideas the teachers then teach it because it's common assessments then able to look at all the data from all the students across the grade level and be able to determine what are those points that need to be retaught that maybe some of the students didn't do really well on and the instructional coaches are then working with the teachers to have a rete for those so we're happy to see that we're using that data in a in a meaningful way and we're looking forward to see how this might impact our um achievement also really important our district continues to apply for Grants so we're receiving a grant um $375,000 for school-based mental health Grant this allows for seal curriculum professional development and the school psychology extern program and additionally the district applied for four more grants three of them through the New Jersey Department of Education on climate literacy and resilience in the community one for expanding uh computer science courses in the school in the high school and one for um Esports industry career exploration and then one from the local Recreation Improvement this allows to make improvements to the schools so some of the past uh projects have included the playgrounds um at the elementary schools and to add on to the equivalency application I believe it was shared with us that this would allow us this new formula allows us to potentially score three points higher on our qac visit that's coming up so really great work that's going on in the district that was great thank you so much Miss FIA Miss Mani okay um good evening everyone um upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools the education student discipline committee presents the following resolutions for the board's consideration E1 e1a were um affirmed um at last week's work session E11 superintendent report of Hib e11a affirm superintendence determination of Hib E2 approve the January report NJ dooe hi E3 approve the curricula grade K through five um E4 approve assemblies at Franklin Elementary School uh E5 approve accept and accept Grant funds E6 approve and accept Grant funds and E7 uh the the um agenda item was adopted on January 14th E8 approve and accept resolution for application for local Recreation Improvement Grant E9 approve updated school calendar E10 approv tuition Transportation home instruction contracts E11 approv NJ dooe equivalency application and that's it thank you so much is there a second any discussion okay well I I do want to say something I I I was ecstatic one of the things that we have and the community already knows we are challenged with all facilities um old HVAC systems heating systems and those of us that have had direct or indirect in you know experience with um in education know that one of the areas that is really underfunded in education is capital Improvement projects um so in order to not only address the issues that we have in our local District but also continue to enhance the quality of our educational programs we do need to be proactive in finding additional funding sources and this agenda tonight it is filled with competitive grants not only and but also stem and I was just really excited to see that so thank you um next we will have the we did not vote I almost had it um Miss Capello may I please have a roll call Mr Cohan yes Mrs con Maki yes Mrs Faria yes Mr McDow yes Mrs Beni yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes next we will have the fiscal and planning committee chair Mr Cohan and Mr McDow to present the resolutions that will be voted on tonight thank you madam president um as I mentioned briefly uh during the superintendent's Report with the Auditors Mr mcdal and I had a very productive meeting with Miss in preparation for this month's meetings and um we did spend some time talking about the findings in the a during the committee uh discussion I'm pleased to report that among the findings of the auditor that were not reported tonight uh specifically were that we were able to put $2.5 million into Capital Reserves at the close of the last fiscal year and we also have $1.5 million in excess Surplus that'll be available to be appropriated into the next fiscal Year's budget which will help us with some of those facilities challenges that you mentioned uh the resolution on the agenda are uh in generally specifically uh the standard kind of things we see each month the treasures and uh secretary's report there are the acceptance of Grants and the approval of contracts but I would like to call attention to um two items that were also mentioned by the Auditors originally that there is going to be a corrective action plan relative to that finding from the Union High School student activities funds Miss Coon's going to meet with the staff to discuss that corrective action plan we will be approving that tonight uh in the resolutions and there is also a resolution to enter in a coop into a Cooperative agreement with Bergen County for shared uh Services purchasing that will enable us to to gain uh economies of scale because of large large scale uh buying okay that concludes my report thank you thank you so much Mr Cohan Mr McDow thank you madam president uh F1 upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools the fiscal and planning committee presents the following resolutions for the board's consideration F1 is the treasurer's report F2 is the secretary's report F3 is to certify the treasurers and secretary's report uh F4 is to approve the Appropriations trans the appropriation transfers F5 is to approve the list of of contractor contracts and purchase orders F6 to approve districtwide districtwide travel and related expenses F7 was voted on and approved last week f7a approved districtwide student field trips f8 approved list of 2024 and 2025 State contracts and approved Aven vendors approved the f9a is to approve the list of contracts and purchases for Student Activities and the are listed here on the agenda uh f9b is to approv fundraisers and they are also listed here on the agenda and the purpose for those fundraisers uh f9c is to accept donations and you see there are donations listed there for the high school and for several of our elementary schools uh F10 is to approve the 2024 2025 out of District student placement list f11 is to approve contracts Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired F12 is to approve the NJ doe joint Transportation agreement f-13 is to approve student transportation contract DCF state of New Jersey F14 is to approve transportation service agreement F15 is to prove the acceptance of Grants which uh uh Mr uh Mr Kohan mentioned a little earlier one of those grants is the uh uh child assault assault prevention that's for grades one and five and there is uh another for grade 8 which is also child assault prevention bullying prevention program so we've accepted those grants uh F-16 is to accept annual comprehensive financial report and management report which we heard tonight from our Auditors f17 is to approve the corrective action plan which we also heard from our Auditors uh F18 is to prove participation in The Cooperative pricing agreement and as Mr Cen mentioned earlier so that we can have uh make some gains in economies of scale of purchasing scales uh fa I'm sorry uh F attorney that's an item that's not to be voted on tonight so Madame President I presented these resolutions on behalf of the financial uh committee thank you second thank you so much um this motion no I'm sorry any any discussions I had a comment um uh Mr and just in reference to to what you had said it about what the Auditors say at times the perception um of a board member is that we can kind of walk in to the high school and say oh secretary did you deposit that check but we realistically know that that we can't handle the day-to-day are we are tasked with oversight policy process improving and and policym and this is how it's done we start here putting those policies into place so that when it gets to where it needs to go they have guidelines if you have for example if you have X amount of money it has to be deposited in such and such time and then we have checks and balances in place so we have to do our due diligence to make sure that these policies are consistently set forth and the the correct auditing uh procedures are in place so I thank you for all of the all that you do and that's the comment that I wanted to make thank you so much Miss Anana this Mo anybody else this motion has been properly moved by Mr McDow and seconded by Mr Cohan can I have a roll call please miss capiello yes Mr Cohan yes Mrs K Maki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta Mr nasta Mrs Scott Hayden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes next we will have the grievance and negotiation negotiations chair Miss Santana present the resolutions that will be voted upon tonight thank you and just in summary um this was exactly what uh Dr benaquista was talking about earlier we're approving a sidebar agreement um earlier uh that had been done a few years ago with the UTA um for employment of different bcbas and different positions so upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools the grievance and negotiations committee presents the following resolutions for the board's consideration G1 approved sidebar agreement with the UTA second thank you any discussion no this motion is then um I'm sorry the motion has been properly moved by Miss Santana seconded by Miss Mani can I have a roll call please miss Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden obain Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes next we will have the operations committee chair Mr nasta and Miss K Mackie to present the resolutions that will be voted upon tonight um Madam president before Mr NASA reads the resolutions I want to thank you for bringing light the infrastructure of our buildings um it is a Statewide problem with the age of most of our buildings um and with the committee and working with our Administration we are collectively trying to figure out ways how to work around it until we get some much needed resolution and help um in our committee meetings we discussed the key component areas which are security Our IT services uh transportation and of course the facilities and grounds um and in that you know we do know that we have to create a long long range plan um to really address a lot of the issues that will come to light and has come to light um but Greg and I really want to thank our community our our team members for such a hard work in the due diligence in you know basically working with what we got um inhouse as well as all of the people that were contracted to help us so I will turn it over to Greg to read the resolutions thank you thank you Miss K macki Mr nasta thank you Madame President uh the operations committee resolutions under recommendation of the superintendent of schools the operations committee presents the following resolutions for the board's consideration 01 approved SEC security drill bus evacuation reports 02 approved submission of anticipated facility requests uh we had a discussion item 03 but that has been tabled administratively that is all a second is there a second second discussion oh this motion has been properly moved by Mr nasta and seconded by Miss Mani can I have a roll call please miss Capello Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes next we will have the Personnel committee chair Miss Scott Hayden and Miss Santana to present the following resolutions that will be voted upon tonight good evening the Personnel committee would like to highlight the following occurred during our committee meeting we first acknowledge that we are definitely having a lot of retirements um resignations retirements are definitely well deserved um um resignation we hope to um that our um Director of Human Resources is looking to have an exit interview with some of our employees as they leave to find out as to some of the reasons why they're leaving our district um we also understand that back in September we had multiple um positions that were open across the Spectrum um we were um able to F fulfill some however we currently have um open positions for ESL one full-time uh one Le replacement we're currently in the process of hiring an alternate root candidate um Spanish we have one leave replacement and one full-time uh position also and Middle School Ela we have one leave replacement special education we have eight full-time positions and four leave Replacements so um with this agenda here we do acknowledge that we also having administrators also who are retiring and just so that we are all clear we know that across the whole country there is definitely shortage in education so while that may be we will do our due diligence to make sure that we look to hire and recruit some of the best talent that we can possibly find for our students they deserve nothing less than that so um as a committee we will be doing our dual diligence to make sure that we are um doing just that for our students so thank you and Miss Santana will read the resolutions before you do I I do want to also share with the community one of the things that we do want to share is in information just like you share with us and I believe the department on labor um in 2023 released um a report where they noted that about 1,200 individuals had actually gone to school for education and become certified and started working in the state of New Jersey now if you consider that with the 600 or1 school districts that's about two teachers per District at a time when there's a great number of retirements so the challenge is real and it is not only about attracting and retaining the top talent but it is also about us internally considering other ways of doing things to make sure that instruction is not impacting um but with that said I'm going to pass it to miss Anana thank you Madame Vice and Madam president um upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools the Personnel committee presents the following resolutions for the board's consideration we have p1a that is Personnel actions with new hires we have p1b which is Personnel actions with extra pay p1c personal actions of transfers P2 with that we will be approving The Substitute list p3a is accept letters of resignation and retirement p3b is approve leaves and then I have P4 approved student teachers and internships and I will be adding a resolution to approve the termination of employee ID number 8895 effective February 21st 2025 and I will be adding resolution to approve the termination of employee ID number 13175 effective February 21st 2020 Madam president thank you so much Miss Santana and SAR a second second Miss K Magie any discussion okay Madam president I'm sorry Mr I was going to hold I have a comment that's Loosely related to the comment that you just made for during new BR new business but I just like to follow up on the comment that you made that in my previous work uh before I retired one of the things that I did was work with the Deans of Education of the schools of the teacher preparation schools around the state and I will tell you this that and I'll be retired three years on February 1st even four and five years ago pre-pandemic enrollment in New Jersey teacher preparation programs had gone down in one school by 70% georgean Court University once had a thriving teacher preparation program that had well over 300 students enrolled and in the last year that that data was reported they had 35 uh and the those Trend that was Mo the most drastic example but the trends were true all across the state uh thankfully uh Kane University our neighbor down the street still has a pretty robust teacher prep program but that is the the crisis Nationwide that is causing us to be challenged whenever we want need to fill a vacancy uh so I I'll just say that we will absolutely do what uh Miss Scott Hayden said in in her acknowledgement of the retiring staff to find the best and the brightest whenever we can but the best and the brightest aren't entering the the profession in every instance either thank you thank you they have many more options now yes um thank you so much Mr Coen this motion has been properly moved by Miss Santana and seconded by Miss K macki can I have a roll call please miss capiello Mr Cohan yes Mrs con Maki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden yes Miss Sana yes Miss carbonel yes next we will have the policy committee chair CH Miss Mani present the following resolutions that will be voted upon tonight okay upon recommendation the superintendent of schools the policy committee presents the following policy for the board's consideration and this is a final reading uh policy 0164 conduct of board meeting is there a second second I'm going to any discussion Madam president just for clarity for the the benefit of the board uh to make certain that everyone knows what the change in in the conduct of the board meeting is please um at your recommendation and we all concur at our work sessions we will no longer be providing two opportunities for public comment one uh before the reading of resolutions and one at the end in deference to members of the public that come out for those meetings we're going to provide that opportunity to to address us at the beginning of the meeting because very often we go into a lengthy executive session uh following the review of resolutions so in in order to ensure that members of the public have every opportunity to address this and bring their concerns to us but not have to wait until possibly 11:00 p.m. on a on a week night uh to come back and follow up with on on an issue with us uh we will be providing that early opportunity if there is an issue that comes up during the board's discussion at the work session the traditional early and late comment will be available at these meetings uh the subsequent week certainly yes thank you thank you so much for elaborating on that policy Mr Cohan um the motion has been properly moved by Miss manise and seconded by Miss Scot Hayden can I have a roll call please miss cap Yello Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs B yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes moving along we will have the residency committee chair Miss Faria present the following non- voting resolutions no Miss Mani okay um just wanted to note that R1 R2 and R3 are for informational purposes only and um so I just wanted everybody to know that these are students who were found to be um non-residents and who voluntarily left the district so um on recommendation of superintendent schools The Residency committee presents the following resolutions for the board's consideration R1 report of students voluntarily transferred out of District uh through a residency investigation R2 report of students voluntary transferred out of District residency hearing and then um this the final total for um through December 18th 2024 um we have s seven students uh removed and uh eight students voluntarily transferred so we're speaking if we look at a student pupil course in a given Year we're talking about a good $20,000 right times 15 I hope we continue in that V so thank you moving along at this time we have no technology to resolutions to present may I have a motion to approve the bills list so move second is there a second any disc questions no this motion has been properly moved by Miss Scott Hayden and seconded by Miss Mani can I have a roll call please miss capiello Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden yes Miss Santana yes Miss carbano yes unfinished business that's wonderful I do want to say that in the spirit of Greater collaboration we will also take an opportunity to have a night out with our PTA executive board we're very excited to bring the school leadership District leadership and PTA together to for us to really kind of meet and get to know one another and we could work more closely together and that's going to be happening in February additionally we did have our first board retreat where we discuss a number of different items including um School law cases and updates on negotiations and the superintendent evaluation the next one will be more focused on finances and budget we all have strengths in different areas but we also take the opportunity as part of this journey to continue learning so um thank you everyone um and last but not least another thing that we want to do is provide you with information all of you have a wealth of knowledge about what's happening in the schools um and that information should not always come from the superintendent we have tremendous School leadership and we will be asking them to come monthly to present to you some of the wonderful things that are happening in our schools um new business please we all have something I think all right so we're going to start at the end there with my colleague Mr n and then we're going to move it to the right thank you Madame President uh I have uh just two things I'd like to touch on uh first I I really want to just give uh just a job well done to uh Anthony cerella and all the grounds guys uh as we know we had some inclement weather uh this past weekend and uh you know I went by pretty much all the schools in the last two days uh the grounds outside everything looks good you know uh all the snow was cleared no ice or anything like that and I I do want everyone to understand that even though it is their job uh work like that especially with the last couple days and today and tomorrow with the with just how cold it is it's not easy it really isn't to work outside in those types of conditions so again you know just a big shot shout out I guess to Anthony and and the whole crew who were in here you know doing a real good job also I would like to con congratulate Davidson igben noen of the Ohio State Buckey Union own uh who is now a national champion as well that's it thank you so much Mr NASA Mr McDow no no next Miss Faria hi good evening I just wanted to share some of the events that took place it was a really busy week in Union School SCH um so first starting off with the high school in the Heights what a great play that was and so congratulations to really all the students um and staff uh it was such a great play and I think or musical and it really resonated I think with the community um in the Heights and also just great talent all around um I also want to thank there was a parent program always connected um and it was on the snow day but there were a couple of us there and I think what's really important to say in terms of all the work that's being done with um hibs is to understand that most of the hibs that we're finding in schools is related to social media the use of technology and that was a really informative meeting and I wish more parents had attended that talked about the dangers that our kids are putting themselves in when they're engaging in social media and kind of cyber security and really how some of these platforms even starting as early as with Minecraft or Roblox are really creating these breeding grounds um so I really encourage whenever there's events like that for all the community to participate as an educator who's in this um I'm aware but I still learned something new in that in that meeting so encouraging more parents to participate in those events um lastly but not least uh Battle Hill is going to be having a blood drive on February 6th it's from 2: to 6:00 pm it's through the Red Cross so if you're interested in donating blood you can just go to visit redcrossblood.org enter um Battle Hill and it will take you for you to schedule an appointment that's it I love the plug so nicely done liaison um Miss con Mackie thank you madam president uh so I wanted to share Greg naster board member Greg nasta and myself are now co-chairing the operations committee um we had our first meeting of the year uh with the superintendent assistant superintendent uh manager of facilities and the manager of security as well as our Chief Information Technology officer one of the things that you noticed on the agenda there was an area for technology we have moved technology into the operations component and so the operations committee now will service security uh Information Technology buildings and grounds and transportation we had great dialogue um in the meeting uh to talk about various initiatives in District um areas such as is uh looking at upgrades for our door access systems at all of our schools um doing some security camera update upgrades which will be primarily piloted with the elementary schools in hopes to replace those cameras and then move along we hear the community and we share the concerns and the importance of security so please understand is our deep commitment um to ensure it and we do have a solid team in place at making that happen so that we all feel that our children are being are safe and our Educators and community at large um I also want to give recognition to our buildings and grounds team members for really just helping take us over the hump there's so much going on and they have diligently effortlessly jumped in um willing and really deeply committed to our schools and and really turning things around as I said previously the infrastructure in our schools is extremely rough to see um Greg nasta and myself have done two walkthroughs um to get Hands-On knowledge of what our buildings are looking like getting feedback from our Educators as well as our staff and the the people that run the buildings but also really looking to see this is what you know our areas of concern and there's a lot to be done um and we just don't want the board to just sit and read resolutions we need to understand the depths of it um so there were conversations with that also in terms of security we are aware um you know our assistant superintendent of who handles personnel and director uh manager of security are really looking at Staffing and how to better support each of our buildings um we encourage the community stakeholders to keep us in the loop of anything that comes your way I encourage you ja and I encourage you to reach out to your build and leaders for any concerns and thoughts that you have the more we know the better that we can all work collabora together um and so thank you and thank you to our community and our staff that really I'm are inspired by by the level of commitment that they have to our buildings and our students thank you so much Miss k macki s yourk you yeah I always have a comment so um I had the great ability this Saturday to go to our wrestling God I hope I get it right cuz I'm a baseball mom but now I'm a wrestling mom so you wrestle you don't play right you play ball you wrestle right thank you Kathleen so we had a great County tournament uh in Union High School there weren't as many people as there were last year I honestly think it was it was the weather but um our boys were out there they they did great um a personal story my son does happen to be on the team I missed him wrestling by 10 minutes and he lost I went to coach uh D bolognia our our our our head wrestling coach and I just said I it might have been a good thing I'm not here because you know I I don't want him to get mad at me it'll be my fault and he told me something and it resonated with me he said Chaz it it's not about winning or losing he needs this it's about camaraderie it's about being a part of a team and it's about people having your back back and as I was sitting there I I it just felt that is what union is about and I love the whole entire moment it was a great night and then later on it came to be that our coach Z bolognia and please keep me honest Jerry he he was named the county Coach of the Year yes yes yes he was named the county coach of the year so um thank you thank yes yes thank you I I mean not not me but thank him um he just the the effort that the his whole team puts into the boys and it is such a physical sport if you've ever watched a wrestling match uh it it our our boys were out there they were representing the you and over and over I think that we're getting to build up to what we once were uh Cranford is a beast in the wrestling uh world but I stand by you and I was excited to be there uh over and over again so I kind of wanted to say that next year I think it's at the same time please come out uh watch I know I'll hurry up so Washington Elementary School that's my school uh I'm so excited I'm part of of you know the pizza and all that great stuff when we have this Gathering there's going to be like a little bit of a competition and I'm telling you I'm winning I don't even know what it's about I'm telling everybody I'm going to come back the next meeting we Washington is going to win whatever it is that we do that's it and then the last thing I swear so I'm black and yellow all day I'm a Steelers fan I was watching the Ohio State game just for him and I was so happy that he won and I will leave it there thank you so much thank you so much Miss Santana I'm not sure if you're going to win I'm just saying no we're done it was five losses girl it was part of my story I'm talking about the PTA comp no no no no D I got you because all of us are very competitive okay um but in the spirit in February we will celebrate and acknowledge Black History Month and on Monday we also celebrated a great man in our history American history Mar Luther King um that was also the day of the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States uh Mr Trump and um I had a speech prepared about it because I I love Martin Luther King and um I left it home with my phone because I was worried about bringing my glasses um but one of the things that I go back to is something that Martin Luther King said that I will not be able to quote verbatim but he said run if you can run walk and if you can walk crawl but by all means keep on moving and I'm not sure if he use the words forward um and that's what we have here we are constantly trying to do better with a number of different setbacks that are in most cases unforeseen but just like I want to say to president trump it is time to unite the country so that we can improve and and be recognized as the power of the world I don't see this as a challenge I see these things that happen in our district as opportunities for us to improved and I know my colleagues here feel the same what we need is your support and if you have that support comes via ideas and engagement healthy engagement so in the spirit of Martin Luther King I do challenge you and welcome you to work with us to continue to move the district forward thank you you had something okay okay I just wanted to um mention I know it was mentioned last week I think at our our um work session but Battle Hill is doing a a pasta dinner as a fundraiser um it's Friday February 7th 5:30 to 7 um the teachers will be doing the the cooking um and it's to raise money for scholarships um in memory of Jason Lopes and Crystal scretchen um Jason was a student at Battle Hill and I think Miss Gretchen was an aid there um so the tickets are $20 for adults um and ages 3 to 12 15 and under two are free and there is a QR code on the the flyer and I believe did you I think it was sent out to the district I just wanted to mention that bring that up again because um we were there last year um Scott hay and myself and um Miss carbonel and Miss Williams and it was wonderful so please come out and support thank you so much and Mr Cohan before I I give the floor to you I will be remiss if I didn't give a shout out last week's work session was extremely long and we were cramped in a room and it was rather hot but I I do want to give a shout out to Melissa because your cookies made the day thank you so much um we we did not want to eat them because we're trying to eat healthier but at the end of the night I believe that supper Weare was empty so and they were delicious so thank you so much for thinking of us and Miss Bruns Meyers the wooden and I don't want to make you emotional but I have to recognize you those were just precious and the story behind them to just have a physical representation of when that baby because they are all our babies started with us I thought was just beautiful um so I just wanted to recognize that thank you so much thank you Mr Co so I'll I'll begin where you left off Miss Prince Mur I want you to know that when I took that home I had difficulty explaining to my wife what it was because I was so touched by it and so emotional about it myself so thank you thank you thank you um Madam president I'd like to share something that I came across over the weekend published in the Nea today uh the publication of the National Education Association and it it's related to that topic we spoke about earlier in the meeting about the difficulty of filling vacancies and um and so on after finishing my 21st year of teaching in May I seriously considered leaving the profession it had been a stressful overwhelming and uncertain year but this wasn't the first second or even the 20th time I thought about a career change and I'm sure I'm not alone ultimately I decided to return because of my reality I love teaching I love being around my students I love contributing to Student Success and happiness but find and those words were WR written by a member of our staff Mr Nicholas Fon who's a social studies teacher at Union High School in his article he went on to talk about uh his passion for advocating for the profession and the need for his colleagues to be advocates for themselves and for the profession as well he talked about the mentors that he had and the exemplars he had in his own teachers when he was in Union High School as a student and he also went on to say I truly want my community to have the best schools possible in my hometown of Union New Jersey I was fortunate to have amazing Educators throughout his life which was the introduction to him talking about his former teachers I just want to thank Mr Ferron for his dedication to the profession and say to him and to all of our staff that we understand those challenges and we are trying to provide whatever support we can to Dr benaquista as he moves to try to change the culture in the district so that all of our Educators all of our families understand that their concerns are the things that we need to respond to uh I know my colleagues have heard me say more than once when we are discussing issues uh I want to know whether or not the association or the staff has been consulted so that we get their perspective so that we make certain that all voices are heard and that we can continue to move forward together um I was very taken by the article I've shared it with all of you and with Dr benaquista and um if anybody from the public wants to look for it all you need to do is Google Nea today Nicholas Ferron and it pops up in your search thank you that was a great way to end new business Mr Cohan thank you comments from the public Miss oh I'm sorry I said ATT good evening good evening at solat tensio 340 wheelo Drive um I want to start uh by by commanding uh Union CAC uh co-chair Carla bikar and araseli diome for the initiative on transitioning planning for student with special services at the high school and for the work in collaboration with the special services department nice um I was very happy to hear that DVRs was at the high school uh training High School case managers um this is a great beginning uh Union CAC will be having uh future sessions uh starting on February again uh on the series of um uh on the series of transitioning uh they will have speaker from different state agencies uh so uh if uh public can check the uh Google Classroom uh it's very um it's a great tool it has information on different state agencies uh videos on webinars transitioning planning tools uh transitioning and annual IP uh and um and different meetings um also um as a part of a community Advisory Board member for the Kesler Foundation um there is an an ongoing research volunteer opportunity for young adults um between 16 and 25 uh it's a communication styles of autistic individuals on the job and involved like two to three hours of soon uh and uh in um uh it's um it also include a written assessment and Survey questionaries uh it's the study that actually um uh is sent them to uh to kids with autism or without autism it's to prepare them uh for job interview uh also like uh how to keep their jobs uh so if anybody's uh interested uh they can um email autis research Kesler foundation.org um they will be contact Miss s can you repeat the organization please Kesler Foundation yes I do have the flyer I can forward it to you so you can take a look please if you could do um to the particularly education committee and and and um Dr benaquista and Dr Rodriguez that would be wonderful that would be great I can do that thank you so much thank you Miss Virginia Jeff good evening Miss Jeff um Virginia Jeff 236 Brighton Avenue East Orange New Jersey Board president carbonell board members board employees and members of the public good evening there are concerns on agenda items resolutions F3 policy number one and board meeting locations I have a question is how long will the board use temporary meeting places such as this town hall to hold public board meetings going on to K fiscal planning committee resolutions in the general fund report number one construction account extension 2495 on page 64 the account code 12- 400-450 01-12 is incomplete a why is that b what is the complete account code and C this was not the original Appropriations budget d a transfer of $1,634 30 has taken place um where were and E where were these monies transferred from to Facility Services account extension 8043 on page 64 the account code 12-00 4451 01- 26 is incomplete a why is that and B what is the complete account code three the district cap Improv Aid account extension 20348 on page 64 account code 12-- 400- 45-01 d26 d d is in David ws and William 54 has been completely exhausted a where were these monies used and B where were these money transferred to h haac i hiac Construction Services account extension 289 on page 65 account code 12-- 400-450 -13 d112 D 2324 a what location SL buildings required highvac HVAC B what vendors SL businesses were contracted to provide h back Services going on to the policy committee policy number one um policy 064 conduct a board meeting a you know what is the reason for there to be two separate agendas one for the work session board meeting and a different one for the regular board meeting and B when will The Pri presiding officer cease the practice of the board attorney interjecting and asserting any control at the public portion of board meetings as there's no role for the board attorney who has the contractual obligation to only attend board meetings consult at board meetings and it's not a government official thank you your time has expired thanks I I just also wanted to congratulate the UTA in their NE in their negotiations thank you thank you um the fiscal committee chairs um just look into some of the things that were address tonight I will say um that is the board counsel so if I need guidance or clarification on a matter I can engage board counsel in asking those questions Mr buggy am I incorrect or correct in saying that you're correct thank you very much let's move on Miss Lisa Bas I didn't write stuff down oops Louisa Bas 591 Duan terce good evening with outrage comes change I know sometimes I've been out outreached but honestly this is the first year that I think we are starting the year on a more positive note and I feel like we are being heard and not falling under ears so I thank you for that I'm being positive thank you with that comes a question for the realignment plans and going forward I heard the information Dr benaquista discussed about the transitions to move forward for the prek through six but I want us to really think about the situation where with all our budget going towards the Hannah Caldwell mold re remediation I thank you Dr benaquista for keeping us a breast and giving us a presentation on the progress which is being transparent which is what we've been asking for accountability transparency and I thank you but I'm just not sure why this would be the year to go ahead with the realignment I'm just questioning moving forward why we would move forward when we have so much on our plate already with our budget being depleted and everything with that being said moving forward we have to remember that Jefferson which we're saying that going from elementary to Jefferson the transitions Jefferson is is a lighthouse school and we must use it as an example because in Jefferson there is some great I know it's only onee data but Jefferson really I had three kids go through Jefferson and they went into Jefferson a certain way and they came out so mature and so self-regulated uh not that my kids needed help with regulation but it just the the general feeling of how they learn to the the characters and we have to put that into our middle schools to make changes we have to learn from what we know works and we know Jefferson Works Jefferson Works do we have to bust them there saving money on Transportation I get that I'm in education I know that however we have to learn from what is currently working and Jefferson works it changes kids to be more conscious of their social emotional well-being damato over there does an amazing job with those Educators so we have to learn and put a little bit of Jefferson I guess in everywhere um but do something with character education in those schools in the middle schools and then eventually it'll transition into the high school thank you thank you so much Miss bias and certainly we are looking at the realignment more closely and planning to restructure certain things so I I will encourage my colleagues in the realignment committee I think you're a wealth of knowledge and I would love to pick your brain about some things and I know that they would too so so thank you so much good evening and Margaret Shannon 2591 Spruce Street I wonder how many of you know that by now and UTA president good evening so uh Dr bista mentioned the Labor Management committee uh we all were trained last June and we got to a great start in September uh even though we're just getting started I do look forward to central office asking the UTA that's my level and the UT ASA the administrators youon Lorenzo is the president of that Association I'm asking you know that they continue to ask us for more input on many items especially including the district restructuring and any potential scheduled changes in any of the schools especially the high school uh one of the items Dr benus already mentioned was the uta's request uh a while ago to stop the Outsourcing of the mental health clinicians and we're very happy that they've decided to hire within it really does make a difference when you belong to the institution in which you work it just I can't even explain uh how uh we appreciate this change and um uh I don't know if everyone realizes but Union High School is probably bigger than some little towns around the state it's a city unto itself having said that um every town has a business administrator and I think a suggestion for the questions that have been brought up about the uh Financial really big Financial questions about the activities at Union High School um it Union High School needs its own ba it can't just be somebody after school or during the day trying to the number of activities that we do the number of dollars that comes through that school um the Union High School treasurer handles the student funds it's beyond a huge job and I'm just thinking out loud because we're in negotiations right now but I believe it's a full-time job and if it isn't you know added as a full-time job I just look forward to a really huge increase in the stip in because it's an amazing amazing job and I know president I'm always looking for money and I apologize but I really do think I I don't know if anyone's ever considered that we have like a treasure for Union High School like a little Min ba because just a ton of stuff going on there so I don't it sounds like you want to volunteer only because I went to Wharton I'd be great at it all right and I went to Wharton because of my high school Union High School thank you so much Miss suen lipstein yes good evening I think I've already been up here once okay uh as far as the educ Foundation um we we have money to give we want to give it out I put I've asked to speak to um Dr benaquista so we get everybody on the same page I know last week he told me he wanted to um have the board approve our grant applications so that probably wouldn't be done till February usually we have our applications out for the teachers by now because you'll see they're pretty intense to fill out so we will um get them out as soon as we can we've got money we want to give it out um and that's my hat as Education Foundation person I put in a request for an appointment with Dr benaquista and as soon as we as soon as he gets back to me with times and dates anyway last time I was here now I'm going to talk US taxpayer parent education Advocate um I was here and Bernett had a major issue and I want to thank Dr bista and Greg nasta and everybody who went and took care of that issue because I was showing a picture and that floor was repaired and the leak was repaired and I just want to reiterate what we were talking about about buildings Bernette has issues it's a 100 years old the issues have got to be taken care of even if we are planning to phase it out that's a good three to five years and that that school needs to be taken care of and there are certain things that can't wait till you get Capital reserves and Dr benqu where is he can't see him he told me to bring concerns to him um directly and I did and I'm sure he's going to take care of them and he knows that I will do what he what he asks once I know but um that health and safety the health and safety of the students in this district has to be a priority I think all of us were a little bit uh shocked by what we saw at Hannah call to help with those pictures which things that nobody knew behind the scenes and I mean I go back a long time time 32 years ago I came to the board with concerns about the condition of Hamilton school and at that time Dr corfield took took it under he he repaired Hamilton the board at that time repaired Hamilton school and then they went ahead to do a bond for a new school because of the overcrowding similar situations to what we have now but they took care of Hamilton and it took longer than anybody expected and I was one of the first people people pushing for a bond and so it hurts me a lot to see what happened to Hannah uh because it was I walked through it with Dr corfield when it was just going to be opened and one of the things he did he said that's going to be the library because he knew and Hamilton didn't had a very small Library we had art room we had music room we can move ahead this board wants to move ahead but you're going to they're going to have to take funds even though may not want to that money has to go to repair that 100y old school until we're ready to do something else excuse me your time has expired thank you thank you thank you so much Mrs lipstein good points Miss Michelle Zada Zada this presentation let's go let's go yeah sorry um Michelle Zada 1523 Brookside Drive I just want to make sure that other people at home can also see this information um I had asked uh two meetings ago uh for information of how we're doing for on the New Jersey standardized testings and this is information that's also given out uh in Westfield Summit Cranford um this is a look back of four years so what you're looking at is for you I is on this side we're in red and then New Jersey state is on the other side and that's gray I want to highlight the green over here indicates preco so where we were at before the district also for um the state right there that's highlight in blue to give you an indication of where we were in preco um as you can see the learning loss has happened as we've gone on we've steadily slowly increased I just want to show you really fast but the only time that we were above State average was back in uh before covid the year 1819 and that was in third grade and fifth grade that was the only time we were above uh State average for that um I was going to show you the math one and again I had asked this information and I actually watched the 5H hour uh meeting that happened last uh month and I appreciate um Dr rr's uh giving explanation but it didn't answer specific questions and I think the community needs that data especially the board too um again Union is in the red uh NJ state is in the gray uh preco is in the green preco is in the state I just want to to make sure um this is math now yes this is math so this is math so the only time again that you know you could see the learning loss has happened but the only time that Union has been above State average is in third grade and fourth grade this is pre-co we have never been able to be at state level and what this means is this is meeting or exceeding at this level so again we should be at the 100 where we're meeting standards and we're not at all in in English language or the math right here I I know this is one data point I know Dr Rodriguez had talked about other data points but this information was never given to us the community and to the board so I want to make sure that you know this is understood can you do you mind giving the science too so the in the science they test in the uh it's in the fifth grade it's in the fifth grade 8th grade and 11th grade and we've never been above State average on this one at all and I heard a little bit where you were talking were're addressing the science I know with reduction of the Librarians at the live in the elementary schools and Spanish teachers we were supposed to get Este steam education we never got that and in fact um there is prek in uh the Livingston Library our students haven't had Library my student has only come home twice with books B Hill doesn't have a library either because prek is in that with Hannah Codwell occupying that so they haven't had library books or Media Center either I just learned that our Spanish teacher went to the high school I don't know when or where we're going to get a Spanish teacher but what I do know is that there's other data points too to show us and there's I ready that I know had came out they tested in the fall and September and those came out in January so uh that would be really great to get where we're at where I ready and also I know uh the elementary schools with um I think it's called cogat if I'm pronouncing that wrong I don't know this first KET okay that came down and if you could disperse that one other thing with the realignment thing please on your time is has expired okay but there's disparities amongst the elementary schools and the reason why the Jefferson existed is because of that you need to look at the data that's happening there's thank you disparages between Livingston and the title one schools and we need to address that and what's that data that's how important is to share that data with the community to know where they are thank you Miss thank you so much and I'm I'm going to say it's not easy looking at that data um but I do want to thank you for sharing that with us I just want no let me just finish if I may I I do want to assure you that in part of this restructuring is not only continuing the work that was in the questions that were being asked in the education committee meetings but it's also looking at the data more in depth with the leadership team especially Dr Rodriguez and the director and supervisors and I know Miss Faria was involved in Miss mini in a very healthy and in-depth presentation because we do agree with you all decisions should be data driven right I mean share share that information with the community and especially with the parents particularly at the school level too because as we know schools are not performing M with all due respect I just want to continue the Quorum so you had your 3 minutes I just wanted to let you know remember this is the first meeting after the restructuring so there is more to come okay thank you and I'm going to yes thank you for bringing that I just want to add something to all the parents who are watching because I don't know if everybody's aware or not when njsla scores come home if you go on the district um not the district website if you go on the New Jersey website where the data is presented there there's a great video that talks about how your child performs and how it performs in comparison to the school and to the district so while I agree that I think we can definitely always be more open and have more communication I also want to put a little bit of knowledge in letting parents know they may not be used to it it's also available in another language so if English is not your first language it will translate it but it is specific to your child and relates to how they're doing relative to students in their school and students in the district so that information is available in that way and I encourage you to speak to the teachers I encourage you to ask and and that communication starts first in the classroom and I just want to say I know this St is important I think we all want to really help it see go up I I am confident that is one of the reasons I am sitting in this chair right now because I want to see Improvement and I believe we have the right team for it but I also change a slow and we know that disparities in data are not subject to just hours we know that social economics plays a big deal we know that postco the movement of students and transition from cities and from other environments this is very different than perhaps maybe another Cranford or Westfield where the transitions just aren't as much in terms of students coming in and out this is not to be an excuse but it's also to understand the full picture thank you so much Miss Faria and I do want to say [Music] um times have change are changing um and I hear when you speak about students spending time in the library so the School of the Future doesn't have walls and actually one of the things that has come up in in studies is if we teach in isolation students will learn in isolation but I do agree with you literacy is a through line to Student Success in any content area so I do applaud the district for beginning to look at literacy and the advancement of literacy more critically Biz and you just reminded me tonight so I want to thank you I do want to do my own plug there is something called first books and when I was young oh people have heard of it when I was young I mean when my son was young um I used to take the opportunity Miss jeffre don't laugh that hard um and take him to barneson Noble and that would be our kind of date Saturday situation where we hung out he was able to explore books and we just I I wanted him as a math person you know how us math people do we we literacy literature is not our thing so much I wanted him to love reading so I since he was very little inculcated that in him um I know that we have a reality in our community parents working sometimes two to three jobs um working at night when the kids come home and shortage of staff so that's what I meant to say when I first spoke we have to look for different ways first book is a federal I believe initiative where they offer tens of thousands of free books digitally for students to read for pleasure or in school and all the teacher has to do is go to the first book website create an account and they will get an authoriz A code for each of their students I've gotten two 300 cuz I wanted to test them and I share them with the student body so that we could read books together but also for those that just want to explore different books and different um genres to be able to do that on their own and they are separated correct me if I'm wrong elementary middle in high school and Beyond so if any teachers are you know watching this televis session tonight I encourage you to create an account I am not sure if the parents can do that but if the parents that are here tonight can just let their teachers know that's also a win-win thank you so much Madam president sure Mr Cohan so uh briefly I want to thank missa for pointing out that the data is an important component of making decisions but I also want to uh share that just because there hasn't been a presentation to this full board or conversation about policy change to the full board yet the education committee has has been uh receiving presentations from the curriculum instruction staff about their work and their thinking of how we take the existing data and change the instructional program to to address some of our challenges uh just last week uh at our committee meeting the um the math and science curriculum director shared with us some conversations that he's having with the staff about how to change the structure of Middle School math instruction that hasn't risen to the level of policy recommendation to this board yet but we did receive a presentation from him and he's going to take our feedback and go back and fine-tune it I assume that at some point in the future we will see a policy recommendation so we're using that information to focus our the staff is using that information to focus their work on improving instruction to ensure that at some point in the future we do see the growth we seek and I totally agree Mr Cohan um and last but not least Miss Kathleen Burns Meyers hi Kathleen Bruns Myers Livingston Elementary School um first I'm going to say really quick I have prek they're four and five and we all know how hyper and crazy a four and 5-year-old can be when I read a story when we read a book in the classroom you would think that the whole world like that Disney World was in our room I do two books a day I'm only really supposed to do one but these kids would stop for four or five if we could I have some amazing colleagues right up through fourth grade who read to the kids while they're having some downtime they love it you're right parents are working so they're not getting the amount of time to do it so as CO as Educators what we can do to help doesn't matter if you think that if anybody's listening and you think that you're too old to read to a story to a kid you're not um and we just started rhyming and things spook to um llama llama red pajama was a big favorite in my classroom okay um I want to say congratulations to all the athletes that did participate I was there on Saturday my voice is like this because of that not sick um because I had my home team from my hometown I had my kids team from my worktown and I made some friends with some people from kennworth so now I've got some David verley wrestlers too that I was sharing for um I know that Union High School has amazing female and male wrestlers so I give a huge shout out ni late that night at 9:30 that night after the tournament and these kids were wrestling all day this is the email I received from one of these amazing students hey Miss Myers I just wanted to say thank you for coming to support me and the team today it gets really stressful out there and it helps so much to have people like you always there happy and rooting for us no matter what we do I wasn't happy about how today went but your constant joy and support does make the us feel appreciated and that you're proud of me so I just wanted to say thank you and all the team thanks you for being there there were so many fellow colleagues of mine that work in the district who were there working the event it was an amazing event Mr vanista was there the whole day it was great to see everybody there I posted the next day about the awesome time I had and my post to the world was congratulations to all the wrestlers whether you placed first or last you are a winner not because you got the tournament but because you had the commitment and the dedication to put yourself out there all by yourself on the line to be an athlete is hard enough to but to be an athlete where you're out there just you and your opponent with no one to hide between and you give it your all that takes such courage so happy excuse me so congratulations again to every athlete that was there and then I shouted out to my te sorry okay um and then I want to give a positive shout out to colleagues of mine across the district who have outside Duty on days like today a yeah there's lots of us I remember when I would take my son to Jefferson and my kids Jefferson I remember we're going to kwami and seeing the bus people I see them outside at the high school there's outside people in every single school so a huge shout out to everybody even the people inside but to be outside it's a little bit more and it gets our blood going so thank you all have a nice night thank you a warm fuzzy to them thank you I'm sorry um Miss car Miss I mean Madam president if I may um Miss Myers for all the times you read to my biological baby may I go to your classroom and read to our Union babies yes andbody I I'll send you an email so that's lovely arrange it right after thank you Miss friend let's not do that um thank you we'll we'll talk after um motion to adjourn Madam President we don't have a need to go back into resection no oh great so move second thank you um Miss Capell roll call please Mr Cohan yes Mrs K macki yes Mrs FIA yes Mr McDowell yes Mrs Mani yes Mr nasta yes Mrs Scott heeden Miss Santana yes Miss carbonel yes thank you