Can we all stand for the pledge of >> allegiance, please? To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
>> Melissa, you can call the role, please. >> Mr. Andre >> here is Miss Holland >> here. >> Miss Calderon >> here. >> Mr. Sher >> here. >> Mr. Stampone >> here. >> Mr. To >> here. >> Miss Wad here.
>> Notice of the April 13th, 2026 meeting of the board of education was emailed to the clerks of the burrows of Essex Falls, North Caldwell, and Rosland and to the township of Fairfield and the editor of the progress on January 8th, 2026 and the star ledger on the same day. I don't really have much to report.
I just want to welcome everyone back. I hope everyone had a nice spring break and we're on our last leg of the school year. Um, and I hope everyone enjoyed their time. >> Oh, that's a good point. The middle school play is this weekend and uh we
also have academic uh achievement day this coming Wednesday which I'm sure Westervel will speak about. We'll cover some my report too. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. Good evening everyone. Um I'm pleased I'm also pleased to welcome everyone back. Um I
hope that all of our students, staff, and families had a enjoyable spring break. We were excited to welcome our students and staff back today as we begin this next stretch of the school year together. Um, just some highlights. Um, our spring athletic season is
officially underway and it's always energizing to see our student athletes back in action. I encourage family members and community members to support our teams by attending athletic events and reviewing athletic schedules available through our district website. um week of April 13th, we have a number
of important events going on this week. Um on Tuesday, April 14th, uh we have our National Honor Society induction at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium. On Wednesday, April 15th, it's academic achievement day. That's pretty much an
all day event in the high school. Um, and we extend our congratulations in advance to these students and our appreciation to their families and educators as we look forward to honoring their accomplishments and the positive contributions they continue to make. On
April 17th and April 18th at 700 p.m. in the high school auditorium, West Essex Middle School will proudly present its spring musical, High School Musical Junior. Our students and staff have dedicated weeks of hard work and preparation, and we look forward to an
exciting and memorable performance. We also are looking forward to Take Your Child to Work Day on Thursday, April 23rd, where we have a fun-filled day of hands-on activities planned. Our staff has developed engaging experiences for students including science experiments,
physical education activities, art projects, and interactivity interactive activities in the library. With regard to the referendum, uh we continue to make steady progress in our referendum planning and community outreach efforts. The communication
committee has officially begun its outreach with 30 participants responding to date, helping to ensure transparency and community involvement. A referendum presentation is uh currently scheduled for our board of ed meeting uh for May
11th. Uh presentations this evening, we're welcome. We're excited to welcome several presenters. Uh Dr. Michael Featherman, our interim science supervisor, who will provide an overview of the science department. Mrs. Laura Drago, supervisor of world languages and
social studies, who will share highlights from her departments, and West Essex High School grade 12 student Ryder Sable, who will present his independent study in child and developmental psychology, completed under under the supervision of high
school teacher, Mrs. Caroline Blanchard. We look forward to hearing from our presenters and highlighting the important work taking place across our school district. >> That's all I have, Mr. We'll start with uh Dr. Featherman. >> You want to come up with your
presentation? Sure. >> Good evening, Madame President, superintendent Machochi, Assistant Superintendent Dabberto, Mrs. M administrator, board secretary, Miss KDA, board members, fellow administrators and guests. I'd
like to present to you the my overview of the science department and I'm here to tell you that oops that's not where I'm supposed to be. What happened here? I'm here to tell you that the state of the union is strong in the science department. And just as a side note, not not that it means a whole lot
necessarily, but I'd say that the state of the union here in general is strong. We have an amazing group of teachers here. The administrative team at the both the high school and the middle school uh are on top of things and it's it's a great place to work. So I think you should be proud of of the work that you're doing
as a board to guide along this district. So congratulations on that. So as I said, let's talk about the science department for just a few minutes. You know, I got here early tonight and I figured, you know, as any good public speaker would do, I'm going to go into my office and grab
my notes and my my portfolio duffel bag and and I go in there and I I my I'm trying to get into the school. I can't get in. I don't have those permissions anymore. So, you know, I can't remember the last time I didn't have access to a district school that I
was working in. But in any case, well over a decade. In any case, that's that's the story. I am a civilian once again. And I thought I would share that with you. So, with that in mind, I'll do the best I can to keep it short. And the notes that I wrote down, well, I'll do
the best I can to convey those to you. So, what I'd like to do first is introduce or reintroduce, as the case may be the science department, the folks that are in it. Then I'll talk briefly about um oh, I'll show you pictures of who they are. Then I'll talk very
briefly about the district goals and and through my lens from there, how both the high school and the middle school students and staff are meeting those goals. Then I'll talk briefly about what the staff, the science department staff have
been up to in terms of professional development under the the guidance of assistant superintendent Dberto. And then I'll end with uh two two student two graduates that I was put in contact with and um I'll talk a bit about where
they are today. All right, so let's let's do this. Whoops. Here we go. Okay, so here's the team. There are a lot of new names here. Um I'm not surprised if some of them are not familiar to you, but uh there they are. We have a total of eight non-tenured science teachers and the special
services folks that we work with, three of them are non-tenured as well. So there's a lot of mentoring going on. Um I want you to know that some of those non-tenure teachers have decades of experience and so to have them brought in and to have them assist with their neighbors across the hall has been
great. And they've done just that. So, uh, the work is being done, uh, and we're all proud of that. So, here are the team members. Uh, I won't mention them by name because I might know some of them. No, I'm kidding. I know all their names. Um, some of them weren't present for the photo, but it's a great group of people
and I'm really happy to be working with them. So, here are the district goals. As I mentioned, you're probably very well aware of them as they're always on the top of Superintendent Machi's mind and in his reports, I'm sure. but career readiness in real world learning and
positive and inclusive culture. Again, what you'll see next is through my lens how the students are reaching those goals. So, here's some high school student work and this particular goal is the career readiness and real world learning goal.
And it wasn't hard to capture activities where, you know, kids are working with techniques and data analysis. They're gaining hands-on experience and they're collaborating to solve problems. These are career ready and real world learning goals. There's more to it. I'm sorry, this
clicker is a little sensitive for me. Let's see. There you go. So, here's more high school students um reaching those same goals as well. um the precision that science laboratory experiments require. The designing of those original
experiments uh and and the collaboration that goes along with lab science is is really a perfect match for what we do in the science department and your district's goals. And it's great to see them engaging. Almost every day you see
something going on that touches these goals. How about school culture and climate? The second goal. Here are some high school students. Uh again, the the fun that they have in a in the healthy learning environment created by our staff is amazing. I mean, there's
collaboration, there's teamwork, they're engaged, and while not every day is, you know, a hands-on lab. There is a lot of that going on with school culture and climate in mind. Here's some more. There's some physics students across a couple
different teachers. uh they work together, they collaborate, they innovate. Uh the teamwork and the peer support is noticeable every day and I give a lot of credit to our staff for that. Let's talk about the seventh grade for just a little while. Career readiness
goal and real world learning for them is met in a variety of ways as well. Some examples here we have students doing some geological sample study. We have some of those students drawing detailed illustrations through observation of the material they're working on in class and
the use of scientific tools. All of these contribute to career readiness and real world learning. There's more. How about culture and climate at the middle school? Of course, it's the middle school. This is one of our primary objectives, right? Establishing a positive school culture and climate.
Well, they're doing this every day in our science department, in all of our departments. As a matter of fact, they're creating sidewalk messages with chalk. They're collaborating together. They're doing hands-on food web activities. It's wonderful stuff. It's great to see them cooperate, sometimes
compete, and it's working very well. How about the eighth graders? We've got them simulating crime scene investigations, again, using data analysis and forensics techniques. These are real world skills that some of our kids will be employed
in someday. And now about the culture and climate again of our eighth graders. Now, uh on the left there's a picture of actually our first fishing club meeting uh conducted by one of our new teachers. They're in Kfax and uh it was standing room only. Uh apparently these kids love
to fish. I didn't know that. I'm not sure if you did either, but we have a lot of kids who want to go fishing and we're going to make that happen. And the hands-on investigation inquiry is ubiquitous. Let's talk a little bit about what our science teachers have been working on at
the professional level again under the opices of the assistant superintendent. How are we empowering these science teachers to be the best and brightest? Let's talk a little bit about that. So, one of the things that is a district-wide initiative and I'm sure
you're aware of it is the Atlas curriculum mapping system. Aaria took over. It's no longer considered Atlas or called Atlas, but we all know it, those of us that have been in the game a while as Atlas. And so, here's just a very rough overview of what it is they're
engaging in using the Faria curriculum system. It's hard work. So, we're doing this work either during a staff meeting or during uh within PLC's or within time set aside in the district calendar with
with delayed openings uh and uh days that are closed. I'm sure the board and the superintendent had to negotiate and pick and choose which days to give for professional development. So, this is an amazing system. I've used this over over many years and it's going to sharpen
curriculum. It's going to enhance pedigogy and ultimately student success. And that's why this system is great. And we have a long way to go, but we are certainly aligning now or more closely, I don't want to say now, they've been doing that all along, but more closely curriculum to lesson plans to
assessment. And again, that equals student achievement. Couple more things here. Just talking about how supportive the department's been. I mentioned there are eight non-tenure teachers overall along with a number of them in special services. We
all work together. Yes, we're fun and enga. Look, we they share. I mean it's it's a it's a great group of of professionals. Um they take their work seriously but not too seriously. They love working with the kids and you know my presence is you know they're not
threatened by it. We work collaboratively and it's all about growth and learning together. A specific initiative that's going to take place this summer assuming board approval is the rewrite of the seventh grade curriculum. And here's a very
brief overview of what that looks like. Um, we have all of our seventh grade team working on it and hopefully they'll be approved to write this summer. We're going to make some changes. As you know that the New Jersey science learning student assessment test is not where we want it to be. It's one of the reasons
why we're realigning and developing the new seventh grade curriculum. It's also about again aligning lesson plans to assessments and and making our curriculum relevant, more relevant I should say. And so we're
off to a great start. They've started sort of dabbling in this using the Faria system and I look forward to seeing their finished product at the end of the summer. Now let's talk about snapshots of success. So I didn't know where to start with this because you know I'm not a member of the community and have you
know I don't know where to go for graduates. Well Lisa Hulse was great. She right away gave me a bunch of names and I reached out to this is the first one I reached out to Julia Parzeki. She was wonderful wonderful young lady. She's as you see there she's a chemist
at Merc doing research and development. She's a Rucker grad and she has a BS in chemical engineering. I reached out to her, asked permission, first of all, for us to talk about her in this forum. And I also asked her to provide a brief summary of what her time at West Essics
meant to her. And here's what she said. Uh, I don't usually read slides, but this one I'm going to read. Maybe you want to read along with me. It's not that long. So, Julia wrote to me, "The encouragement I received from my math and science teachers at West Essics was instrumental in shaping my career.
They inspired my curiosity, challenged me to think critically, and held me to high standards, encouraging me to push through difficult problems rather than shy away from them. She continued, "That rigor made my accomplishments even more meaningful and instilled a strong sense
of confidence in my abilities. They reinforced the belief that I could achieve anything I set my mind to, even in a traditionally maledominated field like chemical engineering. The foundation continues to guide me in my work today as a scientist at Merc. So
again, a wonderful young lady. The foundation was built here within this learning community and she's she's excelling as you see there. And I have one more snapshot that I was able to reach out to Juliana. Not sure if you
know her or not, but she too is a very successful young lady. Um she got her degree at the University of San Diego uh University of California at San Diego rather and she's working with uh cognitive and behavioral neuroscience.
As you know there's there's not enough of that that we need today to help help both our adults and our youngsters um navigate the world today. Here's what she said. West Essex Regional School District played an important role in shaping my academic curiosity and work ethic.
Taking many of the AP science courses offered at West Essex gave me a strong academic foundation that allowed me to thrive at the University of California, San Diego, where I studied cognitive and behavioral neuroscience and minored in general biology.
Teachers such as Mrs. Baros, Dr. De Mayo consistently encouraged me to challenge myself and fostered my curiosity through both their coursework and involvement in the premedical club and science national honor society organizations I later had the
opportunity to lead as president amazing Mrs. embarrassed encouragement, especially her reminder to just keep swimming. I love that. Just keep swimming, has stayed with me over the years and helped motivate me through studying for the MCAT, pursuing research
opportunities, and working as a medical assistant. She followed. Today I work as a clinical research coordinator at the Positive Emotion and Anxiety Research Lab, also known as Pearl, at the University of California, San Diego School of
Medicine, where I helped coordinate a clinical study investigating a novel treatment for anxiety and depression. Bring it on. We need that. The curiosity, discipline, and foundation for the path that led my current work in clinical research and my goal of
pursuing a career in medicine. I hope I read that correctly. It's uh so again the state of the union in science is strong. You produce wonderful graduates. They're going on doing wonderful things representing you and this community very
well. So thanks for your time and u have a good evening. >> Well, any questions or comments from anyone? >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um before we go on to Mrs. Drago, sorry. We're gonna go on to the
independent study provider. Um good evening everyone. My name is Ryder Sable. Um, I'm going to be presenting about my independent study that I took, child and developmental psychology under my adviser, Miss Blanchard. Um,
so just a little background about kind of why I decided to take this course. So I'm a senior West Essex High School. Um, I'm currently enrolled in our school's AP psychology course and I will be
majoring in psychology at Fairfield University. And some of my career goals that kind of drove me to this study is that I want to again pursue psychology in college and then I want to work towards a master's
degree in in child and developmental psychology eventually working towards my PhD in clinical psychology and become a child therapist with a specialization with kids for with special needs.
And one kind of main event in my life that kind of pushed me towards this goal was working as a camp counselor. I worked with a kindergartenner who had autism spectrum disorder and working with him and working with
his mom. I was the only counselor that she entrusted to look after her son and working with the child's evaluator for that kind of made me feel that there's
more I can learn and more that I can do to help kids in these kinds of situations. So in this independent study, I started out delving deeper into the units of the AP psychology curriculum
where I discussed important psychological figures like Jean PG with the stages in cognitive development, Eric Ericson, John Bulby, Mary Ainsworth and BF Skinner. Um
each of these psychologists contributed to different areas such as cognitive development, social and emotional development, um different styles of attachment and behavior and reinforcement. And from this marking period 1 project
that I did, I was able to I was able to understand and grasp that there are lots of different angles to come at developmental and child psychology at and that there's really no one way to look at it and there's many
many different places and theories and and different points of research to look at when we're looking at this topic. So then I moved into marking period 2 where I took some of these concepts and
I applied them to a specific disorder. I discussed the different cognitive, behavioral and developmental um theories and how they connected to one specific mental health condition known as pandas, which stands for pediatric autoimmune neuroscychiatric
disorders associated with streptocockal infections. That is certainly a mouthful. It's why we have a nice acronym for it. Um, but I took those different psychologist theories and ideas and applied them and
to help grasp the idea of the condition better so we could focus on students behavior. So, and then that brings us into marking period three of my independent study where I did a project on
this condition. So after I did all those ideas, I did lots of research, spent about two months prepping a presentation that I ended up giving to the class aids in the high school. I was able to inform
them on different ways this condition might appear and how exactly to look for it and identify it and how we can implement support systems to help these students so they can have a safe and
stress-free environment in the school when they're going through such a condition. And again those how to implement those into the classroom and give them the same opportunities as other students who are
not maybe struggling from this condition or maybe are struggling with different conditions. And from this I was able to learn the true importance of implementing mental health support strategies within the school and kind of
how there are necessity for all sorts of different diagnosis that we're seeing a lot more of today. And so my kind of main takeaway from this independent study on child and
developmental psychology was that it's con developmental psychology is constantly changing. There are constantly new theories and new research that are coming out that may completely change how we view this concept and
how we need to constantly be prepared for changes in studies and how we can help children and through their development and going through different stages of their lives or going through different conditions.
And after this again, I plan to go into psychology and eventually work my way up to being a child therapist. And so why this course was different from the AP psychology curriculum because I
know it may seem very similar, but kind of taking that one singular unit that is within the curriculum and being able to expand it and kind of look really into the finer details of it is very important for students like me who want to pursue this specific kind of
psychology. ology in their future careers and it helps with more real world application and looking at differenti like disorders that can occur within students and being able to apply all these concepts
and being able to help them further. Um, yeah, that's it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ryder. >> I think this is the first time I've ever heard anyone talk about practically applying their research and actually
sharing it with school. So, huge kudos to whoever came up with it. I think that's impressive. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. I was just going to add, we know it's intimidating coming before the board, but we always love the
presentations given by the students. It blows us away every time the research you've done and just to come up in front of us and share your information is, you know, we really enjoy it. You did a great job. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Yeah, thank you. >> I just wanted to actually add on to that
because Ryder is very modest. Um and the presentation he gave to the CSD team, it was aids from I think both the middle school and the high school as well as one member of the CSD team and um two other faculty members. Um was like a half an hour presentation and really
like explained to them like when writer first wanted to do pandas um I have a copy of the DSM4 in my room and it wasn't in the DSM4. It didn't even exist as a diagnosible condition. we had to go to um the the more uh I forget the exact but it's like all the stuff that's been
added since the last time they published the u uh the DSM4. It's a diagnostic and something manual um because it's so new and so writer explained to them like so well how you have a like this um
streptocakal infection that leads to then the psychological and then the behavioral and um loop and kind of informed them but then also gave them strategies for what does this look like in the classroom how do you address it and just the multiaceted nature of it I mean they were asking him questions and
he was fielding them. And I mean, he had people staying after because they only had to stay until 2:45. I think we had people in the room until like 3:15. Um, and he's, you know, not knowledgeably answering. He had a handout for them. I like it was it was a wonderful PD. At least one faculty member said like, "This is one of the most helpful PDs
we've ever had." So, I just wanted to say that he he was very modest. >> That would be pretty awesome. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay, good evening everybody. My name is Laura Drago. I'm the instructional
supervisor of the social studies and world language department. This is my 18th year in the district. Um, and I am still extremely excited and proud to share with you all the variety of
activities that go on in the world language and social studies classrooms. Um, every year when I kind of start to prepare my presentation, I like to give an overview but also try to touch on some new aspects. And I think one of the
key things really that came to me this year is in the last five to six years the teachers have been extremely dynamic in moving away from precoid instructional strategies to postcoid
instructional strategies where it was a lot of online digital new technologies and now seeing them come back to the value of blending
technology, instructional practices, instructional tools with, as we'll see with our career, I mean with our district goals, the career ready and the inclusive environment. I am extremely proud of how they
themselves continue to reach the students where they're at and uh bring them to the highest level possible. Um, so just a a quick intro. We have two new teachers in the social studies and world language department.
We actually don't have any new social studies teach any new social studies teachers. We have two new Spanish teachers. So at the high school we have um Mr. Michael Sheien and he comes to us uh as a second career. He lived in Latin
American country and learned the language and culture uh really in a different way than somebody who obviously is a heritage speaker. He is engaging the level one students and learning the variety of activities that
you need to engage freshman in in Spanish one. So, we're excited to have him uh and proud of Mr. Sheen. We also have in the middle school we have a heritage uh Spanish speaker uh Yvana Barahona. She came to us after just one year
working in the Pake School District. And I have to say that when you're able to place a teacher in their right uh age appropriate environment, it's amazing to see how they can flourish.
the the engagement that she brings to that middleear student is exciting to watch and it's um probably the happiest seventh grade Spanish group of students I've seen in quite a bit of time. So uh
we are excited to have both of them and um invite them back for next next year. As um as we know, our district goals are to cultivate career readiness and real world learning experiences and ensure a
positive inclusive uh school culture and climate. I am going to touch on these mostly throughout the presentation. I really wanted to bring in a few new ideas for those of you who have seen me year after year for a couple of years now. Um and um for our new board of ed
members, I hope you are excited with what you come to see. Okay. So, how do we achieve these goals in the social studies and world language classrooms? And I think to myself, what what do board of ed members know and what don't
don't they know, so to speak. I think it's important for you to know and feel extremely proud of our our culmination of our program 7th through 12th grade. The culmination of all of our studies, whether it's social studies or world
languages, is to try to prepare students for the highest level of those courses, right? A social studies student, you want them to be able to reach to the highest level. And just kind of to the right for a minute, you know, we have the AP Capstone program, which is AP uh
research taught by Miss Caroline Blanchard. We have nine students in that AP research this year, which will be our highest number so far. And I think we'll probably have um a very strong group of students who reach the AP capstone uh this coming June, which we don't
fully know yet because it's based on how they score on AP exams. Anyway, uh a new course, second year, AP psychology. Ryder Sable is a student in that class. We are now up to 124 students. We've actually had to turn away some students.
What's exciting about this is that AP psychology may be or could be or tends to be an an an entrylevel uh AP course. So, it has AP rigor, but you'll have students who will want to take this course because
they feel like it's more interesting or something that might be more accessible to them. So this bringing this AP psychology course in I'm sure we have included probably 40% of those students would have never taken an AP course otherwise
because of they may not have met criteria to take an AP US2 course um or certainly an AP Euro class as which is one of our highest level courses for criteria um AP human geography we've had
this course for quite a few years Again, the variety of content in the social studies AP classes varies from whether it's psychology or geography or history. Uh you can see the the variety here also
with AP human geography. This year we have 95 students. Uh APA American go politics tends to consistently be a strong number of students who are very interested in law or politics or the American government. AP European
history. We have our numbers back up in this course which we're pretty excited about. Um, as we went through like COVID and postcoavid years 13, it's being taught by Mr. Jason Freda for the last couple of years. So, we're excited to see that. That's a very
rigorous AP course and colleges definitely look at that as one of the hardest and most rigorous courses. Open only to seniors uh for a couple of reasons. One being the rigor. two, we want them to have the couple of years of US one and US2 uh under their belt.
Okay? And then finally between AP US1 and AP US2, we have 167 kids. So some of these may be overlapping, but if you look at again the culmination of a social studies education at West Essex is to prepare them uh for these courses.
And I'm sure when Mr. Mr. Dberto gives his assessment report. You can see that for the most part, we have students that are passing these exams. On the left side, we still have the four AP language courses, which we're excited to still be
able to offer them. AP Spanish, these are generally consistent numbers. Uh 12 students, AP French, six students, AP Italian, 10 students, and AP Chinese. This year we have four students, which is exciting. So, what happens here? Why
does it look like the language courses tend to have a little bit of a lower number? Well, if you were to look at the students that are in AP world languages, they're probably in five other AP courses as well. And quite frankly, what happens in their junior and senior year, well, senior year for these students, is
they just don't have room in their schedule to take the math, the science, AP courses, the social studies, and so on. And we work with that every year. We hear students say, "I want to take this, but I can't take this and that at the same time." So, we're still excited to see that we have a good number of
students uh in both social studies and world language that finish their uh academic studies in so many AP courses. Okay. Uh in the middle school we continue in well both the high school and the middle school but this year in the middle
school we continued in the social studies classes to participate in our no no place for hate program. Uh the middle school students did a fun lesson on perception versus reality, which is very appropriate for uh middle school and the ideas of combating stereotypes, which I
felt that this year um Miss Hulse and the other administrators involved in the program were were excellent in creating and and having uh the students engage in something that really they could relate to because it makes those types of lessons more meaningful. So that's been
um an exciting program for us here at West Essex. Uh an example of balancing technology with real good reading and literacy skills. The world language and social studies teachers are using what's
called chat bots. I don't know if you've ever heard of those or not, but we now have them pretty much integrated throughout the world language and social studies courses. Um, this one example was in world history where the teachers
were creating a scenario that the students would have to research a person in history and put that into the chatbot and then the chatbot would engage in a conversation with them and they would have to answer questions and ask
questions. And it was during um uh the middle ages where they would you know rather than just give a regular presentation on like a person in history whether it was Jonavar or Charlemagne they would be engaging with the chat um and demonstrating their understanding of
uh people in history. So that's a example of technology. Uh this was one of my favorite activities this year from Miss Blanchard that the students were engaged in an activity where they were building an essay. Right? We've all sat
down in our years of having to write an essay and you've probably heard, you know, five paragraphs and thesis and so on and so forth. Well, these students, Miss Blanchard engages her um AP students in actually building the essay. So, it's colorcoded whether it's the
thesis or the um topic sentence, I'm sorry, or the points uh the argumentative pieces to it. So, the con the concept here is for them to actually see the evolution of the essay that they then put together. Uh and it can be
applied to pretty much any topic that they're learning. So this was very again hands-on tactile you know no technology really in this piece of it but very memorable for the students so that they could provide you know credible evidence
uh in their their essays and then finish it and wrap it up and connect their um pieces of evidence to finish their essay. Um this is another example of a blend of technology but also using the idea of building or
creating something. uh the US1 classes put Andrew Jackson on trial and the students created a Socratic seminar which is again uh developing an argument and um providing a perspective and in
many cases the students had to argue something that wasn't necessarily their point of view or their personal decision but uh arguing the other point of view was important in this as well and students were creating political cartoons propaganda and posters in
preparation for uh their culmination with the trial of Andrew Jackson. So trying to again seeing those teachers coming back to blending uh technology with um real world application.
Okay. So right or right or left but Mr. Glenn I have to give Mr. Glenn a shout out if you don't know Mr. Glenn. Mr. Glenn has been a teacher at West Essex for 34 years. I think he's probably right the the longest. Yes, he's been here the most. Still
going strong in the social studies department. And he teaches AP psychology. This is his second year teaching AP psychology. And I'm like I almost cry when I walk by his classroom because it has revitalized him in a way. He's taught in the middle school. He's
taught in the high school and he's teaching five sections of AP psychology. I was a little concerned when we first gave it to him. I will be honest with you. I thought to myself, "Okay, let's see how this goes, right?" And he crushed it. He spent all summer preparing for it. He's so engaged in it.
Of course, the kids walk by Mr. Glenn's class and they love Mr. Glenn, right? Um, and he I I I think he said never has never taken students on a field trip. So, he planned a field trip for his AP psychology students. We went to a cool
museum in New York called the Museum of Illusions. And that's him in the red jacket there in the background. Um this and and he really also like he planned an activity for them. They like he researched the museum and gave them stations to go to and an activity for
them. But I just wanted to highlight that the the kids when they see teachers in like a real world environment, they get so excited. and he's honest with them like he'll tell them like, you know, I haven't planned a field trip in forever and you guys better behave. You
know, it's just it's it it creates a a a good environment for the students. Okay. Um the middle school Italian students went on a field trip, which they haven't done in a very very long time. They actually read Pinocchio in seventh
grade. And there happened to be a play in Wayne, New Jersey, a Pinocchio play. And um Miss uh Angela Denafhrio, she planned a field trip for the middle school
students to get out and go and engage with this Pinocchio play. And she said they were actually very good, which was wonderful to hear that the seventh graders were able to come in. As you know, our seventh graders, this is like their first year together coming from all different sending districts. So,
it's a it's a fun uh activity for them to be able to get to go on a field trip. the Spanish program, the upper level Spanish students, 3, four and AP, the upper level Spanish students, Freda Ko is a major character, person,
personality in Spanish language and culture. And the Monontlair um at the Clarage, is it the Clarage? The Clarage Theater in Monontlair, there's a Monontlair film company now. and they had a presentation on Freda Kalo, a
documentary and then a Q&A Q&A and the upper level Spanish students went on a field trip um related to learning more about this important person in Spanish culture for just a few more examples. This is
exciting. I hope you can see the number of students that we have in this course. Uh we have a world language exploration course here at West Essex once every four years which provides students with special needs their one year of required
uh language for high school graduation taught by Miss Kelly Broofphy who is amazing. So it's hard for some teachers to really be able to vary the level of students and the instruction that they
teach. Miss Brophie also teaches Spanish three honors. She's really enjoying these students. Um when I went in in December, they were learning about like holidays around the world and she had them reading about Santa Claus on the
beach because it was about Australia and you know how different places in the world have different holidays and different seasons and so on and so forth. But the um the excitement again to see these students reaching this milestone of um experiencing a world
language class that they need for high school graduation. This unique world language exploration class is amazing that West Essex provides to these students rather than just putting them in, you know, Spanish one or Italian one or whatever it might be. Okay. Um Miss
Blanchard, sorry, just happened to be. So there are a few uh amazing dynamic clubs. Just wanted to highlight a few new things this year. This women empowerment club collaborated with the STEM club and they were building boxes
of uh feminine products for women in shelters and they engaged in this activity in the media center this year. So that was exciting to see um this women empowerment group uh working together with the STEM club. We also
every year, twice actually, a year, we do enroll students or we offer students voter registration. The League of Women Voters has a woman in North Caldwell. Uh she and a few other women come to us in the fall and then once again in the
spring because we try to capture these 17 year olds and 18 year olds. So throughout the course of the year, many students that are 16 turn 17 and 17 turn 18. So, we do a voter registration drive here at West Essex, uh, for the, you know, I don't know, however, how however
many years it's been, but um, we're going to have another one coming up in the spring and then we'll we'll connect with the seniors in the fall before they go out for lunch during the lunch period. Uh we've for the last two years now
engaged with a group called uh second generation New Jersey and we had in remembrance of um or Holocaust remembrance day we had a few women Fran Levan and Sandy Rosen come in to the middle school and high school. So
literally every student at West Essex has experienced Holocaust education every year. I think this year we did ninth and 11th grade at the high school and we had seventh grade at the middle school. We always capture the seventh
graders as they're coming in uh to West Essex. Amazing stories. Uh the I I have to say I remember at the end I actually said to the students they were incredible with their behavior, respectful. You couldn't hear a pin drop and it was I think the last block of the
day. We were a little nervous about that, but they were they were fantastic. So, kudos to all the parents at West Essex. Uh, this is our sixth year. You've probably seen this a couple times, but March Madness. So the upper levels of
Spanish engage in a March Madness activity which has grown nationwide to so many schools where different performers from different Hispanic or actually Latin American countries, different performers from different Latin American countries, they'll uh
have a song and the teachers will teach about the country or the culture based on the song and they they do a bracket and at the final day it's like which which song wins the March Madness uh competition and it's something that you
know the students look forward to and we start them usually in uh Spanish 3 and move them up to four uh Spanish four and five. This year we also had another new program at West Essex which was exciting. There is an Italian cultural group called the Italia and Jay and they
came to West Essex. They used our uh high school auditorium for their performance and we had quite a few West Essex students. Um some were Italian-Americans, some were just performers perform in the cultural event
that took place in November and it was um something that I think they really just enjoyed authentic music, dance, food and this was a new program that came to West Essics this past fall. Okay, exciting news. We are in year two
of our heritage Spanish program. We went from 18 students at the high school to now 25 heritage Spanish students. So we do an AB year. Uh so they can come in at, you know, at any year. So we're on B
this year. And the students that are in their second year of Heritage Spanish, they will take a new AP course next year um called Spanish Literature and Culture, which again is also very exciting because some students are even
els. So for them to be able to accelerate and excel in a course that is a heritage course for them is extremely exciting. So, I will be reporting to you next year
on that new AP Spanish literature uh course that we're bringing in September for I think it'll probably be about 18 of them. We'll see what the full numbers come out to be. Okay. You know, of our AP Capstone program, of course, I wanted
to highlight to you as you know um our AP capstone a specific student. I'm not sure if you know of our senior Justin Kim. Justin Kim was accepted to West Point. He's going to the United States Military Academy. He had quite a few
excellent options, I'm sure you can imagine. Um, he's taken 10 AP courses at West Essex over, you know, the course of his four years here. And I'm kind of just blending this idea that what he did
for his AP capstone or his AP research was something I don't know if you're familiar with what K-pop is, but it's like Korean pop culture. So, he did an authentic research program on how K-pop culture has been influencing Korean food
places uh in New Jersey. and I've been u meeting with him in AP human geography class and he's been like waiting to hear um from West Point. He actually goes tomorrow for his orientation. He also said Mr. Lin Salado the fizzed teacher
worked with him and helped him prepare for his physical exam that he had to go there and take. Um, and he just says that he says if it wasn't for, you know, the support that he's had um at West Essex from his teachers at West Essics, he doesn't know if he could have been fully prepared and it just felt like he
had a really well-rounded experience to prepare him for West Point. That's our AP Capstone highlighted student. Okay. And another student I want to highlight um even though they're still here, they're seniors, is Carly Levik. You may or may not know her.
She's super excited that she's going to her dream school, which is the University of Michigan. But the reason why I'm highlighting Carly Levit, is because three years ago, we had Mr. Anthony Campezy from Fairfield, who is one of our Essex County election
executives, and he also sent his students to West Essex. He reached out to us about three years ago and said that the Essex County Clerk's Office was looking to bring in students into working the elections that run in our
local communities. And from the beginning, Carly Levit was in. Carly Levitt has worked seven elections in the last three years. So, primary, presidential, special election, primary and she has also talked quite a bit
about this experience being one that really has given her amazing insight to our whole election process and you know the importance obviously of of voting and uh I wanted to just highlight she is
an NHS student and a ROAPA inductee as well who same thing continues to talk about her experiences that she's had in her West Essex AP classes and social studies classes overall. Wednesday we have the induction day
which is probably what three or four years old now. It's amazing. I think we're going to get a huge turnout on Wednesday. So obviously every year we induct our world language honor society students and our social studies honor society students our social studies
honor society is called roappa so it has a unique name to it that sometimes people forget that it's related to social studies but we'll be inducting our students uh this coming Wednesday if you haven't been to the performances they are amazing the social studies
honor society usually has a student who will talk about their passion and how um they have a passion for social studies because of their time at West Essex or they'll speak about what they've learned about events in the world and our world language um inductees. There's quite a
few that are just amazingly talented students that you'll see if you come sila biiteracy I again I think we're five years into this I I have to go back and check my exact dates but excited to see how this program has grown. 36
students at West Essex will will receive a special um emblem on their diploma that they are graduates as biliterate students and to see the talent that these students have and the languages
that we're testing these students in. It is a little bit of um you know a labor intensive process in January and February when we're pulling these students out and who's testing in um Russian and it's a different test than maybe uh some of the other languages but
you can see a list here of students between Arabic it's you know French Italian as you would think but Arabic Korean um Mandarin Polish Portuguese uh again Russian and then a slew of Spanish as well as We have some Turkish students
as well. So, it's exciting that this continues to grow. And we even now have like students come to us in ninth and tth grade saying, "I want a test. I want a test." We say, "You can only test when you're a junior." But, um, they can test when they're a junior. And then if they don't fully pass it, they can test again
when they're a senior. And they can also do like one or two one or two retests. So, they test them in obviously speaking, listening, reading, and and writing. Okay, so this is an alum who, believe it
or not, I have like a few of them that have been kind of waiting their turn, but I didn't want to get like into too many because it takes forever. But Daniel Martieri is an alum who is going to speak to you about his experiences at West as well. >> Hello, my name is Daniel Marteri and I
am a senior biome engineering major at the College of New Jersey. Currently, I visited over 20 different countries and can speak English, Italian, and Spanish fluently. In fact, each of these languages in professional context abroad as a tourist volunteer and even as an
intern this past summer. I owe all these plans and my accomplishments to my world language at West Estus. After spending five years learning Italian, I developed a true love for languages. When I got to college doing a strictly STEM focused major, I missed my passion and I added a
certificate in Spanish for counseling and human services. It is an extra responsibility but it has been so worth it for my college experience. In general truly I do not know where I would be or who I would be today without the influence of international and world
language exposure. But the one thing that I can promise is that now that I am here that path will guide me the rest of my life. Okay. So again, I appreciate the opportunity to share with you the excitement that I
have for the world language and social studies departments. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. Okay. >> Okay. Do we have any comments from board members?
Any comments? >> Uh do we have any board committee reports? Um, all right. At this time, we'll open up the floor for uh public comments on agenda items. Are there any public comments?
Okay. Then we will move on to our agenda. Um, John, can you take finance, please? >> Sure. >> Uh, the following finance motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Anything placed on this agenda items 1 through seven will be voted upon in one motion
and I move second. >> Any questions or comments? >> Mr. Andre. >> Yes. >> Miss Hansat. >> Yes. >> Miss Calderum. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sher. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sampone. >> Yes. >> Mr. Code.
>> Yes. Miss Wadwitz? >> Yes. >> Uh Philip, will you take buildings and grounds, please? The following building and grounds motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Anything placed on this agenda item one
will be voted upon motion and I move >> second. Any questions or comments? Please Mr. Andre. >> Yes. >> Miss Calderon. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sher. >> Yes. >> Mr. Samp. >> Yes.
>> Mr. Co. >> Yes. respond to it. >> Yes. Debbie Holland, do you want to take personnel, please? >> Sure. The following personnel motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Anything placed on this agenda. Items one through six will be voted upon in one motion. And I so move.
>> Second. >> Any questions or comments? >> Mr. Andre, >> yes. >> Miss, yes. Miss Calderon, >> yes. >> Mr. Sher, yes. >> Mr. Stampone, yes. >> Mr. Yes. >> Misswood. >> Yes.
>> Uh Jonathan, do you want to take curriculum, please? >> Sure. Following curriculum and special education motions of the superintendent of schools, anything placed on this agenda, excuse me, it one through five voted upon motion.
>> Any questions or comments? >> Mr. Andre? >> Yes. >> Miss Hat? Yes. Miss Calderon? >> Yes. >> Mr. Chair. >> Yes. >> Mr. Samp. >> Yes. >> Mr. Toe. >> Yes. >> Miss Wadwitz. >> Yes. >> Deb Calone miscellaneous, please.
>> Any questions or comments? >> Mr. Andre. >> Yes. >> Miss Hollstat. Yes. Miss Calder. Yes, >> Mr. Sher. >> Yes, >> Mr. Samp. >> Yes, >> Mr. To. >> Yes, >> Miss Wwood. >> Yes. >> Okay. At this time, we'll open up the floor for public comments on non-aggenda
items. Do you have any public comments? >> Okay. Ray, do you want to read us out, please? >> Sure. Uh, there being no further business before the board of education, be it resolved that this public meeting be adjourned at 8:33 p.m. Do I have a motion?
>> Second. >> Second. Perfect.