##VIDEO ID:oOfeGU3Qzj4## put notice of this regular meeting as required by the open public meetings Act was provided by the posting mailing delivery and filing of this notice on January 12 2024 this notice was on that date posted on the bulletin board in the township office sent to The Courier News and tap into Warren and filed with the Township Clerk of the township Warren all in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Mr Hegel yes I'll call the role now Mrs Dalton here Mr Mr Desai here M Keller here Mr molfetta here Mr Otto Mr tour here Mr Valentino Mr Weinstein here Mrs Z here we have a quorum Miss Keller resolved that the Board of Education approves the public and private session minutes of the November 18th 2020 24 board meeting do we have a second second I'll call the role Mrs Dalton yes Mr Desai yes Miss Keller abin Mr molfetta yes Mr Tor yes Mr Weinstein yes Mrs Zan yes motion pass correspondence and information Dr M nothing to report there tonight wow we are going so fast um welcome everyone to the final Board of Education meeting for the year 2024 um this time of year always inspires us all to take a moment to give thanks and recognize the efforts and talents of all the people around us so I'm about to go through a list I apologize it's almost inevitable that I've omitted somebody important because we we have so many valuable contributions to making this District work and um I apologize if I inadvertently leave anyone out so to start a week ago I was very honored to um present congratulations and flowers on behalf of the board of education at each of our schools to the 10 recipients this year of the governor's education educator of the Year award as well as three recipients of the state Department of education's exemplary Elementary educator award this year's teacher recipients are Marissa Martin SRA alt Michelle Walcom Central lenia Middleton Mount horb Tiffany sarapan Woodland and Joel Vantin at the middle school this year's Educational Services professional recipients are Kelly blessing Marie alt Mary Beth Henry Central Nicole Rola at Mount Allison Rue Woodland School parsad Gandhi at the middle school we're very proud to announce that this year Warren's um staff were three of them were recipients of the State Department of education's exemplary Elementary educator award and they are Tera lento um at alt Deborah yanowitz Mount horb and John zillis at Woodland so apologies if I butchered anyone's name uh congratulations to these award recipients um pretty much the highlight of this job being president like the really good piece is to go and meet these exemplary teachers give them flowers say congratulations on behalf of the of the Board of Education it's kind of a highlight so thank you for allowing me to participate in that um I also want to take a minute to uh recognize the the efforts of The Other Board members that I am uh blessed to serve with throughout the course of Any Given year members of the Board of Education represent Warren's School District at Somerset County School Board Association meetings New Jersey school board associate delegate assembly meetings Somerset County Education Service Board of Education meetings watching Hills municipal Alliance we are represented on the shared services regionalization feasibility study um we attend very school events including graduation Middle School Musicals other musical performances and um when the school is represented at uh outside events such as the 911 commemoration in town you'll find board members there additionally every member of this body sits on one or more of our standing committees which meet regularly and frequently for many hours and those are the curriculum and Technology committee the finance operation and security committee person El negotiations and Communications committee we have an ad hoc strategic planning committee and various members of the board have also um participated in the strategic planning steering process and we attend Board of Education meetings the hours um it's a lot more than I think people um recognize and every member that I serve with gives it their full attention and um commitment um each member of this board also plays many other roles such as coach parent son or daughter members of various houses of worship musician uh Scout leaders PTO members Lions Club members Etc I didn't pull the members about their various commitments I'm sure they would mostly omit many of the ways that they serve these are a modest hug working Bunch who just show up day in and day out to do the hard work um there are um very few ways that a person can impact their Community more than the members I have the pleasure to serve with as president it is my it is my privilege to speak occasionally on behalf of the board but I do feel moved tonight at this moment to speak on behalf of a grateful Community a Warren is home to us all and your contributions to making this the best home for all of us are valued so thank you to the 2024 members of the Board of Education uh we are losing one valued member we will be welcoming in January a new very valuable member uh and I'm sure that the 2025 Board of Education will do continue to do amazing things you're going to hear more thanks and gratitude from the Committees when we get to committee reports finally but not least none of the awards recognitions of our staff and professionals and the work of the Board of Education would be possible without the const and prompt insightful professional support of the members of the administration of the school district from Administration in each of our school buildings building and grounds Transportation tech support business office special services curriculum and our superintendent lest I inadvertently omit somebody I'm not going to continue that list um but the work of the board of education is only possible because of the hard work of those individuals that support what we are trying to do for our community so thank you to one and all and a h blessed and happy holiday season and New Year superintendent remarks thank you Mrs an and several announcements were were in mine as well so congratulations as well to our educ Ed educators of the year uh and that those special three Educators who were exemplary Elementary Educators those are three of only about 150 in the entire state so very proud to have uh that representation here in Warren uh joining in I'd like to thank the members of the board of education for their service this year but especially our president Mrs Zan who wasn't going to point out that above all the hours that all of the board members put in the President and Vice President Miss Keller put in a lot of additional hours with agenda preparation appearing at various events welcoming our staff back appearing at new staff induction etc etc so it is quite a quite an undertaking and um you know we joke in talk about the benefits are few in some ways from an outward standpoint but hopefully they you know the knowledge of what you're contributing to the board the operations of the school district to the community are valuable as well as we all know they they are so thank you for your work and your support all throughout the year one just quick announcement which you'll hear more about in a report later in the agenda we do have a strategic planning survey that will go out to all parents and community members uh even if those community members don't have children in the schools currently we're hoping that that'll go out tomorrow it'll be open for a long period of time through winter break and Beyond into the beginning of January to help inform our strategic planning process if you're looking for that information it will go out in an email as soon as the link is finalized and ready again we expect that to be tomorrow it'll also be in our community briefings posted on the district website and sent out by the township through to the township mailing list as well so that it'll be available in lots of different places social media and so on Happy holidays everybody and a a Happy New Year to all thank you Dr mingle um I have the pleasure of presenting a recognition of service Mr Desai would you join warrren Township Board of Education resolution of appreciation whereas Mr mayol Desai has served the children and community of Warren Township as a board of education member for three years and whereas Mr Desai has served the board as a member of the negotiations and Personnel committee and curriculum and Technology committee and whereas Mr Desai has served the board as its alternate representative to the Somerset County Education Service Commission and whereas Mr Desai has established in the teaching staff parent community and administrative team a reputation of trustworthiness fairness and commitment to the district's high standards and whereas Mr Desai has served as a champion for excellence in all areas with particular attention to finding necessary compromise when deliberating important Scholastic and financial matters now therefore be it resolved that the Warren Township Board of Education on behalf of the entire Warren Community does hereby extend its sincere thanks and gratitude to Mr Desai for his service to the children of Warren and does hereby wish him all the best in all of his future endeavors at thank you very much thank you I'm I'm going to miss you guys it it was it was great it was a it was a great uh experience it was a lot of learning for me um and I'm going to miss you guys thank you thank you so much thank you it was sad when we l but uh I know you'll move on to wonderful things so um we do not have a discussion item this evening so we will move directly on now to committee reports um Mr tour curriculum and Technology committee okay so I have uh two meetings to report back on and then I can quickly go through the 2024 goals and how we've that okay so uh September 16th is the first meeting uh it's actually fairly short one we spent the majority of the meeting reviewing the NJ SLA presentation the committee focused primarily on the new information since obtained post the previous Public Presentation this included various subgroup data sets and also the Warren District versus the state the curriculum committee found the results and insights positive reflected reflected the hard work of the administration in our five schools no concerns were raised Mr kimmick was asked to include a slide outlining what the administrators do with the information and data they receive for the Public Presentation which took place on November 18th so the November 18th meeting was actually quite a bit longer than U than usual so this will take slightly longer but I'll I'll move swiftly so uh we reviewed the pre-algebra geometry curriculum revisions and they were reviewed and they will require full board approval actually I think today's meeting uh the curriculum committee discussed the scope of adjustments in previous documents and and also recommended the approval tonight there was also an adjustment in the K5 reading curriculum and uh we also recommend approving those changes today as well K5 sorry so we also reviewed the I ready results um discussed actions of the Personnel technical data and the administration follow up directly NJ SCI Administration update but this was I think around the survey uh which is completely anonymous anonymous for each stakeholder group and is administered by the Middle School in October and November so a little bit behind the behind with that one the survey will be administered to grades three and five there was one concern raised uh by a member of the committee and we concluded on balance that um we would endorse and encourage participation of all stakeholders because the the concern didn't didn't undermine the overall value of the survey uh there was also a discussion requested by one Committee Member around the class sizes which was quite an interesting discussion and a nice reminder of actually how the district's do in there and the committee wanted to recognize that certainly smaller class sizes gener lead to better academic outcomes equally though the key factor is always and will be the quality of the faculty and in classroom teaching which was a flagged by Mr Kim and the administration which we agreed with uh the committee will also please to note the Administration benchmarked very well on all aspects relative to other districts in the state and that uh we would ideally like to maintain small class sizes and enjoy the high quality in-class tuition that that translates through as well as the results there was an inservice update which was uh actually quite enlightening and insightful so Mr Kimmi provided an update regarding the November 5th in service day which took place same day as the election when the schools were closed uh not closed with the teachers the um there was they discussed the elementary ASAP pilot which I'll mention in the in the 2024 report in a minute uh the K5 reading program and training strategic plan sessions were held there was also a middle school vertical articulation which I think is the this relates to um the interaction between the Middle School I think 8th grade and the high school as kids are transitioning from one to the other and also we wanted to flag that there were Consultants there and and as you know we have Consultants through the district but there were external Consultants in place on that day to help facilitate professional development discussions with individual staff members and teams um yes so a particular note for the inservice day I think that we as a committee felt were important to flight to the community was the quality of the program uh the level of Engagement of the faculty broadly and also the proactive use of Consultants to bring in an outside perspective thereby challenging the teams removing the potential for complacency and raising the overall standard of the day the programs and ultimately the outcomes Sor that was a long committed so a long report back so if I look at the 2024 goals and what the committee have been working on so I think you did a very nice job Trish of uh thanking everybody I won't be as eloquent but I will say thank you to the committee members which are myself mahul rich and Laura's our alternate and also uh thank Mr kimik and his staff because uh without the hard work that goes into each and every one of these meetings it would be very difficult for us to uh I think to assist the administration and to do our work so thank thanks to all of you so one so 2024 probably just very quickly just to go through the goals so people are aware what we what we were working on or at least the framework under which we were working so this was to support the implementation of implementation of a three-year strategic plan and the priorities that focus on curriculum instruction and Technology it split broadly into two areas for the year one was student achievement one's belonging and so under student achievement uh two things that we considered more broadly which is prioritize the district's efforts to improve academic outcomes in English language arts and Mathematics while supporting the whole child and prioritizing social and emotional learning as a foundational component of academic growth and success in the three areas under belonging were increase cultural responsiv responsiveness of Educators prioritize the culture and values uh belonging community that prioritizes the values of individual student backgrounds and voice and thirdly prioritize Improvement in Middle School culture just take a breath so there are the highlights really from the year that I wanted to flag and there are four of them which is firstly uh in the first half of the year um the district purchased and introduced collaborative classroom materials that was after a robust pilot led by principal tuer and Stacy mno the um curriculum supervisor uh the pilot generated positive feedback for a program that provided resources for in-class instruction and also personal development focused on establishing the necessary rigor and classroom culture that's the first highlight secondly I think lit imper important area of progress was the summer curriculum review uh it's important to note that any rewrites and recommendations were made by teachers within the district and this ensured the appropriate engagement of colleagues that the review was conducted in the context of executing in the Four elementary schools and of course that the experts who need to deliver the curriculums are the ones refining and improving the resources and raising academic standards in The District Two key areas of note uh the changes now align the uh align English language arts and math to the updated state standards and there's now greater continuity between grade level for ELA as there already was in fact for math third area I'd like to flag is the academic Support Program uh sorry academic Support Program pilot or ASAP uh this is uh something that was fled in the previous meeting but Mrs is mess the Middle School assistant principal worked with the staff to develop this pilot that is already now being implemented for the 2425 Academic School year I think it's an important program in that it it identifies students who are in need of additional help and provides multi- levels of support based on the identify student needs just to remind you all there are three levels of support So level one students are scheduled to a specific win period in the assign teacher provide scheduled intervention to students specific to the identified standards at all grades level two certain students are scheduled into a co- teing class that includes two teachers only at certain grades and level three which is the most intensive is a pullout program at grade six offered to identify students each level of program is offered Ela and Mathematics and we will receive an update I think in February March potentially in throughout the uh semester as the year progresses and then the last thing I think I wanted to briefly flag which I think is important for everybody to be aware of is the committee regularly with Mr CL and his team reviews things like the IR ready results and njs LS SLA which we saw a presentation of at the last meeting um as you Rec uh while the well we dive actually quite deep into some of the detail especially where there are outliers or areas of concern the high level feedback I can give uh the board and the community is that we generally make good Pro generally make good progress across the board and that Warren continues to Benchmark very well relative to the broader State results too long that's my update for the year so far not at all thank you Mr Tor moving on to the finance operations and security committee report the committee met on Monday December 9th um with all members uh present for at least part of the meeting we also had uh PSA which is the uh District's architect join us for the early part of the meeting as the committee continued to discuss its resp response to um uh facility needs in an environment of increasing enrollment now I know this has gotten some conversation and um there is going to come a point in the not too distant future where the complete process of evaluating how the district responds to increasing enrollment with regards to facilities will be made available um the committee has spent already a couple of years looking at this and in the course of doing so has considered existing facilities um whether or not they can be used in a way that accommodates in increasing enrollment it is looked at facilities in the community and it has looked at options for growth through construction none of this has come to the board as a proposal any proposal will be fully um presented to the community and explained um right now the committee is waiting for further information on round for housing numbers which um have come out from the state in the fall and to which the um Township committee will respond at the end of January so as we await that additional information the um finance committee continues to do the hard work of identifying options uh for going forward also discussed at this meeting was the spring referendum which is coming up the referendum is a no tax impact referendum for Capital Improvements and improvements generally to our facil existing facilities um this was part of the approved 5-year Capital plan uh earlier in the year the um projects that are contemplated in the referendum have been approved by the state for a share in state funding uh for the cost of those improvements uh the committee also reviewed the bids for the roof replacement of the maintenance um building and and that bid is on the agenda tonight for approval as item B9 um Additionally the committee looked at the 2526 preschool tuition and that tuition um which is a modest increase from last year having experienced a substantial increase the year before appears tonight for approval on the agenda as item B8 um the committee also reviewed the RFP process that the district engaged in with regard with regard to board counsel and has made a recommendation that at the reorganization meeting on January 6th that the um existing law firms will be engaged again for the coming year on status quo as to their assigned responsibilities and duties um various updates appear as attachments to the agenda I invite you to take a look at those includes the budget calendar and the draft meeting calender for the finance committee and this is the moment where in the meeting but also here publicly I want to express my gratitude and thanks as the chairperson of Finance to the extraordinary work done by the committee members and for the support we receive from the administration that supports specifically the finance committee and that's Dr mingle um Chris Hegel and this year in particular Mr P um in light of the extensive conversations we've had regarding um facility needs uh he has been an invaluable presence throughout the meetings for finance committee are long um really long long I guess you can blame me as chair that I give everyone an opportunity to flush out I hope fully all the thoughts we are dealing with a large budget but we are a fiscally conservative group and we really really squeeze the nickel and we spend a lot of time thinking about how to do that um and do it in a manner that is not only fiscally responsible but also meets the needs of our students staff and administration this year with those long long long meetings um we have successfully completed a fiscally responsible budget process and passed a budget early in the year we secured the for the first time of anyone in the county a share in Pilot proceeds um from the town committee and we continue to have fruitful conversations with the town committee going forward um which we do hope and anticipate will result in further um further shares uh in the years to come we developed and recommended to the full board for its approval and it was approved a 5-year Capital plan that is a job to look at every single thing in the in the district all the buildings in great detail identify all of the building needs so that we can continue to operate these very old buildings and they're old guys I don't know if you're aware of how old they are Central was built in 1931 uh Woodland in the 50s um Mount hor of an alt 7s and these are these are buildings that continue to serve us so well because of the constant attention to their needs um we developed and recommended a list of capital project for projects for a no tax impact referendum which will take place in the spring for the purpose of securing back to Warren State funds um we send a lot to Trenton we look hard for ways to have some of that blow back here again in support of um our Capital needs um and we have engaged in continue to engage in and lengthy and thoughtful response to the facility needs of our district as enrollment continues to grow um so with that I I want to personally thank um Mr Otto Mr Valentino and Mr Metta who constitute my committee can I call you guys my committee our committee um without which all of this wouldn't have happened thank you guys and uh Dr mingle Mr Heel Mr P thank you guys as well um Personnel negotiations and communication committee Miss CER so we have not had a recent meeting to provide a recap on so I'm going to do a similar exercise as Mr tour and Mrs Zan and just cover the the highlights from the whole year uh the the biggest accomplishment of this committee was that we successfully negotiated a wtaa contract um the committee this is really the bulk of this effort was in late last year and then the first four four months of this year um committee met six times over the course of six months and had multiple rounds of reviews of the contract in that time and I estimated just off the cuff that the board members on the committee which is myself Mr Tor Mr Weinstein probably spent a combined 40 to 50 hours on that between meetings and and reviews in between meetings um so I want to express my appreciation to you both for your time and attention to that important work we we all um recognize that's one of the biggest um uh sort of Feats that that committee has to do every few years so uh thank you very much for that um we just like Mr Tor had mentioned with the curriculum committee there's regular ongoing sort of items that have to happen as part of personnel um so we do annual job descriptions review We conducted a non-tenured staff review process and conducted Dr mingle annual performance review so those are things that have happen usually in the midyear time frame and then most recently we shifted Focus so this is Personnel negotiations and Communications we have shifted to the communications part of the scope of that committee um and really communication planning around some of these Key Community topics that you're starting to hear in in some of these meetings um growth of the district which U Mrs Zan just mentioned um the zero debt referendum that's coming up in the spring um and then the strategic planning initiative which we've been talking about uh so the committee members now are um Mr Weinstein Mr tour and Mrs Dalton so I want to thank you very much for your work this year a lot more to do do you want me just go ahead straight into ad hoc strategic planning yes this is ad hoc strategic planning committee Miss Kell so we you know the bulk of this work really has not even I would say gotten started um you know in contrast to the negotiations part of the personnel um so on the October 28th the strategic planning committee met uh we reviewed the implementation plan for that effort with a representative from comegno which is the firm leading the effort um we discussed plans for stakeholder sessions which have already happened they were held on November 4th and November 5th that was Mr Tor alluded to the inservice day for staff so the fourth was students and community members and the fifth was staff and then in the same October 28th meeting we discussed the plan for the first what we're calling the engineering team meeting which is really a core group of representatives from the community so it's a staff admin um parents non-parents community members and the board who will be really responsible for driving progress and deliverables for this strategic planning effort uh the first engineering team meeting was held on November 26 uh in that meeting we uh briefly reviewed the feedback from those stakeholders sessions that happened in early November and then we had breakout sessions where we discussed uh Focus areas and priorities for the Strategic plan so topics in academics operations facilities um so that's really been the progress so far uh it's just been a couple months um but I will reiterate what Dr mingle said earlier sort of a public service announcement uh we are conducting a survey that's going to be really critical to getting broad Community feedback on the direction of the schools for the 2025 to 2030 time frame um we will be Distributing the survey in the next day or so to parents of kids in the schools but we will be sharing it via social media I think Dr men Dr Mangle mentioned via the town and other you know various news outlets um and we really encourage all community members even if you don't have children in the schools to take the time to take the survey um and we'll be closing it in early January so I want to thank you to this committee which is uh myself uh Mr tour and Mrs an I want to thank the engineering team and the participants who gave their time on the fourth and fifth of November thank you Miss kellerer at this time um we will move into the first opportunity for public commentary this is the first of two opportunities for public commentary I ask that anyone interested in addressing the board please raise their hand or use the raise your hand feature on Zoom each speaker is is asked to limit their comments to 3 minutes please begin your comments by stating your name and address and by directing your comments to the presiding officer and that's me this evening please know that the Board of Education welcomes and encourages input from the Public Public commentary is intended as an opportunity for the board to receive such input but it is not intended as a Q&A session following public commentary if appropriate the presiding officer or the superintendent May provide some response for this first opportunity we ask that your comments be limited to items that appear on tonight's agenda there will be a second comment opportunity for all other comments later in the meeting so at this time looking to the audience is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the board seeing none is there anyone in our Zoom audience that would like to address the board at this time seeing none do I have a motion to close first public commentary motion all in favor I oppose abstain the first opportunity for public commentary is now closed moving on to items for board consideration Dr mingle you have anything nope okay does any board member have any item for board consideration that they'd like to pull for separate conversation or vote seeing none Miss kellerer motion to move items for board consideration A1 through A4 B1 through B9 and C1 through C12 have second second Mr Hegel I will call the role Mrs Dalton yes Mr Desai yes Miss Keller yes Mr molfetta yes Mr Tor yes Mr Weinstein yes Mrs Z yes motions pass 70 thank you we do not have any unfinished business or new business scheduled on the agenda this evening so we will now move into the second opportunity for public commentary this is the second opportunity and it is open to any topic you wish to raise to the board's attention again I ask that you raise your hand or use the raise your hand feature on Zoom remember that comments are limited to 3 minutes and please state your name and address before beginning looking first to the room is there anyone that would like to address the board looking to zoom is there anyone in our Zoom audience that would like to address the board I see Miss Singleton uh Rachel Singleton to do a Trail West um I just wanted to say a thank you to uh Mr Lee for everything he did for my children working with them when he was at Mount horb and I I think the district is suffering a deep loss with his resignation so I just want to say thank you to him because I see that on the on the agenda for this evening thank you thank you Miss Singleton are there any other comments in the zoom audience seeing no other comments do I have a motion to close second opportunity for public commentary motion second second all in favor I opposed abstain the second opportunity for public commentary is now closed M motion to adjourn motion all in favor I I opposed abstain happy Holidays happy New Year see everyone in January this meeting is closed