Good evening everyone. I would like to welcome you to the December 9th, 2025 board of education meeting. We are calling the meeting to order and it is 7:05 p.m. And if everyone could please rise for the pledge of allegiance. United States of America to the republic
for it stands nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all. A reading of meeting notice. The New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to
attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provision of the act, the Verona Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published in the Star Ledger posted with the Township of Verona and the Verona
Education Association. Posting of this meeting setting forth the time and location and agenda were posted at the Verona Board of Education office and on the Verona public schools district website. Copies of tonight's agenda and resolutions have been made available to
the public via the board of education website. Mr. Robinson, if you could please call attendance. >> Mr. Waka. >> Mrs. Ferrar >> here. >> Mrs. Frisco >> here. >> Mr. Boom >> here. >> Thank you. Moving on to routine matters.
I need a motion, please, to approve the minutes from our November 12th and our special meeting of November 25th, 2025. >> So moved. >> Moved by Mrs. Ferrara. Seconded by >> Second. >> Mr. Boone. Any discussions?
Mr. Robinson, if you could please call roll. >> Mr. Ferrar. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Griscap. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bon. >> Yes. >> Thank you. onto our superintendence report by Miss Diane Duzi. >> Can we move it? >> Can we move it? Um, sure. Mr. Sinella
and the AP presentation. >> Sure. So, let's move on to our agenda. We are going to do our presentation by our audit presentation by Mr. Ray Sarinell. >> Good evening everybody. Um, so what I have in front of you tonight is an excerpt from the audit. It's one of the
financial schedules. um I don't think going through the 155 pages of full audit is really uh necessary. So what I try and do is just present to you uh the financial information that affects your decision um which is the budgetary basis
financial statements for the operating state uh for the operating fund. Um this is you know the the primary source of uh where the district's uh business operations run through. And so that's what your budget is based on. it's the decisions you make and how the the the
schools and the district is is uh being run. So that's the, you know, I feel most important financial information for you to see. And so that's what we'll go through now. And so on the very first page, we're looking at your fund balance. So fund balance for a school district is very similar to what
retained earnings would be um in a business. It's a good financial indicator for the health of the district. And so um normally we just have the one-year presentation but I thought it was uh important to see three years comparative and even um you know I
went back and looked five uh five years back just to give some perspective on where we are. So if you look at the um the second number up from the bottom is the total fund balance. So you're you'll see your fund balance in 2023 was 5.6
million. In 2024 it was 6.8 and at the end of 2025 it was 5.9. So we we are seeing a reduction in the fund balance this year. Um so I think what this year was was a little bit of a corrective year. Your fund balance at the end of
20121 was 4.1 million and uh increased up to 6.8 million uh last year. You're seeing a very big increase in a short amount of time. We're getting back probably to more a more normal fund balance picture at the end of 2024.
And you know two primary reasons for that. If you look at that very bottom number to subsequent year, that's a number of your own fund balance that you're using to balance the budget. So, it's almost like you're you're drawing down on your own funds to help balance the budget. And there's a balance there.
If you start to use too much, your fund balance will start to come down. And you'll see that the fund balance went from the the fund balance being used went from 900,000 to 1.4 million down closer to the $900,000 number. So that
$1.4 million was a little bit too much uh fund balance to be used to be balancing the budget. So we're seeing a little bit of a decline in the fund balance. Uh the good thing is is that we're back down to that $900,000 number. We're probably going to see more of a
stabilization here um in the sure I get my years right 25 26 year because we're using less of our our fund balance. So that's a little bit of the reason for the decline. I'll quickly go through the different
categories of fund balance that you have. Um so you have unassigned fund balance. That's a fund balance number that um is left over at the end of the day. The maximum it can be is 2% of your operation. So that's a statutoily capped
fund balance. It's really there to, you know, help promote cash flow, make sure that you have enough funds on hand um to pay bills and things like that. Um then the number above that is your year-end incumbrances. You only had $15 $1,500 of
incumbrances. Those are like accounts payable at year end. They're monies that haven't been paid out related to the expenses of running the district um in the 25 year. Then we get into our reserves. So you have a capital reserve, a maintenance reserve, and an
unemployment compensation reserve. Um, you know, the capital reserve is probably the most important one. It's funds that are set aside to use for future capital projects. Um, we see this in a lot of districts. Um, a lot of our, you know, school buildings were built in
the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Um, and so there's a large capital need. Um, I know when I started, you know, as your auditor, the your capital reserve was next to nothing. So, it's been nice over the last five or so years, as that fund balance has grown, we put some money
into capital reserve to make sure for the future we're trying to protect, uh, our assets and make sure that our buildings are, you know, in good quality shape, um, which all districts are having a hard time keeping up with as expenses rise. So then you also have a
maintenance reserve that can be used for for maintenance projects and unemployment is there for future unemployment needs in the unemploy for the employees should they ever need it. The last numbers I want to talk about is the excess surplus and that's what I'm talking about when um you know we look
at that to subsequent year number. It's the amount of fund balance that you're using um in the future to help balance future budgets. So the excess surplus and excess surplus is kind of funny because it's generated after year end. So your excess surplus generated in one
year isn't going to be used to the next subsequent year because we don't know that number at June 30th. So how can we start a year with an excess surplus if we haven't fully closed out our books yet? So it's a rolling number. So the number generated um in 2024 which is
going to be used in the in the 2526 year is 9 3,000. The number we generated this year is 700,000 and that's going to be used in the next subsequent year which is 2627. So seeing the right things as our fund balance comes down a little
bit. We're just being less and less reliant on our own funds. Really really uh you know kind of a good budget plan that if the fund balance is going down we're using less of our fund balance to rely. Any questions on that? you know, the sk the schedule behind this is is basically
the detail of how that happened. It had it's an income statement. It has your revenues and expenses as I've mentioned to you before. Um, you know, your expenses run pretty tight and we're pretty reliant on our revenues, which um is another reason why the fund balance
came down a little bit. The extraordinary aid wasn't fully funded at the state level. So that means every district's extraordinary aid went down a little bit unless you had an increase in those using those funds. Um so you know reduction in your extraordinary aid a
little bit too much reliance on your fund balance your fund balance came down a little bit. So as we move forward we're going to want to watch those revenue numbers but I think overall you know the district is in a very good place uh financially. Any questions about the fund balance the revenues
anything like that? So we do have um on the very last page we have one recommendation um really kind of I don't want to say a minor recommendation but something that can be fixed pretty simply you know when
we give our report there's we make adjustments to the financial statements that are presented to um when so when we make adjustments we give those adjustments um to the business office and they enter them in the system so that the reports you're on a monthly
basis are accurate. Our adjustments weren't made after last year's audit so that the numbers you're looking at throughout the year and the financial statements being presented in the board secretaries report aren't accurate because they're not tied back to the audit. So, pretty simple fix. We resend
the journal entries, they get made, that's already been done. Um, we make sure we we send our journal entries for this year. Those get made and get done. Um so pretty simple fix but an important step in in you know proiding providing uh transparent financial information to
the board. So um it's already been fixed so not really much to worry about there. Pretty simple fix but uh important in uh you know the information you're being provided and and what's being uh put out by the business office. A couple other minor suggestions in the report that we
went through with the administration to make sure that they get fixed. some things that came up that weren't done at June 30th, but were fixed for the audit. So, nothing major to report there. Um, just the one recommendation, make sure that gets fixed. So, overall good reporting happening, just one
recommendation. You know, the fund balance down a little bit, but you know, overall good financial position, good balance budgeting, um, you know, good for the future. Any questions on on that? Um maybe just two things and and
not sure of any particular order, but in in terms of overall financial health, you said we're we're in enviable uh situation. >> Um what challenges would you recommend that we on the board or folks in the
community uh keep keep on their radar that >> Yes. So, so the definitely the biggest one um right now is balancing the the budget equation, right? Your revenues have to equal expenses. We can use our own fund balance to rely on that. And
right now, right, there's a 2% cap on what you can increase taxes by. If anybody pays attention to the news, inflation is more than that. So as you're experiencing higher than than normal uh inflationary costs, balancing the budget is become going to become
more and more difficult. So right, if we can't increase revenues to the amount that the expenses are increasing, we have to look for areas where we can reduce other costs. And that's going to be a big challenge um you know to the board to and to uh the business office
as we move into this next budget cycle is you know there's not a lot of revenue out there. Our largest revenue is capped at an amount that's less than inflation. Um so what do we look at on the expense side of things to help balance the budget? It's going to be a very big
challenge not just here but across the state of New Jersey. And then the biggest thing is your, you know, health benefit costs. We're seeing more than double digit uh increase in health benefit costs uh across the state. So uh
that's going to be, you know, a huge challenge when one of your largest single lineups is increasing 15 20 30% some cases. So another big challenge there. Thank you. >> Questions? Sure. when we're looking at
the um excess surplus, the 700,000 number. So that is a surplus that we're looking at for the 26 27 school year. So then it's would be fair to say I mean we we do run on I think in general we do a really nice job and a really tight budget. >> Um but looking at that number it's fair
to say that >> that we're going to be even tighter in the 26 27th school year because we're >> down almost 200,000 in the surplus budget with expenses going up. So, it is going to be a little bit more difficult and I think it'll it'll partly be
determined by how well the budget does this year and how um you know some of those state aid numbers come in. There is a provision for you to use some of your fund balance from this year. So, I know we're talking about a two-year cycle. There's also a provision for you
to use some funds from this year to help maybe cover that gap a little bit. So, yes, there is there could be that challenge of trying to um cover for that 200,000, but if we have a better year this year, we can maybe use $200,000
from this year and then we're looking at basically, you know, a flat revenue situation of relying on our own funds and just, you know, trying to use that tax levy revenue to, you know, balance the budget. >> Any other questions? Thank you, Ray.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Next up on the agenda, I would like to introduce Dr. Charlie Miller, director of curriculum to do our AP report. >> Good evening everyone. Thank you for
everyone for coming out tonight. Thank you. And we prepared a little slideshow that's coming up on the screen. If you can't see it, I will uh I'll say it out loud and I'm sorry to block you. I will try to
move this way a little. I'll shuffle. Yeah, I know. I'll just like talk every now and then to So, thank you for coming out. uh been saying this for years, but uh now I was a teacher for years and I coached and we always had a lot of these
highlights for the kids that we coached. But why not have highlights and presentations, certificates for our kids who put in sometimes not even hundreds but thousands of hours depending on the amount of AP courses that they take. So in case anyone doesn't know, uh and I think the crowd does know, but our
advanced placement courses are college courses that are that kids can take advantage of in high school. It gives us an opportunity to see and for parents to say, "I'm a parent as well. Is my child ready for some of these courses? Let's let's try some of this." And what's good about being in high school is that you
can see your teacher like every day. Sometimes when you get to college, they're like, "Well, I have office hours on Friday at 5." You're like, "Oh, that's great." And if it's if it's a mature college student, it works, but if not, you're like, "Wow." So, the availability at high school is really nice to have. And we're up to offering
around 26 advanced placement courses. It varies. I think we did we uh we administered 23 AP exams, course exams. Uh but we had a lot of student participation. So I'm going to go through briefly and then uh we'll talk about there are three levels that where
your child can fall for the amount of AP exams they take. And again, I don't want to underscore how important it is. It's so good to take these. Uh when I was in high school, we offered like four. I graduated in 1991. And I took one of them. I took a
calculus uh and now we just see an explosion and uh once I go through some of this you're going to be like wow it's pretty cool and I think it's wonderful Verona offers this opportunity as well as our neighboring towns for us to get an opportunity to sometimes you get college credit for some of these courses and if not if you have to retake the
course that's fine. The idea is to accept the challenge when you're in high school. What colleges really look at are what classes are you taking when you're in high school? Are you challenging yourself? It doesn't matter. Sometimes if you get what the highest scores of five on the AP, that doesn't always matter. It's like, did you challenge
yourself? And you took calculus and you want to take it again in college, that's fine. But then there's that comfort level of I'm I'm familiar with the material. You have kids in college, they may have told you some of these things. So, welcome everyone tonight. Turn on the
All right. To empower our students to cultivate their intellectual care curiosity and social responsibility, we'd like to thank all of our students. Um, not every not all of our students uh earned uh an AP Scholar award, but we want to thank all of them who tried. Um,
and if we keep we keep working at it, a lot of our students who earn what's called an AP Scholar, and we'll go over that a little bit later. I'd like to thank all of our AP teachers. There's a lot of that a lot of uh learning that has to take place. There's a lot of information. Uh students, you can be
like, "Yes, some are very demanding courses." Uh we'd like to thank all of our parents and guardians and it could be grandmas, grandpas, uncles for like sometimes dealing with their students who are up at 2 in the morning. They should go to bed, but they like I got to
get this assignment done. But it's good because sometimes they're doing marching band and also playing soccer, they're doing wrestling or you name it, they have a part-time job. Uh so we like to thank our parents for being good support systems. And uh we'd like to thank our entire administrative team, our
superintendent of schools, our board of education, and our teachers starting from kindergarten all the way up because it started in kindergarten, those good habits, and it's worked its way all the way up. So, thank you for everyone for supporting this. Uh I gave you like it's
a it's a graph of the last five years. So, the blue line represents the total number of students. Last year we had 301 unique students uh which is more than half of our population. So that's pretty cool. And then the total amount of assessments we
were over 600 last year. So that's a lot of courses but it's also a lot of good learning and students testing their limits saying if I can do this. So we're proud of everyone and their efforts. Uh unique this is the percent of unique VHS student participation. If you look, uh,
we finally crossed over the 50% mark. So, that's pretty incredible for a school this size to have half its population, one out of two students. Not many schools can say that. And, uh, we're proud of that. And starting a long time ago in 2009, we made AP available
for students who were who wanted to take on that challenge. We removed the idea of testing in and other districts have follow our lead. Uh, students who scored a three or higher. So in an AP exam, if you start the test and that's all you do, you get a one. Uh a three is
considered passing and if you get a five, that's considered outstanding. It depends on the exam because they they distribute the a normal distribution based upon so one year it's 120 possible points, a 70 total might be a five, but the next year if the students are
stronger, it'll slide to the right. um which in a way is it it is what it is with college board uh our overall average score though so this is something that we've been talking about for a long time so coming out of COVID which is a distant memory now for most of us uh our average was it was it fell
down to the average score of a 268 but if you can see over the subsequent years we're up to a 3.61 61. So that's amazing. There it used to be the thinking uh from a lot of um traditional education folks that if you have too
many kids take advanced placement exams that you would um you would lower your average. We are actually showing the opposite. Uh the more kids that can it's the belief and that we can learn. It's a growth mindset approach. Uh if you're in there and you can believe and you work
really hard you can succeed. And honestly, when we're looking for future uh employees, we want to hire kids that work really hard and that are like, I can do this. I can figure this out. That's what employers are looking for. So, I think this also demonstrates that if you're in there and you try hard, you
can make it. Sometimes it's a lot of information. I could go over some classes, you'll be like, "Oh, yeah." But like there's a lot of work that goes into this. This is not an accident. Uh just going into uh a few categories of our participation. And so I broke it
down into our arts and music. Our art we just started up with Muscar Hall and we're growing it. So we had one student and then we had four last year and they had to create a portfolio which is kind of neat. We're newer to the game there. And then with our music theory, we're between four to five students a year
that take music theory. Um when we go to our ELA and world language participation, English language and composition is generally a junior course. Uh and if you look at uh lit, it tends to be a senior level course. We also offer what are called Syracuse and
University Project Advanced courses. Those super courses, they're dual enrollment through Syracuse. And then we have our Chinese, French, and our special ed, I'm sorry, our Spanish, my apologies. And then if you look here, European history is offered like every
other year because uh most of our students who take that are seniors and there's just so many electives that they can take. So it depends. But if you look at humio, humio is a really strongly taken course. It's up to almost near 200 students over the last five years. And
then we have government and politics. We have United States history. And then we have world history which is offered primarily to our students who are freshmen. When they come in, we flip over to math. If you look, we offer calc AB and BC. Calc AB is a one semester in
college. Calc BC is two. uh computer science and computer science principles. We are a small school but we love our computer science. We normally get awards for female participation and overall participation and our stats course is highly subscribed. Stats is really good
course to take especially if you don't know what what you want to do in college because you will probably take it again. If you're not studying math, you will take a stats class because it's kind of a safe class. But if you take it here and you learn when you get to college, you like you can tutor and you can
charge some of your friends money. That that's kind of a nice little side business. And then for our sciences, biology and environmental science are heavily subscribed. Uh and then we have chemistry, physics one, and physics C.
Uh which physics one had a lot of promise. It's more algebra based, but it's still a really tough AP course. And then if we look at our social sciences, we have our economics, macro and micro and it's offered every other year and Dr. Tambaro teaches that and he
does a fantastic job at teaching that course. And then we have our psychology which would have even more participation but we offered two electives. So we can only cap Mr. Hman. I think he only teached three of them instead of five. And then we look at our number of exams
just for last year. Uh biology is the winner. last year had the most student participants at 62 which is a lot of students. Uh Mr. Harris teaches that class and if you go along the lines uh you can see uh again human geo and uh microeconomics right up there as well.
So good good participation when as you go across in humanities and in our sciences and then uh this is our average AP test score by course. So if you look I put the red bar at three. That's generally considered passing. Some colleges will
accept a three. Sometimes the more challenging school will expect a higher score, but I say either way, if they take it or if they don't, like your child, if they see that course, they'll be prepared to take it again. So, it's good to have that background, and that's why they should really be taking it
here. It's more than a score. It's about what they learn when they're here. Um, and again, chemistry again is the highest. Uh, every student passed it and the average was four and a half. But I would say biology they got had 3.3 average, but it had 62 kids in it. So it
had three times as many kids as our chemistry. So they're both successes. But the more kids that take it, I think that's a win for our kids as we go through here. And then the percent of uh AP exam scores that are three or higher by course. You can see along the line
overall is very high. Um, one that is low and it's hard for us is our Chinese language. Uh, schools that t typically score high in Chinese language. Those students already that's like one of their home languages. Those of that they do very well. Uh, you know, I think
overall though you can see the bars are are pretty high. That threequarters bar 75% it's it's it's pretty outstanding. So again, hard work for our students, hard work by our teachers, good support from our admins, and thank you at home for sometimes helping out with
headaches. Uh, and then this is a cool one. So I color coded it so it has our Verona AP, that's that's us, that's our maroon. New Jersey is the blue bar that's jagged. That's the average for New Jersey. And then the global are goes
beyond the borders. So overall, you say we're we're we're doing fairly well with our courses. Uh and then this next one I really like too. This shows again if you see to the right there's a these are AP courses that are in order. I'm sorry it's so small but what we offer so many
courses. If it goes to the right that means that's that's the growth that we had in the course from the prior year. So when it's mostly to the right that's like good. I probably should have made that like green like because green is good. But more to the right means there's really good efforts. Um, and the
one that won most to the left, I was talking to Mr. Cali. He has such a small number. When he has a couple kids that either go up or go down, he has a bigger swing. That's how it works with stats. That's all you need to know. You can graduate with stats. You have a big sample size. It's you it's more
reliable. When it's small, you get like mood swings with it. And then so our scholars I I this the only one I I used to show from 2009 but in 2009 is when Miss Jwitt was here. Uh she was me before I came here and that's when they really broke down the doors. And if you
look we had around 12 students. I think if I click on it it magically appears. It says 12. And then if you look along the lines we've been growing. So the blue are our AP scholars. And we'll go over what that is in a sec. Then what's in red is our AP Scholar with honor and
then AP Scholar with distinction. Uh it just means the more AP courses you take, if you can maintain an average, uh we're up to over 120. So what we have proven and what some other districts have shown is that when you open up, you break down
the walls, if you will, and you let kids try, they can do it. And it's a lot of hard work sometimes, but I think that's a great message, especially if you want to go to college, especially if your child wants to go away and you're like, "This is an investment. Are they going to be okay?" If they can do well on
this, they're going to be okay. Like this, this really shows the standard. So again, amazing. 120 over 120 students are scholars. Our population last year in high school wasn't even 600 students. It was below that. So just just
outstanding work. Uh and if you look at AP Scholar, so now we're going to call up folks. Uh folks that are here will say their names, but an AP Scholar there. We had 45 students uh granted to students who received scores of three or higher on three or more AP exams. Okay,
so I'm going to go to the next slide and these are our students, but we have the names here. So as we call up your name, uh please come up and Mr. Merkeler, right? We'll we'll shake your hand. All right, so we'll start with Nathan Baron. Come on up.
Lauren Foley, Lauren Forest, Josephine Garnett, Congratulations, >> Michael Kula, Cecilia Manis, Michael McHugh, Lily Rei, Congrats,
James Russell, and Walter Simon. Okay, so congratulations to all. Now we're going to move on to our AP Scholar with honor. There were 30 students. Thank you, Mr. Merkeler. And these are students uh granted to students who
receive an average of at least a 3.25 25 on all AP exams taken and scores of three or higher on four or more. So again, the stakes go up a little bit. These are the names of our students for our viewing audience here and at home.
So we will begin with Andrew Acriman. If I mispronounce the name, my apologies, but uh Elen Atal Congrats, uh, Zachary Pomeo. Uh, Grace Patus. >> Okay.
Ellie Kingo. Stephen Gaffne. >> Uh, Victoria Harvey. >> I think that's it. Okay. And our last category, AP Scholar with distinction. There are 46 students
uh granted students who receive an average score of at least 3.5 and all AP exams and scores of three or higher on five or more of these exams. So sometimes we have students that are in double digits that that get here. So it's a lot of work and a lot of time. Um
so we want to recognize and we thank you for putting in the hard work. It will pay off. Uh our first student uh Sophia Chanana sitting comfortably in the back. Isabelle Derek Francesca Gishan
Michelle Moonai Nicholas Sage, Matthew Schwarz, and finally, Michael Sclary. Just want to say thanks and congratulations everyone again. And uh when we're finished with this, we normally take a picture right out in the lobby before you leave and then I I post
it on our page. So if you could do that, we do one with the kids and parents, if you'd like to join us for the second, that's fine. Uh and I think those are the names. My apologies. And again, congratulations. Uh any questions from
anyone or >> uh I just wanted to echo what uh Mr. Miller had to say it and I'm taking the words right out of your mouth, but um trust me when he says it will pay off. This is a lot of effort um to lead to
this kind of success and it definitely was worth the effort and you will reflect a couple years from now on how glad you were that you did it. >> Thank you Reed. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller and Dr. Miller. And thank you all for coming out
tonight and congratulations to all on this amazing achievement. Um and again echoed Mr. Boon, you will not regret sitting in here and taking all these classes um in the future. So congratulations to all and I wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. Thanks for being here.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. to announce Ryan. Okay. Okay, moving on to our um meeting. Sorry, our student report. We're going to skip because um Ryan went to go take a
picture. Um we didn't unfortunately >> our AP uh champion. >> Yes. uh speaker by the way >> I don't know. So when Ryan comes back we'll have we'll go back to the student report. So I'll go back to the superintendent report with Diane Depy. >> Okay. So we got a lot going on tonight
but I do want um to report on one thing which is kind of a I'll be reporting on it regularly as we move forward with um our instructional focus. So last week we had um a professional development for
our administrative team and and I've been focusing on um the administrative team uh for the past three years uh regarding um really high quality professional development and uh it is focused we you the board knows um and
the community if they watch the six of them that watch board meetings just kidding um that we have been focused on restruct structuring and strengthening tier one or core instruction because uh we know through research uh that relying
primarily on interventions um is um I'm sorry relying on interventions is is not um the way to move students. So because interventions are reactive um and they're designed to catch students up who have already
fallen behind grade level expectations. This approach often means students miss other core instruction in order to get those interventions. Um, and it also uh taxes uh resources and um and and staff.
So restructuring and strengthening uh tier one instruction um is a a preventative approach. It benefits all students, maximize efficiencies and significantly reduces the need for costly and resource intensive interventions. um and improves the
outcomes um from those students that still require interventions because let's be honest, interventions are um remain a critical component of of the multi-tered system of supports. Um they are most effective when they're used as supplemental temporary supports for
students who need additional help despite receiving high quality core instruction. So what what that means to our students is um and our teachers is that when you strengthen core instruction, you re you
reduce resource strain. When you core instruction is effective, fewer students require that supplementary support. Um which saves the district money. We always like to do since we just talked about our audit. Increase student engagement. Redesign tier one instruction. shifts the learning
environment from passive teacherdirected learning to active studentled collaboration and discourse which increases intrinsic motivation um and engagement. It enhances rigor and deeper learning. Uh strong tier one instruction incorporates researchbacked strategies
and higher levels of rigor that engage students in critical thinking, complex problem solving and preparing them for real world success. And it also um addresses equity inclusion. It it it ensures that diverse learning needs are
addressed within general education settings providing equitable access to grade level content for all learners. And we know that that doesn't always happen. And um we've seen that with some of our um uh test scores from our students with disabilities. So we are working as an administrative team right
now on uh what uh is referred to as a destination vision. So what is our destination vision of what instruction will look like in Verona? We began last week by creating a mat a matrix list of changes that have to be addressed in the
areas of the role of the teacher. What shifts are going to have to be made in the teacher role? What shifts are going to have to be made in students roles and what shifts are going to have to be made in administrative roles. And then we uh discussed what structures have to be put
in place to move our classrooms to high agency higher classrooms. So um the vision a bold vision energizes it uh builds trust. It um enables a willingness to engage in the
change process. And what we have to do as a district is we have to attach our audience's personal why. it has to match our why. Why are we doing it? And um in order to
achieve that willingness, that motivation and trust to engage in change. And so what our uh what our administrators are doing tomorrow is they're going to go back to those um workboards that had all of our
statements of how we were going to change teacher role and change student role and change um administrative role and what we need to provide to our teachers in order to do that. And they are going to be um working to create the next step in
vision. So they're going to be looking at what has to um what has to be in place and create a vision statement similar to a mission statement but this is really a vision statement for what instruction will look like in Verona and
then next step after that come back together and they uh go through their their vision statements and decide does it meet the test will it get us to high agency high rigor classrooms and agency is just a combination
of um uh students autonomy. Can students work autonomously without being directed by the teacher? Um do they have choice and ownership in their learning? Are they do they have competence in terms of competence in their own ability as
student learners? Do they have a sense of belonging? Are is it related to them? So in order to that's what agency is. So until you build agency, having students work in high high rigor environments is harder. So um it's going to be a uh not
a one-year and this is not an initiative by the way. We need to keep making people understand this is not an initiative. It's not going to come and go. This is a vision for what instruction will look like in the world. So that's our most recent work and uh we have really built um some excitement.
I'm really excited. I have our administrators are excited. Um they are uh we've approached VP for some help with some um some things that we did not have in the budget for this year and uh we're working to see how much VP can
help us um continue to move this process because it's it's the equitable thing we were talking about. This is an undertaking that I've experienced before. I I made this shift. Um and it's five, six years of work and sometimes it
gets discouraging when you're looking at five years down the road we're still going to be working on this. Um but because it's not an image, it is a change in the way we look at. So I was talking to Mrs. Simmons and I said, um you know, if we do this wrong, this
could fall flat. And she said, you don't have a choice. This is the this is the ethical thing to do. And that was such a a nice point that this is the ethical way to look at fairness and equitably in teaching children. So that's my report
for tonight. Completely overwhelmed right now. Um, anyone who knows me knows I'm incredibly passionate about education and more importantly really good instruction because I believe that good instruction is at the core of positive student
experience. Right? Right. So, when we're when we're thinking about giving our children the best experience that we can in school, I believe wholeheartedly that good solid instruction in the classroom where every student's voice is heard, every student has an opportunity to low
to to grow and learn, that is what creates a lot of those um positive student experiences. So hearing this vision and knowing the work that you've done already and hearing that it's just beginning just I'm I'm overwhelmed and
um grateful. Thank you. Thank you. And I just we met with our teacher instructional leaders um today for the first time as a group and um I I want them to know that this is this is not a reflection on Verona instruction. This
is this isn't being done pretty much anywhere in the in the state of New Jersey. We're the only district undertaking this particular model of instruction in the state of New Jersey. Kennalan had it. I left it stopped. So they don't have it anymore. But um yeah,
it so one of the things I was telling the instructional leaders because we're going to need them in this to help realize this vision is that this is a legacy instruction that we inherited, right? teachers inherited that. We were
taught that way as learners in K12. We were taught that way as learners in undergraduate and graduate school. And um if you look at the NAPE, and I'm I'm going to do a presentation for the board, a formal presentation. But if you look at the NAPE uh the national um uh
assessment of educational progress which is often known as you know the um the nation's report card um if you look from 2009 and you can actually go back before 2000 2009 through 2019
the gap is exactly the same every year. So that shows a structure, an educational structure that is failing. Now there's other factors in there as well. There's socioeconomic etc. But if
the educational structure that we use in the United States, which is really stand and deliverance structure, if that was working, we would see that gap closed. And we don't. We have it. And it actually dropped after 2019 because of the pandemic and is starting to come back
up. But um we have been we inherited a legacy but we are the only ones that could end that legacy. >> Um just one question for me and maybe this is better served for your presentation but um since it's ongoing that it's not a one-off initiative. How
does this factor or how does evaluation either of the administrators and of the teachers how does that factor into this? Well, we um if you remember, we went to uh the focused teacher evaluation model. Uh last year was our first year. This is
our second year. That model is supportive of this type of instruction. So, uh and that's where we're focused this year. We have not started training on model of instruction yet. We're still we're training our teachers now on what do so educ the evaluation system has a
series of of protocol and in the past and not just Verona no one looked at the protocol except for when they were about to be observed that's not unusual we're training our teachers you have these protocols use
them to plan instruction because this is it's like a cheat sheet for if you're going to intro introduce new content. Well, these are the structures that are supportive of introduction of new content. If you're going to have students elaborate on content, these are the structures and protocols that you
might want to employ in your planning and execution of that lesson to get kids to elaborate on content. If you're trying to deepen instruction, well, these are the protocols you want to go to for for your planning. And it gives them a roadmap to say, okay, well, this is new content, so I know where I need
to be. this is they have been working in this content or process for quite a while. I want to deepen their understanding of that so I know where to go to find what are the strategies the best practice or most high yield strategies whatever you want to call them to get kids to deepen their
instruction. So it's and the principal uh uh and administrators district administrator evaluation systems are also based in how do they support their teachers to support their students. >> You
moving on to our business administrator report. Mr. Robinson, >> I don't have any spec I do not have a specific report. This is my last meeting. You guys are going to be left in good hands with James. >> James. Yeah. uh you got a great superintendent, you got a great board, you guys are a real great district to be
uh part of. So you guys again, >> thank you. >> Be in good shape. >> That's my report. >> Thank you. And thank you for uh being here with us. >> Yes. Thank you, Steve. Thank um moving on to our student report with Ryan Go.
>> Okay. Good evening. So, I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and despite our um winter sports season starting, I'd still like to commend some of the fall sports achievements that have been happening over the course of November and December. Right. And I
just like to congratulate firstly uh all our fall athletes who were awarded all conference honors this year. And additionally, congratulations to six of our senior guild hockey girls for being selected for the NJFHCA senior all-stars team. And thank you to
the cheer program for um organizing during their year-end banquet. Uh they were giving back to the community and also celebrating a hard season of work uh by organizing a food drive. And also congratulations to their team white for
winning a bid to the uh nationals in Orlando, Florida this year. And as we mentioned these accomplishments, I think it would be certainly uh be remiss not to mention the performance from our record-breaking girls soccer season. And the 2025 season was definitely
phenomenal as uh the team had amassed a staggering u 18 to4 record before advancing to finals for the first time in VHS history. And these exceptional achievements were even commended by the township at this year's annual fair in
the square. And as always, congratulations to the girls team for such a remarkable season. And now on to winter sports. I'd like to uh recognize the swim team for their fundraising efforts for um the Rona Children's Fund. And the team was able to amass over $600
in donations for children in need of support. And moving on to hockey, last Friday, our combined Rona Glenn Ridge team had scored a victory against Won Hills in the first game of the season with a game two nights against Scotch
Plains. Uh the boys basketball team had their first game against Bloomfield yesterday with an uncommon game this week against V uh Manchester regional this Thursday at VHS and an away game against Milbour this Saturday morning. And beyond athletics, uh the music
program had some key highlights and both the concert and chamber choirs had already begun, I guess, uh spreading holiday cheer at fair in the square uh over the past Saturday and even before then caroling at various local businesses. And uh in fact, the coral
program is fundraising via caroling this Saturday, December 13th. And via donating uh you can actually send carolers to uh anyone you know, anyone you know's house in Verona. That's that'd be fun for sure. And in other news, um chamber choir had
participated in the invitational NJSMA choir festival uh at Monontlair State University last week. And the choir was given the chance to be selected to perform and work with distinguished music educators from all over the state. and looking forward to next few weeks.
Um, the VHS winter concert is next Thursday, December 18th at 7 p.m. Uh, this concert will feature our coral program and concert band alongside percussion, jazz chamber, and even a studentled ensembles performing classical holiday pieces as we usher in
the Christmas season. And in the spirit of Christmas cheer, uh the Hawkins Street toy drive is well underway and the student council is collecting toys from grades K through four to give kids at a Hawkins Street School in New York an unforgettable Christmas experience. So I definitely would encourage donating
to this extremely worthwhile cause. And if you do donate, um please donate toys around $15 and indicate on the wrapping with a post-it note noting the intended grade and gender. Donations will be accepted in the VHS main lobby until next Monday the 15th. And I always
attend this trip when we have student council hosted and we take the day off school to do it. And it's just really it's such a fulfilling experience. Like they have like the whole gym set up in that school and we have everyone council working the stands and having these little like kids go on like you like climb up the grades from kindergarten to
to like fourth grade and they're all like equally happy just to like get free stuff and it's honestly just like it's kind of fulfilling to see their faces. So, it's definitely such a worthwhile cause. So, definitely if you're able to pitch in and if you have a high
schooler, just get them to uh send some presence in those boxes in the main lobby. So uh otherwise in extracurriculars our students are still excelling in our academic clubs which our model UN team recently competing
last Saturday at the master's school in bounce ferry with three students coming out of competition with awards and last month our academic team uh had a strong showing at competition at Columbia University. And I also wanted to highlight another successful thing that
happened uh last week which was uh the blood drive that was hosted by the anatomy club and they partnered with uh Venolence which is a kind of a nonprofit independent blood service provider and they hosted a donation drive for the holiday season and they were just uh
giving back something greater than just like a gift to people in need per se and the turnout was definitely remarkable especially among the students and it >> it really was. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And it's truly like I think it's so incredible that even we had so much participation with our
students, the staff and generally overall and it was just means a lot for such a vital cause. I definitely think I um everyone who came out to participate that like the um sorry deserves a thank you and once again I
would also extend my congratulations to our AP scholars that we just announced. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. And that'll be my report for tonight. >> Yeah. We want to leave let Ryan leave that bit about himself. >> I have a question for you, R. I don't know whether you're going to be able to answer. Might be a big secret. Are we
are we going to hear Slayigh Ride this year? >> Yes. >> Thank you so much, Ryan, for that wonderful report. And you guys have been very busy, looks like. Thank you. Um, moving on to committee reports.
finance and facilities. Mike, you want to take that? It's brief. >> Yeah, real brief. Uh the the big huge highlight um of course was the audit report as discussed earlier. Um one thing to note um in terms of um
facilities as it impacts finance uh probably the uh beginning of calendar year 26. Uh we do have several looming um decisions that we have to make in terms of how we handle the uh the HVAC
uh needs as well as some of the um related uh control systems to those uh to those units. Uh that is something that's going to need to be top of mind for us at the beginning of the budget year. >> Excuse me. Oh, as Thank you. And as well
as the press box. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mike. Moving on to public comments on agenda action items. If anyone from the public would like to come to the podium to speak on anything that we are voting on, please come to the podium and state your
name. And you'll have three minutes. Seeing none, moving on to discussion items and new business or old business. Does anyone have anything to report? No, not yet. Um I I have a couple two
things. I was at fair in the square over the weekend and I would just like to echo what Ryan mentioned. There was many of our students um sporting teams and uh clubs that were there and I just want to say I purchased
from our engineering club, Mr. Atkins. They made these really amazing um coasters. They had a bunch of other things, but I bought coasters that were snowflakes. So, um, it was really nice to see so many students out there with tables and stands. So, congratulations
to our students for get Yeah. getting out there and standing out there in the cold for 4 hours. Um, and then moving on to to the right of me, Mrs. Barrera. This is our her last um final board meeting.
I can't believe it's been um three years that you serve we serve together. So, um I am definitely going to miss having you and your expertise in especially the education piece and your um desire and
passion for the love of education and our students and your adults going to be missed dearly but you're going to come back and visit. I know that. So, we just have a little something Oh gosh. Okay. So, I just first I I want
to thank the community um for giving me the opportunity to serve. This has really been a tremendous pleasure for me. Um, I'm really proud of the accomplishments that we have made as a board under Misty DPI's leadership over the past three years. Many of the
reasons that I um found myself running, right? Many of the reasons that I ran, I should say, um, have been either tasked and completed or on their way. Um, so I see the district moving, um, in what I believe is a really great
direction. So, I'm incredibly grateful for that. Um, I also have made have had really tremendous experiences and made um friends while being on this board. So, I want to thank you all as well. Um, I also am proud of us for setting what I believe is a really wonderful example
for what it means to serve um the public and our communities. So, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that with you. And I want to welcome Serena and Matt. Um, I know that you both will do an absolutely amazing job um and bring a new fresh lens. So, I'm excited
to see that and I welcome you and I are going to absolutely love it. Thank you so much. Have any correspondence? Okay, moving on to our resolutions. Ready? You guys too? You're up. This is
it. We're just got >> So, uh, moving on to our personnel resolutions. I need a motion to approve A1 through A9. So >> motion by Mr. Boom. I'll second. Second by Mrs. Ferrara. Are there any discussions? >> Uh just one point on A8. I just want to
um congratulate Miss Ho on um her decision uh coming up this summer. I know she was a very impactful uh Mandarin teacher. Uh she's touched many many lives uh including my family and um I just wish her and her family all the
best going forward. She really um I could go on for an hour here about how how hard she has worked. U she you know drove our >> inspired our children to um find an opportunity of traveling across the world to see um just about all of China
and uh it's something that um made a lifetime impact. So I wish her all the best. >> Um oh sorry no go ahead. Oh and the same um I also want to uh thank Mr. Saliano for his service. He is leaving. He was a
music teacher at Lanning and Forest and my children. We're both very lucky to have him for many years. Um he is the type of teacher I've seen him in action doing his uh holiday shows and many many concerts throughout the years.
His passion and love for music and for um inspiring children is remarkable. Um I remember when my kids were little they were doing Journey and they were my husband was so happy to hear Journey. He was like how do you know this song? I'm
like music but um it's really nice. He always brought real really great music into the into the kids lives. So thank you very much. >> And just real quick I'd like to welcome um Mr. Spanella who's here tonight with us. Um welcome to Verona. We're welcome
to have you as our director of facilities. So I need a motion. I mean motion. Motion vote. Yeah. >> Vote. >> Mrs. Per. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Prisc. >> Yes. >> Mr. Boom. >> Yes.
>> Thank you. Moving on to education. Please. I need a motion to approve uh B1 through B8. Oh no. B9. B9. Motion by >> Mr.
by Mr. Boon. Seconded by I'll second. Any discussion? >> Mr. Robinson. >> Mrs. Rar. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Prrisca. >> Yes. >> Mr. Boon. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Moving on to athletics co-curricular. I need a motion to
approve C1 through C8. >> So move. >> Motion by Mrs. Ferraris. >> Second. >> Seconded by Miss Leone. >> Any discussion? I just love that the kids are going to Mom and Studio 54. What a really incredible opportunity. This is what we get for living so close
to New York City. It's a blessing. >> Roll call. I mean, >> yes. >> Mr. Prrisc. >> Yes. >> Mr. Boon. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Moving on to facilities. Need a motion to approve D1. >> So moved. >> Motion by Mr. Boone. Seconded by Second
Mrs. Ferrer. Any discussion? Mr. Robinson. Mr. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Prriscap. >> Yes. >> Mr. Boom. Yes. >> Thank you. Moving on to our finance resolutions. I need a motion to approve E1 all the way through.
>> E14. >> Motion by some. >> I'll second. >> Mrs. Ferrara, seconded by Mr. Brun. Any discussion? >> Mr. Robinson. >> Mrs. Ferrar. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Prrisco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Boone. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Moving on to governance and
policy. Okay, I need a motion for F1. Motion by Mr. Boone, second by second, Mrs. Ferrer. Any discussion? >> Seeing none, Mr. Robinson. >> Mrs. Ferrer. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Prrisc. >> Yes. >> Mr. Boon. >> Yes.
>> Thank you. Moving on to public comments on any items. If you have anything you'd like to state, please come to the podium and state your name. Oh, we have someone running. >> Stop. You got to time me, right? Okay. Denise
Fzella from Verona, New Jersey. Um, I just wanted to thank Miss Herrera for her service. Um, I did not know her prior to running for the board and now I am proud to count her as one of my friends. Um, we ran together at the same
time three years ago. Um, and I've had the privilege of working on multiple committees with her. Um, her dedication to Verona, to our students, to our teacher is admirable and um, I think Verona is a better place because she was
on the board. Um, I I know for me it was bittersweet having to step off and I know, um, knowing Miss Diana, it is also bittersweet. Um, but thank you for your service and I look forward to Serena and Matt joining. Um, I will say one of the
great things about this board, um, and the makeup that has been on it for the last few years is that not only do we like each other, um, or they like each other, um, I like you all. So, okay, not only do we
like each other, um, but we each bring our own, um, experience, education, and background to the board to better uh serve our community. It's it's I think it's something that gets missed in other uh boards where um it's a little
bit more prescribed maybe because we're so small. Um we all wear many hats. So I look forward to the next three years uh with Matt and Serena and um I'm sure you'll see me again. >> Thanks. >> Thank you, Denise.
Does anyone else like to come to the public? >> I I'll hop in with some comments. Okay. because uh I'm a sister in the personnel section, but I definitely like to talk about both Mr. Salaniano and MO definitely because I mean as I've been exposed to both the music and theater
program, I've had my fair share of experiences with Mr. Siano and he's I think he's such a fantastic music educator. It's definitely sad to see him go from the elementary level at Verona schools because he's such a I guess a vibrant person and positive force and
even with him working uh with the high schools uh in the musical whatnot. It's he's been really positive uh for our like our programs throughout the entire school district. So, he'll definitely be missed and we're not sure if we'll retain him for um the musicals and the
drama productions in the next few years, but hopefully he'll be able to stay with Ron a little bit. and Miss Ho, uh, despite the fact that I've never even touched a Mandarin course, I've had my fair share of conversations with her and it's she's definitely such like a positive force as well. I don't I don't
think like there's any student who hasn't said that Miss Ho is a nice person and that like ranges from people who take French and Spanish as well. And I think she's had her like she's had such a great tenure here and she's so well known. Every teacher loves her as
well. So she'll definitely be missed and with her smiling in the hallways and just saying hi to everyone. So definitely and I would also like to bid my farewell to Miss Fer as well and thanks so much for your service and also welcoming Mr. Kotic uh Mrs. Kenotic and
Mr. Pa to the board as well. >> Ryan, I have a plan to get Mr. Sel in the back. I don't like losing good teachers, so I have a plan. Thank you, Ryan. Does anyone else like to Okay, seeing
none, our next public meeting will be held on January 8th, 2026, beginning with confidential session at 6:00 p.m. and public session at 7:00 p.m. in the Ron High School Learning Commons. I need a motion for the meeting to adjourn.
>> Motion by Mrs. R, seconded by Mr. Boon. Um, all in favor? I. It is 8:14 and everyone have a wonderful holiday.