[Music] [Music] great SL for [Music] [Music] the regular month L meeting of May 30th 2024 which recon at corner at 7:45 p.m. at fairon high school 1400 for Dan Avenue fairw New Jersey there are a lot of people I'm going to say 100 can get a roll call Mr bski here Mr Dr m brown here Mr Rosenberg here the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have Advan notice of and to attend the meetings of the public aies of any business affecting their interest is discussed or acting upon importantance with the provisions of this act fation has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof distributed to the persons on the approved list posted in the Board of Education administrative office and sent to per record in the Star Ledger the announcement posting the regular monthly meeting along with the date place and time thereof was distributed on May 30th 2024 could everyone please join me in the [Music] class IED Al to the United States of America to the for it stands na indivisible liy and justice for all I like to start with the recognition ceremony of the teacher and education specialist of the year our 25 year Service Awards Dr good evening everyone uh welcome um it makes me extremely happy to see this many people in the audience because I know that the Board of Education our Administration um and and all of you who are here this evening would concur that this is what we're we're really here all about is to celebrate our teachers to celebrate our education Specialists of the year um it is just so wonderful to see all of you and this is a wonderful opportunity to be able to celebrate um everything that you've done and continue to do for our students um this evening we have approximately 20 teachers and Ed Specialists of the year to recognize and we also have uh 12 Educators who have achieved 25 years of service to the Falon Public Schools so for that let's start with a warm welcome and Round of Applause for all of our educators so what the way we're going to do this this evening is um we have some tokens of appreciation from our Board of Education our district uh for each of our Educators this evening uh we will uh go through each of our Educators this evening we'll have a few words that I will highlight about the recognition and accomplishments and the contributions that they have made to our students and to our schools uh we'll come on up here we'll have a little photo that we will take to celebrate and commemorate um and then we'll uh celebrate everyone throughout this process so uh first off we're going to start with Fon high school so first we have uh Marco Infante and Marco is a dedicated educator holding a master's degree an educational leadership and a bachelor's degree in mathematics from moner State University he began his career 11 years ago and has been with the fairon public schools ever since he currently teaches pre-calculus honors AP Statistics honor statistics Marco's educational background serves as the foundation for fostering cross-cultural cross-curricular connections among students in his classes enriching their learning experiences Marco's energized personality and cander promote Student Success by encouraging our students to build on their strengths and appreciate their challenges and to get excited about their learning please join me in congratulating Marco infant [Applause] [Applause] next up Mrs Jennifer labonski has dedicated her professional life to the education of our students and staff in Falon she became began working at the high school in the of 2005 as a math teacher though she taught a variety of courses during her 15 years in the department she was known for being the Lead Teacher in Algebra 1 beyond the classroom Jen was the assistant coordinator of Student Activities Student Government advisor the assistant Cross Country Coach and the distance coach for spring track and field holding master's degrees in both Ed leadership and educational technology was a natural transition to become instructional Tech coach and now serving in the capacity of administrator overseeing the math department this past year in a leave position welcome congratulations Jen lonsky [Applause] moving on to Memorial Middle School Nicole AR inia middle school art teacher Nicole has been sharing her talents with fairon students for nine years she has the ability to ignite creativity and Imagination in all of her students Nicole has created a learning environment that serves as an inclusive space where artistic Expressions knows no balance fostering an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered colleagues describe Nicole as a caring and creative teacher who brings a quiet confidence and a strong sense of purpose to each day please join me in congratulating Nicole as teacher of the year [Applause] Laura Corino pastro you clap all you want to Laura has been a power professional for Fair Lawn for 20 years beginning her career at farest Elementary School she later extended her expertise to support fairon students at the Children's Academy before finding her calling at Memorial where she has been a an invaluable asset ever since colleagues described describe her as a go-getter who consistently creates diverse opportunities for student development her exceptional ability to engage all students coupled with her selfless nature embodies her commitment to placing others needs before her own congratulations Laura [Applause] Thomas Jefferson Middle School is Danielle Bonito embodies all of the qualities of an incredible teacher as a seventh and eighth grade English teacher and our school's reading specialist Miss Beno has worked with students who have V varing levels of ability she consistently creates lessons based on best practices to meet their needs learning styles and Personalities in addition to her presence in the classroom her expertise is often sought after to rewrite curriculum incorporate new mandates or offer strategies to help students please congratulate Danielle bito [Applause] you would think that with my classes I could see that screen but it's time for a new prescription Mrs Anna Romano has been an integral part of Thomas Jefferson Middle School and the Fair laon Community Mrs Romano Works closely with students and displays remarkable patience empathy and understanding she can be seen helping all students even acting as a translator whenever needed in our school community in addition to her role in the classroom Mrs Romano has planned special events for the flea social committee volunteers with the fairon access for all all and has dedicated time and energy to the Jackson strong foundation and fleece it is a pleasure to recognize Mrs Anna Romano as Ed specialist of the year [Applause] [Applause] Jenna Lasser is a third grade teacher who has been teaching at mils for 11 years she is recognized as creating a supportive and nurturing environment where each and every student feels safe and secure and has the opportunity to learn and to grow she serves on the character education spirit and school climate committees Jenna takes the lead on our literacy initiatives committee facilitating the planning for read Across America author visit and one school one book committees her colleagues describe her as a leader true f friend and mentor to many jenet is always professional and ready to assist her students and the staff at Mills congratulations Jenna [Applause] Michelle stack is a fourth grade power professional who has been working with The Fair Lawn public schools for 12 years she has the innate ability to see where students need help and is able to accommodate accordingly she truly goes above and beyond each day and is described by her by her colleagues as helpful selfless and caring she continues to be an asset to our Mill's family Michelle is always ready to assist when need and is always present in after school activities for PTA events congratulations [Applause] [Applause] Leslie Tenny is in her 16th year as a resource room special education teacher at linest she has the ability to engage all Learners and is a guru in the area of multisensory instruction in addition she volunteers on several committees outside of her classroom and serves as the Web Master and inrs case coordinator Leslie is a go-to person at linest [Applause] congratulations okay I told you I needed a new prescription we're going to stick with Lin Crest my apologies and Leslie could not be with us this evening um so at this time we're going to recognize Christine montalto Christine has been a par professional in Falon since 2007 Christine is kind caring professional who is willing to do whatever it takes to help her students learn she builds relationships with her students by quickly finding what their individual interests are and engaging them in learning Christine brightens our halls with her smile each and and every day congratulations [Applause] Christine congratulations you're very welcome [Applause] haey Larson is a fourth grade teacher who has been teaching at fars school for three years she is recognized for creating a safe inclusive and challenging learning environment for her students she has an innate ability to build students self-esteem while continuing to encourage learning and academic growth one of haly's students stated that she quote wants to work hard in Mrs larsson's class because I respect her as my teacher end quote congratulations Mrs lson unfortunately uh haey Larson could not be with us tonight uh nor could Susan St John because Tanglewood was rescheduled for this evening due to the rain last night so um we're going to celebrate now Mrs Susan St John uh as the Ed specialist of the Year Susan is a self-contained power professional and has been working at farest school for the past 16 years she is recognized for her in inspiring her students to learn by encouraging them to complete their best work while providing the specific support they need to be successful she always looks out for the well-being of her students and treats student with respect and kindness congratulations Mrs St [Applause] John moving on to radburn school Norma Chene is a fourth grade teacher who has been teaching with fom public schools for 15 years her radburn colleagues describe her as a dedicated teacher who goes above and beyond for her students she received an overwhelming number of nominations as a testament to her influence and impact on our school our students and the staff she brings her wisdom and positive Persona to all that she does this is a long overdue honor for a wonderful and dedicated educator congratulations Norma [Applause] Cheryl Solomon is a first grade par professional and has been working with the fairon public schools for six years while at radburn school Cheryl has become an integral part of our school family many describe Cheryl as a kind hardworking individual who builds relationships with the students she serves she is an asset to the school family and is this is a welld deserved recognition and honor for her dedication congratulations [Applause] Kimberly alesio is a preschool integrated teacher who has been teaching at Edison school for four years she is recognized for bringing positive energy to her classroom and a collaborative approach with her colleagues Kim is described as being kind and patient with her students adaptive to their individual needs and build supportive and resp respectful relationships with the parents of her students congratulations Mrs [Applause] Alesia congratulations [Applause] sayaka Stanis better known as misss as she is fondly known by her students and staff at Edison school has been a power professional for three years Miss s began her work in fairon as a substitute in various buildings she is described by her colleagues as patient and thoughtful with a calm demeanor Ms S is always is looking for new and better ways to assist her preschool students with the challenges they face to build them up to maximize their potential congratulations [Applause] mess congratulations congratulations you're allc Laura Clark is a second grade teacher who has been teaching at Warren Point for seven years she is recognized for cultivating a nurturing creative classroom environment that allows all students to succeed and Achieve success she is an adviser to our school newspaper the Elementary Eagle and co-founder of the kindness Club Laura has also spearheaded many Community fundraisers at Warren Point such as the sock drive for the homeless she is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Education at monair State University her colleagues describe her as the type of teacher that makes everyone feel welcome she makes you want to be the best teacher and best person you can be congratulations Mrs Clark [Applause] congratulations [Applause] Laura Sue pay has been at Warren Point for the past three years as a par professional she has been in the district for over 10 years and is recognized for her compassion creativity empathy and intelligence she is an active member of not only the waren Point Community but the Falone Community as well serving on the board of the fairon Athletic Club her colleagues say she has the the knowledge of a veteran teacher and is able to think on her feet and Implement effective strategies at a moment's notice she always finds the strengths of those she is around and works to build their confidence congratulations Mrs Payne [Applause] Victoria Brown has been teaching kindergarten at West Morland school for nine years she is recognized for creating a dynamic and fun learning environment for our youngest students Victoria is an expert at teaching foundational skills which students build upon each year throughout their educational Journey her kindergarten classroom is a vibrant and bright place where students build confidence and their love for learning begins Mrs Brown students describe her as a great teacher who is also like a great friend congratulations Mrs [Applause] Brown you're welcome Katie wisman has served West Morland school as a school psychologist for the past five years Katie is recognized for her comprehensive approach in supporting special education Learners on their educational Journey she maintains open lines of communication with parents and our instructional team to find Creative Solutions which ensures that all students will become successful Katie's colleagues describe her as a very knowledgeable collaborative and caring team member with a sense of humor and a huge heart congratulations Mrs [Applause] wisman at this time we're going to shift gears and congratulate and recognize all of our staff members for 25 years of service to the Falon public schools first Allison borill [Applause] tumer congratulations [Applause] Cheryl [Applause] Korea congratulations [Applause] Lisa [Applause] deia I'm getting my steps in tonight Iona fredman [Applause] congratulations you're welome oh congratulations on that too good for you congratulations [Applause] Kathleen lissy [Applause] Newman cheing section I love it I love it congratulations [Applause] conetta [Applause] Malon practiced congrats you're very welcome [Applause] Matthew [Applause] Markman Christine [Applause] mcspirit Usha Nik Kathy [Applause] sinavage Janice [Applause] sloves good time good for you Mil [Applause] congrats Jane soal [Applause] so there is one more recognition that I do want to make this evening um that is not up here on the list so a few days ago I had a conversation with a very dear member of our team and it's someone who's committed many years to the Fair Lawn public schools in a multitude of roles across many schools and has served this district for well over 20 years and has served the public education in New Jersey for about 35 uh this evening with regret the board will accept the resignation for retirement of Dr lactina and I just want to congratulate than [Applause] and as the new guy in town um I've only been here about six months but what I've seen uh not only from the fair law Community from the parents from our teachers and Educators from our students um from everybody in the community the welcoming team approach inclusive environment to do the best we possibly can for each and every single child and that is the Foundation of this Falon community and Dr lactina is a testament to that and I thank you for everything that you've done to support me and to also support all of our administrators and our teachers and especially our students uh for well over 20 years we are grateful and appreciative of everything that you've done for us and for this community and uh we congratulate you and wish you well in the next chapter of your career thank you at this time I think it would be most appropriate to shift to have our student reports uh and then after that we can then do a brief pause and if folks would like to stay for our stateof our schools presentation this evening you're more than welcome we're going to be here for a while and we have a lot of really exciting interesting information and updates to provide uh if you'd like to depart at that time you can always watch it on YouTube later and uh we'll have a little bit of a break in between so at this point I want to turn it over to M Mayhem thank you Dr dionio so I'd like to welcome Aiden Maloney and Marina Ginsburg from Memorial Middle School Abigail Jones from TJ middle school and welcome to Lindsay Samuels the Fon high school student representative who will be with us for the duration of this school year into next correct welcome um the floor is yours this year long aluminum tap collection event is coming to a thrilling end tomorrow who will emurge Victorious and win a fun activity with the staff will it be the fifth grade the sixth grade the seventh grade or the eighth grade the suspense is unbearable I am here to collect all the tabs you've been collecting do you have a preference for where your stash should go should we boost the fifth sixth seventh or eighth grade chances Choose Wisely our efforts will go to the ramadon house helping them support families and children in need please re remember us as you enjoy your ice cold canned beverages this summer keep saving those tabs who knows maybe next year I'll be back at Board of Education meetings representing fyland High School's aluminum tap collection as I hope to see this initiative there congratulations to our fabulous music department and all the talented students who dazzled US during spring concerts at both middle schools your performances were nothing short of spectacular a huge shout out to our Board of Education and F on friends in music our ever reliable superheroes of the Arts the unwavering support year after year keeps our music programs thriving we couldn't do it without our fantastic collaboration and dedication the carnival this past weekend was a great great Su success not only did our PTO raise lots of money for schoolwide initiatives families and friends were provided the with the opportunity to gather and enjoy each other's company thanks to fundraising efforts of our PTO presid Mrs Leon's and ex executive board students were provided with the opportunity to ride the rides during the school day on Friday at no cost students and teachers in each grade level were provided with just 1 hour of unlimited entertainment and we welcome board members to join us next year for a ride on the Beast you cannot talk Carnival and not acknowledge the efforts of Miss Nicole Welch former TJ parent and PTO president for all she did to organize and facilitate this event even though she no longer has a child at TJ thank you [Applause] on Monday April 29 8th grade students in the Chinese program at Thomas Jefferson and maroya midle schools took a trip to the New York Chinese Scholars Garden they toured an authentic suo style Garden a miniature Paradise inspired by Chinese UNESCO world heritage site classical Gardens of suja the day wasn't just about sightseeing students also learned the art of meditation through traditional inkwash painting inspired by the Serene Garden views they create their own masterpieces on Thursday May 16th Memorial students presented their talents at our Memorial Scot Talent showcase the stage was overflowing with Talent students were singing performing traditional dances and ballet variations playing musical instruments and more Memorial teachers also joined the stage and amazed the audience with their performances a huge shout out to the computer and video production clubs as well as our amazing teachers for why Memorial's Talent shine on Tuesday June 4th TJ's eighth graders are looking forward to their endof year trip to Six Flags Great Adventure our thanks to the PTO for their contributions towards this event yesterday Memorial's eighth grade students put on their game faces for a much anticipated to cat the one the event was legendary and the seventh graders are Eagle to fall suit tomorrow the day kicked off with brain busting trivia and hosu entertaining web sync challenge reviewing our students hidden talents it wasn't all fun in games though academic competitions ban math social studies World languages science and language arts fitness challenges added to the excitement featuring the shop put broad jump 4X 100 Railway and a 50 Y dash our students gave it their all filling the day of sweat cheers and a few sore muscles this morning a huge thank you to all the teachers especially the physical education for making this character education fill day both fun and challenging Mr Co Francesco you outdid yourself again here's to seventh graders who have big shoes to fill tomorrow during the weeks of June 3rd and June 10th Mr Weaver will be visiting with each fourth grade class alms Bradburn and Warren Point for read aloud as part of their transition to Middle School parents will visit TJ on June 5th for an orientation and over the summer our Rising fifth graders will V visit in small groups of 20 for their a day in the life of a fifth grader in 75 minutes or less orientation as the school year wraps up our students have been busy making memories and having a blast here's a quick look at our activities high notes festival at Dorney Park our musical MOS hit all the high notes and roller coasters teen Arts Festival at Bergen Community College a day of artsy fun where creativity knew no bounds fifth grade Circle Line cruise future sewards in the making as they navigate the Waters of New York and while also learning about landmarks both modern and historic New York City bridges and Statue of Liberty and Alis Island sixth grade at Medieval Times toasting night and a feast fit for royalty what could be better seventh grade at Castle Fun Center a day of non-stop fun with many co go-karts and more as for and for our soon to be high scores the eighth grade is going out a bang Bagel breakfast carbs woing for exciting days ahead yearbook signing SC in memories and doodles in each other's yearbooks dance busting moves and making memories on Dance War moving up ceremony celebrating the eighth grade Journey with Pomp and Circumstance trip to R Playland a day of Thrills and Spills at the amusement park trip to West Point honoring points of white recipients with a historic Adventure beach bash Sun Sand and Surf to say goodbye to middle school high school Common Ground getting a taste of what's to come in high school while the eighth graders are webing it up we're also gearing up for the future stars of Middle School on June 5th the current fourth graders from winest forest and West morand will attend our award-winning Common Ground event and Memorial it's a day designed to welcome them with open arms parents don't miss the orientation that evening at the Memorial midle School auditorium prepare to be amazed eighth graders from both Memorial and TJ are scheduled to visit faon high school tomorrow for their annual common ground and a day of Cooperative activities that will begin their exciting transition to high school thank you for the opport for the incredible opportunity to represent our middle schools Marina and I move on to the high school we look forward to staying involved in Sharing more wonderful experiences with you in the future your dedication and support make a world of difference for the schools of Fon and we truly appreciate all that you [Applause] do Lindsay hello everyone as Miss Mahan said earlier my name is Lindsay Samuel I'm a rising Junior uh excuse me Rising senior at ferland high school and I'm honored to be sitting before you as the Board of Education representative of the 2024 to 2025 school year I see several familiar faces that I've encountered at student dialogue meetings during my last three years at the high school and I just want to take this moment to say that it's an honor and privilege to be with you today and I'm thrilled to finally be at a real Board of Education meeting to continue to represent the voices of Fon high school I'm looking forward to working closely with you all in the coming year and now I will begin to share sh with you Brin High School's recent Endeavors so right before Memorial Day Weekend the student government hosted the sgaa and class council elections for our 2024 to 2025 officer positions we look forward to welcoming and working with our new officers in the upcoming school year in addition we're starting to plan for Marathon which is happening on June 14th and 15th if you're interested in donating to Marathon or want more information you can contact Michelle Stern M Stern ferons schools.org the senior class also had a successful prom last night May 29th at the Terrace at Biagio and all of our clubs and Student Activities are winding down for the year and holding various end of Year celebrations as the middle schoolers have mentioned Farland High School is excited to host common ground for eighth grade students tomorrow this is the first shared experience for eighth grade students at both middle schools we're excited to participate in building tours team bonding activities showcasing our Sports and activities and more and on a less exciting note as the school year is coming to a close we're preparing for finals which are starting on June 11th and all in all we've had a successful school year at ferland high school and we're looking forward to continued success the next school year as well thank you thank you to all four of you for joining us tonight I do realize how challenging navigating a schedule at the end of school year can be um at this time we'll take about 3 to four minutes for anyone who'd like to congratulate your colleagues or neighbors or family members in the awards provided tonight as well as to um either move up for our state of the district is that what we're calling it uh state of schools um presentation or quietly sneak out I know it's late e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e if everyone can just circle back to our seats and we will get started oh terrible and they're cold okay [Music] if everyone would just finish up those final photos and then we will get started at this time I will be opening the floor to Dr dionio for the state of our schools presentation I read that um I'm going to ask that our board and those administr administrators sitting at the Das please join us in the front row so that we can see the presentation e mhm good evening so we're going to get started on the uh state of our schools presentation this evening um this presentation will actually be uploaded to the district website tomorrow uh first and foremost I'd like just to thank all of our central office administration our supervisors our administrators everyone uh who contributed to to putting this together not only the presentation that you're going to see this evening but also obviously all of the work the culmination of all of the great work that's happening in our schools each and every single day uh and the spirit and intent of this presentation this evening is really to take a highlevel look and to provide an update to the board and to the public around the status of our district goals so each year the Board of Education and the administ ation establish goals and in a school district um the size of Fon with nearly 35,000 residents 5700 students almost 1,200 staff members 10 schools with one Mission and a $150 million budget all inclusive it's an incredible amount of work that goes into meeting the needs of our students each and every single day so with that we need very clearly articulated shared objectiv that we can go and make sure that we're delivering on actionable plans I did take the Liberty to condense the goals into three and the reason for that is as the board will recall last summer prior to my arrival the board had established three goals and then later in I believe it was March of 24 since I became when I became the superintendent there was a requirement to then establish new goals so I kind of merged them together and you see them here the one goal uh is related to the superintendent entry plan to be able to provide an update for the board of education on my findings over the first 100 school days here in the fairon public schools the second goal uh covers all of the district initiatives uh including but not limited to Career and Technical education and vocation World languages gifted and talented student and staff well-being tier academic systems of support and our student enrollment and capacity study uh progress we will hear a lot on those goals later this evening and we will then talk with Goal number three around the community Leadership Council so actually for the purposes of tonight's presentation I will present in the order of goal one then goal three and then we will shift to goal two so first before we get started uh um just to provide a high level overview of uh the purpose of an entry plan is really to make sure that we're engaging all of the stakeholders within our community prioritizing community building and then leveraging all of the data and resources in order to be able to as new superintendent learn about the community then to also be able to engage and get to know the community members making sure that I'm getting to know our students our staff our parents uh Civic leaders within the community our religious leaders and it's really about listening learning and then leading to be able to make sure I have an opportunity to understand where the needs of the district are and then where we can mobilize all of our time talent and treasure in order to be able to accomplish our goals unlike not unlike any other community and the larger the community the more competing demands you have um there are going to be a lot of people who want us to accomplish a lot of different goals so so that's why it's really important to capture as much voice as possible through the process in being able to navigate all of the competing demands make sense of the information that we're able to hear and then be able to utilize that information to establish actionable steps moving forward so first and foremost as part of the entry plan goal setting is extremely important then stakeholder engagement which I'll briefly talk about along with how we collected data and analyzed it and then how we're going to now prioritize actions moving forward little small for you to probably be able to see here but the stakeholder engagement part on the leftand side just talks about how we actually engaged our stakeholders so I met with approximately 40 administrators supervisors and staff members through what I call lunch and learn sessions where our staff members prepared a SWAT analysis the strengths the weaknesses the opportunities the threats or tweaks to their Department schools to make me aware of the areas that are really critically important so that way I can best understand how to support them in their schools and their departments those those uh those times with those staff members was incredibly powerful and useful we created focus group sessions with parents uh we created point of Pride walkthroughs in each of our schools and each of our departments walking through classrooms getting to meet teachers and getting to be with all of our staff members and our students we did Schoolhouse visits and then we did parent coffee and conversations all inclusive um I've had the great Fortune of meeting with over a hundred parents oneon-one or in focus groups incredibly powerful and all of those interpersonal sessions are incredibly useful but certainly does not capture the whole Community with 35,000 residents uh and with all of the students and parents in our community which is where thought exchange came in and thought exchange was incredible incredibly helpful in allowing us to leverage the technology to be able to hear the voice of folks in our schools so we're going to talk about that in a little while and then setting the priorities within our schools really taking a look at seeing what the data says to us and then what we need to do in order to be able to move forward phase one was my transition uh from August to October phase two was the entry my first three months on the job and phase three was now the most recent three months to really try to coales all of the information and be able to make sense of it by meeting with our team members these were just the three goals that were established first building trusting relationships with our Board of Education uh being able to Foster open communication with our stakeholders and our community and then being able to lastly as our third goal celebrate the wonderful things that are going on in the fair laone public schools and then being able to identify where the share objectives are to be able to understand where we need to go next so this is a word wall that came out of actually thought exchange I think it's a a really great photo picture that really encapsulates um some of the sense of where the community is at through the thought exchange platform as you can see there are some large words and there are some small words the larger the word the more often the comments were made in thought exchange and and the more often they were rated as popular comments the smaller the word still very relevant um but you could see comparatively speaking you'll also notice that they're colorcoded similar words similar themes so thought exchange will actually create a themed pattern where there's commonality so things that are green for example bathrooms and the word improve demonstrates to us that and we'll talk a little bit about it later what the feedback was you specifically there that we can use Renovations and maintenance and support in our restroom facilities that they need an upgrade so those are the kinds of things that we can really glean from the feedback from our community so you could see um also a little small but you can see here how many participants we actually had uh through thought exchange that we would never be able to capture with Focus groups in one-on-one meetings so as you can see here we had 2,423 participants on thought exchange That's Unique participants in our community we had 2,186 thoughts and all of those people rated that demonstrates a high level of Engagement in thought exchange within our community as a very valuable tool you can see here what our participant groups were so out of the 20 some on 100 uh folks that participated in thought exchange 1,297 were students 468 were parents 582 were faculty and staff and then there's a sprinkling of smaller groups naturally so our board of education is in there and obviously we have nine members so relatively speaking you see um the pie chart there and how it's laid out so on the overarching themes um the the five big themes that came from thought exchange were a focus on academic Excellence um these are all the key takeaways as really uh positive shared objectives within the school district school spirit diversity and inclusion facilities and infrastructure and staff and teacher support so those were the specific areas that were the top five themes that were identified within the thought exchange survey that we conducted specifically here we've broken down those five themes into six different areas and these are the areas that we will now continue to take a look at as an administrative team and we will bring that feedback to the Board of Education around the six top priorities and then underneath each of those major priorities there are either two or three um specific action steps that we can take I'll preface it by saying this a lot of this work we're already doing it's just that the community has stated and emphasized that these are priorities that they want us to continue to support so they've given us very specific feedback and with thought exchange we're able to really analyze that data and be able to do a deep dive to really tease out a lot of the specific feedback that the the community has um shared with us so we can glean some additional insights and this information is going to be helpful so we can establish what our new District goals are going to be for the 2024 2025 school year so first enriching student experience you can see there numbers one and number two school spirit and Real World Learning in real world learning making sure that we're continuing to take a look at how we can take what our student students are learning in the classroom and then applications to the real world right through their careers through Community opportunities the second major theme creating supportive structures one of the areas that really came out was that we they would like us to take a look at our high school school start time that the current start time is too early and to have us examine what the research says and if there's a possibility of taking a look at what that could look like moving forward uh special education continuing to engage our teachers and therapists with input on placement and support for our special education students taking a look at our code of conduct and our policies and procedures and then our last major theme here with preparing for the future something that will look very familiar is Career and Technical education that popped up as a major priority for um our community from our parents from our students and from our staff continuing to take a look at opportunities uh for our students to pursue uh paths that are beyond the traditional College path uh for Career and Technical education and along the lines of preparing for the future while we already engage with financial literacy there was an appetite there for more engagement with financial literacy so students can be prepared for the real world the last three overarching goals creating inclusive environments uh initiatives around anti-bullying inclusive environments cultural celebrations diversity and inclusion uh the fifth goal supporting academic Excellence uh taking a look at areas for study skills where we can have opportunities there for our students and more staff collaboration through professional learning communities or what we call plc's and last but not least supporting our student well-being um those are the facility improvements specifically around restrooms um mental health awareness continuing with the great efforts that the school district has taken uh over the past 10 years and continuing to build upon that foundation and also making sure that we're prioritizing our staff Wellness as well so that is an update on the uh superintendent entry plan I'll be providing more detailed information on that but this is just a highlevel overview um and the board will be receiving some more specific reports that you can peruse and do a deeper on your own as you see fit now I'd like to shift our attention to the third goal and that was the goal around the community Leadership Council and this was a goal that came up a couple months ago back in I would say January or February and it was an initiative that I discussed with our team around bringing together members of our community to address um the foundation that we've established in the Falon Public Schools uh for supporting diversity Equity inclusion making sure that we have a positive and inclusive environment for all of our students and to bring stakeholders together in order to be able to discuss where our strengths currently exist what we're doing really well what plans we have for the future and then what other ideas and voices do our community members have so I'm very proud and happy to share that we have an amazing team we had an amazing meeting today with 25 members of our community we had our first Community leadership council meeting um some of the people including board members who are here with us this evening were in that room today and our administrators and staff um we had about 25 people as I mentioned we had students we had uh religious leaders across numerous religious backgrounds uh Faith leaders within our community we had a number of parents we had our staff uh we had just a really great cross-section of community members we're going to have our next meeting in SE probably late September um we're going to be soliciting more feedback from the stakeholders that participated today but it was a very wonderful spirited conversation where we had each of our schools um our elementary middle and high school along with our supervisory departments in social studies uh multilingual Learners World Language music department special education um social studies uh Ela English language arts present and provide an update on the status of the work that we do through our curriculum through our assemblies through all of the programs that have been established in the district and we had an opportunity for our parents and students and Civic and religious leaders to be able to engage with us to give us feedback on that uh and to also be able to share ideas so we're looking forward to many more of these meetings be able to share the progress that we're making and really the purpose of the community Leadership Council is to create an opportunity to create a forum in order for folks to be able to share information for us to get insights in order to then bring back to our team and make decisions moving forward so I'm going to now shift over and pass the Baton to Dr lactina to take us through the next portion of our presentation good evening everybody I'm going to walk you through some of our district goals and initiatives that we've been working on this year the first one is Career and Technical education um and we have done a great deal of work on this throughout the year we currently have three programs our architecture and construction child care and finance and we have held multiple meetings with the advisory groups throughout the school year um we have several more coming up for each of those programs we began to develop our child care courses we had two courses that were run this year and we're really happy to announce that we have doubl the enrollment requests for these courses for next year um our current e8th 9th and 10th graders to Career inventories in navian and our current 11th and 12th graders also use these navian inventories to help them with their postsecondary planning which is very important for our students uh we are going to continue to have ongoing discussions about possible CTE expansion to other programs one such possibility is vocational theater we have many courses already in place and um we may be able to very easily create another program um in that way and then we also have our Global Logistics and supply chain that's going to start in September um some additional um action items that took place this year is we um we worked with other agencies to talk about career Pathways that would be especially valuable for our students and lucrative and many of these discussions took place within those advisories committees we were able to bring our students in architecture and construction to some onsite um locations they went to go see a dam project that was being built uh they went to the Interstate Park commission they talked about the possibility of engaging in doing some storefront Improvement right within the town our child care students did some internships in daycare centers and preschools and they also helped in our elementary schools and our finance students went to various on-site meetings including uh meeting with Bankers to discuss what the market demand is for very specific jobs so that's been very beneficial for our programs this year um if we in the future decide that we need to create new buildings or physical spaces for any future programs we will need to meet with our Architects and talk about those types of things but right now we are able to handle the programs that we currently have um we are going to continue to create course outlines for any other possible programs such as the vocational theater um and we are also always having ongoing discussions with our advisors in our advisory meetings about any other industry partners that we can continue to work with for student placements um we met with our finance and uh or I'm sorry we met with the education committee meeting uh members on December 7th uh where we presented on the global logistics and supply chain there was no real budget impact that we needed to discuss with any of those programs um we also did a survey of our students and I'm going to go into more detail about that in a little bit uh to ask them about their interest in possible CTE as well as vocational programs and then uh we are right now in the middle of completing our annual needs assessment and we will be creating um and filling out the application which comes out in June or July in case we want to apply for future programs and just a picture of some of our students in uh New York at Bank of America uh where they got to sit in a conference room and speak with some of the bankers um during one of their field trips I'm going to ask uh Mrs de Franco to come on up sorry I gotta move this like almost to the floor um so I have the lovely pleasure of speaking about maintaining staff and student well-being um this was a continuation goal from our previous year it resonated really well not only with our staff which I think was the second hot this was the number one I think for staff number two for students when we were uh trying to rate um District goals and when we had sent the survey out so it was exciting to bring it back again but with a couple of uh enhancements um which I will speak about uh this evening um just on here can I move this forward on here okay okay just in case thank you I might need a little backup on that um so we continued our districtwide committee um we sent out an email this year and I was very excited to find out that all of our committee members who were on the committee last year said yes they would return so that's always a welcoming um uh kind of um exercise there were 25 staff members and we met twice this year last year we met so many more times but since we kind of got it down pat thanks to the efforts of the committee and we had a trial run last year we were able to establish a more kind of seamless process for this year um part of what we were talking about in terms of Wellness was not only our student and sta uh student and staff Wellness day but also to expand that a bit to make sure that we were covering what we needed to in terms of um District uh policy and procedure and state of New Jersey guidelines and also expanding that to student behavior and student safety as well you'll see that last year we appr approved our school threat teams and on our next agenda you'll see them again for June this is a requirement by the state of New Jersey and also something that we want to keep in our building to keep students and staff safe so that we have a forum where if there is any atrisk Behavior where a student might be in crisis or in need we could properly assess that and work to provide intervention for that student um moving uh into that um we created a workflow for staff to follow so that if they received any sort of risk or risk statement they knew what process to follow that was expanded upon this year and presented at our on our ped days in October and January and also with the approval of the Board of Education last year we implemented our Gaggle online system which is an online uh which tracks student um information and responses on our Microsoft and Google platforms um it has been uh very powerful in Catching student statements um that they might be writing that could be harmful or and we've been able to intervene as a district and provide that kind of care to make sure that they are not a danger to sell for others and it has also been a good way for us to track what students are talking about where we might need to intervene in terms of our education and also our SE L curriculum and we have a pattern where um it could be a high crisis situation a medium crisis situation a lower crisis situation and our building ad administrators along with myself Dr dionio and the director of secur of security filter out um which kind of um atrisk behaviors or flags that come up on this system need further intervention okay um very excited to announce that we offered this year thanks to our dedicated staff um de-stress to play your best which was small groups for our student athletes this was also expanded to other kind of high stress situation or groups um which related to student testing or high anxiety situations um thankful to my uh High School staff it are for running that and um es especially Val Pascal for doing that it was extremely powerful for our students middle school students received small group lessons this year from the school counseling department that was initiated by Miss Brenda Gupta we started push in lessons last year and this year but we also expanded that um to how to be an upstander um if you were new to the district and also created lunch bunches and our Falon high school salal committee has just been amazing in terms of uh providing more uh curriculum Rich feedback for us um as the year went on now to staff Wellness day we decided to expand the time of that a little bit people felt a little bit Rush last year we're going to talk about that on the next uh slide and we also kept our student wellness committees in order to develop our student wellness Day activities each school had Friday wellness events and we were able to hold our staff Wellness day let me see if I could get this brochure up for you this is what we did for staff Wellness day it's not projecting well maybe I'll send it an email it's okay but wish you could see it because we did a neon theme this year thank you to uh Mrs D for coming up with the neon theme it was very well received um and it ended up being a really uh exciting day let's see if the I don't know if the video will work but we'll see um we also had our contracted agenes effective School Solutions and care plus give PD um and also uh do push in groups and lessons at the secondary level I really thank um our middle school principls for organizing a uh assembly with the Bergen County division of Human Services it gave um information about teen dating violence and um uh harassment uh we also partnered with the fairon Board of Health to provide a speaker series on opioid use and congrats to the student wellness uh committee at the high school because they organized a wellness fair that was all for our students and we'll a start planing press forward this was this is a sample of our student wellness activities Elementary and Middle School level that only captures a very small sample of the kind of Wellness activities that were completed and I just want to let you know that in a couple of those pictures sure students were actually leading those activities leading the yoga series uh leading the scavenger hunt so that just really bolds well for their future and their confidence and here was our fairon high school student wellness Fair um various community members came in to Showcase what they could offer in terms of Martial Arts yoga volunteering in the community different clubs showcased uh different events that they were able to um uh provide um you know interaction and just connections to our community the students just loved it and more pictures there was a karate chopping board Mr Gorski participated in that he did a wonderful job and here's our staff Wellness day um just a sampling of all of diff the different events Arts cooking um we had uh we had our uh High School administration do a repeat a little bit of a different of a segue from dumpling dudes last year to Smash Brothers this year so thank you to Mr aelo and Dr hesny that was really a lot of fun and also physical fitness activities crafting activities and thank you to the wellness team um who really pulled it together all of uh the people on the committee and they were just so excited and so happy to do this and they gave their time so I really thank them and I really thank everybody that was involved okay okay um one of our next initiatives and District goals was the tiered academic systems of support and throughout the year we had multiple uh professional development opportunities for our staff in the area of giftedness as well as the area um of need and support um so all ends of the spectrum you can see that in August and September um November January we had all kinds of training whether it was with dibles which is an assessment of early literacy skills um what is giftedness differentiation um and how to create different tiered structures of support for our students uh again we provided that professional development throughout the year we worked with some outside consultants and our supervisors especially of ela and Mathematics did a great deal of work with their literac coach coaches um in a variety of areas whether it was with our hegerty phonics program um creating opportunities for students in their personal learning time as well as in their math time in order to address the individual needs of students in small groups um and so we developed a vision of what we believed an mtss structure or process should look like um we looked at our current practices um and made suggestions for improvement we took a look at our fifth and sixth grade specifically in the area of math uh we created a math Cadre so a team of teachers that got together and worked with our math supervisor they created uh various opportunities to again Focus specifically on certain skills that students were struggling with um we did math mixer groups where teachers shared students for different skills they created did common materials that all of our teachers could use um they also did Flex Fridays uh which allowed the teachers a little bit of flexible time to address again areas of need right within the classroom um and we also put turn and talk practices in place we created new protocols for dibles for grade one um we worked with our special education department under the guidance of Mrs DeFranco um and they created um some new protocols for reading portfolios in our K through four lld classes and resource room classes so this is going to be an ongoing process it's not something that can be completed in one year it is ongoing we targeted some specific grade levels and areas this year and we will be continuing that work throughout the summer um and into next year um we did much of this work if you wanted to take a look at it later we did this uh data analysis work work and identifying our small groups at faculty meetings and grade level meetings so now I'm going to move on to the student survey that we provided um so I'm going to talk to you about the results of the student survey that was given to our students in grades 5 through 12 asking about their interest in uh World languages so our um World Language supervisor Liliana Lopez reviewed This research that was conducted in 2019 where they reached out to over 12200 businesses small medium and large businesses across a variety of different occupations and and business topics um I guess and um they asked them are you in need of people that speak uh World Language and if so what is that need um so because I cannot see that far um um if you look at the right hand side of this document you can see that nine out of 10 um of the employees that were surveyed said they have a a great need for their employees to speak languages other than English Spanish was the one that was one of the highest um by far and there's also quite a large gap in the employees that they can find that are able to speak Spanish um Chinese was next followed by French Japanese German Russian Arabic Italian Korean Hindi and Portuguese interestingly the three languages that are in the greatest demand according to this research are the three that we currently offer our students here in Falon so Spanish Chinese and French um so when we put together the survey we asked our students about these languages because we know that they are the ones that are in demand when the stud students go on to their careers we also included American Sign Language and we also included Hebrew um in the survey so the results of that survey um we asked the question in which language course would you most likely um enroll and you can see what the results are that shows you the percentages of students that said oh well my first choice of a language would be Spanish with 26.8% of our students saying that's the language we would want to um we would want to take as a first choice followed by Italian American Sign Language Russian Hebrew French and so on then we said well if that language choice is not available what would be the next language you would want to choose once again their second choice um was hold on I'm sorry did not Advance um again Spanish came at the top followed by Italian American Sign Language French Russian Japanese German Etc and then we asked them a third question and said well if neither of those languages are available what would be your third choice and here it was a little bit um different than our other um qu two questions and Italian Rose to the top followed closely by ASL and French and then Spanish followed by Japanese Russian German Etc but what we really wanted to do is we wanted to take a look across all of those choices right so we can see their first second and third choices but we wanted to come up with a way to say well what were the most frequently requested or um popular language choices so what we did was we ranked um we we did a weighted count of the language choices so any time a language was chosen as somebody's first choice they got three points if somebody mentioned a language as their second choice it got two points and when a language was mentioned as somebody's third choice it got one point and then we you know did the math so 10 students said I want to take Spanish as a first choice we multiplied it by three right got 30 and and we did that for for each of the weighted um counts and so here you can see the weighted counts which gives us a little bit of a a broader look at again what were those answers that kept coming up time and time again whether it was a first second or third choice by far no surprise after you saw the other results Spanish came up followed by Italian American Sign Language French Russian Japanese Hebrew German Arabic other languages that were not included on this um Korean Portuguese polish Ander in Chinese and Hindi I'm going to talk to you now about coding and computer science very exciting we've done some great work in this area throughout the year uh we were very fortunate to hire a consultant to help work with our teachers in K through 12 any teachers that teach teach any coding or computer science in the district um were at two separate PD days the first PD day our consultant and our supervisors um were present and it was a full day to talk about what is coding um we talked about some uh general information about computer science um and then we broke down into more grade level specific activities on Subs PD days um so again just so engaging teachers got so much out of it and we're so excited to come back and work with Jason um we were able to have our consultant review our curriculum give us feedback um and ideas about how to maybe better articulate from grades K through 12 um and again the professional development um sessions were held initially in January and February but we have continued those into April and May and we are going to continue to provide support to our teachers as needed to ensure that the new units and the new equipment that we're going to be using um is that they feel comfortable implementing that come September so again over the summer we are going to continue to work on those curricular revisions provide any professional development as needed we are going to be implementing our new course at the high school programming with python CP that will start in September and we're going to continue to look into other possible courses that we can offer to continue to bolster the coding and computer science offerings here in faon so some of the things that you know we were throwing around were do we do a cyber security type of a course um you know what else can we do uh in this area and you'll see that there's some connections to our CTE when we asked students what they were interested in and you'll see that computer science did come up so a lot of this is definitely intertwined um uh when we look at those results and again you can just see that is our consultant and our teachers working on some ozobots and some other um micro bits and things during the PD session I'm going to talk quickly about after school enrichment as you know this is the second year that we are offering after school enrichment programs for our elementary school students uh so thanks to the support of the board uh we are able to split those costs with our families so based on feedback from last year's survey we got a lot of feedback that wow art would be a really great thing for us to offer our students so we were able to contract with abrac doodle who offered some art classes to our students we continued the relationship with code ninjas to do some coding work and we continue to work with mad science to do stem based sessions and activities this is just showing you across the schools the numbers of students that participated in each of those sessions for each of those um contracted um activities and then the other thing that I thought was interesting to share with you was um you know based on our agreements and based on the funds that we had you can see what the total possible attendance was for each of those offerings and how many students actually enrolled so um abracadoodle we did not have full enrollment and we did not have full enrollment in code ninjas you'll notice however in Mad Science that we actually enrolled more students than we had space for and that's because we had already finished with abracadoodle and code ninjas we had funds still available that were never used so we were able to um say to Mad Science if you've got the staff we've got the funds and we've got the students so um let us know if you can help us out and they were able to help us out so we were able to obviously enroll more students in Mad Science than we had first anticipated um so we have the parent feedback survey ready to go um I'm going to be sending that out to our elementary principal so that they can share that with all of our parents it's not just for parents whose students attended the programs but it's to get feedback um from all of our parents because maybe they were or some that wanted to enroll but couldn't and so we we just want to hear from all of our parents if they're interested in giving us that feedback and then based on that again we will decide what the future is for next year gifted and talented I'm going to invite Kelly D um to come on up and and join me um Kelly is instrumental um our Lin Crest principal is instrumental in in helping with our gifted and talented program she really oversees all that nitty-gritty detail stuff with this program she works very closely with our four gifted and talented teachers and we presented during our audit presentation in September we shared with you what our timeline was um and so we are going to share on the progress that we made um on the gifted and talented so again to reiterate we provided professional development for our staff about giftedness we developed curriculum guides for all of our current courses and we put those up in Atlas um we also were able to develop District gifted and talented vision and mission statements with a group of parents and administrators and teachers and um it was a great day and we were able to um really collaborate over the course of a couple of months on what that should look like we were able to Define all of the gifted and talented services at each of these tiers and I'm going to let Mrs D share that with you on the next couple of slides um we met with the education budget committee to talk about what kind of additional funds we might need for our new and improved gifted and talented programs and so we did request $20,000 additional in supplies and also testing materials because one of the audit recommendations was to use the full battery coat just the screener and to also use some additional creativity tests so we needed some funds to be able to purchase some of those standardized assessments um we are in the process of um redesigning the criteria multiple measures will still be used although some of those measures will be different in some instances and we have our consultant Marth Thomas coming back to meet with a team there are 19 um Educators uh across the district that volunteer to be part of our identification committee so we are going to go through a full day of training on June 12th where we will learn this new more holistic process of identifying students for the various tiers of programs that are being offered uh so that's coming up on June 12th and then we want to obviously do a presentation for our parents we didn't want to schedule it yet because we don't have that full view of the the criteria and eligibility which will be a huge question from our parents so at the very least we're going to be creating um a video that we can put online for parents so once we have all the information we're going to create a video um we might um have Mr Gorski come and help um narrate that because he's got a great voice for those kinds of things and uh we're going to put that on our website for parents to see and we will make sure we do in person presentations in September we will do the identification in September so we're not really going to start the programs till October 1st so there's time for us to be able to still present in more detail to our families okay and uh again over the summer we're just going to continue working on our website develop our handbook for gifted and talented um and then in the fall we're going to be implementing the new programs and services um our vision Mission if you want to take a moment to just take a quick look um this was a collaborate effort Again by that team of Educators and parents and administrators um we really feel like it reflects the values and what we hold dear here in Falon about um not just gifted and talented students but about supporting all of our students creating enriching opportunities for whole class instruction as well as for for the identified students so you will see within our vision and Mission that there are some opportunities for all students opportunities for some students and then you've got tier three which are those opportunities for those truly gifted students um that need more than we can provide even in the first two tiers Misty thank you so as Dr lactina said receiving all of that feedback from the audit that we had with Dr Thomas in collaboration with our gift and talented Specialists who have been on all of these PD opportunities we really used all of that information to revise these tiers um to be able to really meet the needs of our gifted Learners so tier one is where we provide programming for all of our students so our gifted and talented teachers are pushing into classrooms and providing whole class learning opportunities um and that coupled with the differentiation that's happening every day our classroom which is actually something that was really commended throughout the audit that our our classroom teachers are doing an excellent job on differentiating within regular classroom tier two is the opportunity for some of our Learners this is where we identify some pullout opportunities um for our students in grades K through six for our literacy seminars our math seminars with a strict academic Focus where we see students that are performing above their peers in that area and need a little more than differentiation within the classroom also our gifted and talented teachers have time where they can collaborate with classroom teachers to really talk about the needs of their students and our gifted and talented teachers can provide the support and resources to meet those Learners within the classroom and then tier three is where we see the majority of our revisions to our gifted and talented program this is where we are going to be providing support for few identified Learners we'll be identifying um really that small population of gifted Learners and pulling them out and giving them opportunities that will enhance their learning but also meet some of their social emotional um learning opportunities with like-minded peers so we know that from from the research that there there are needs in executive functioning there may be needs in social emotional learning um so all of those affective needs we have some Choice exceptional Learners and we'll be able to meet their needs through this pullout um that we are going to be providing um all we kept hearing from our gifted and talented teachers and from our parents is time we want more time for our gifted and talented students and this tier three will allow for that as well as type two being expanded to a full year of services for our students not just trimester based opportunities I'm glad that Mrs D highlighted that those are you know probably the the largest changes to the gifted and talented program is the seminars that we used to offer as sort of our gifted programs has dropped down to tier two so that will be um more of an enrichment type of a program for students that show those relative strengths in math Andor literacy um where as the tier three services it's not necessarily just math or literacy it could be something you know that's science related or art related and again we're very happy that we're able to expand the program uh for a full year so um more to come on all of this as it continues to develop and again just a couple of pictures of students engaging in some uh g&t activities and the final uh portion for me this evening um are the results of the community service survey that was given to our students so we spoke with the high school students um via the survey and asked them do you parti iate in community service either in the school or out of the school and you can see that 47% of our students that are in the high school and this was given to all of our high school students during the school day so they all participated um unless they were absent that day and 47% of our students said yes we are already participating in school or non-school related community service most of our students that were participating in school-based volunteers is M um said uh for almost 50% of them said I I do that through one school activity um and another 31% perform that through two different activities um and then you do have some students that are involved in you know three four or five activities in the school that um that encourage them or enable them to do community service again about 70% of our students um 75 % of our students that were surveyed say they perform between one and 20 hours of community service per year and again you'll notice that there are places where students do more than that and then we ask them what about outside of school um how many activities are you involved in through Civics groups like scouting or religious groups um or other um venues um so outside of school again very similar about 75% our students said one or two activities is what I'm involved in outside of school but interestingly when you look at the information from outside of school activities you can see that you know you've got quite a large percentage of our students that are performing over 50 hours of community service outside of school um with a again a Civics group or a religious group or with their families um so there's again a lot of students participating both in our school and and outside of our school in a variety of activities um which encourage them to perform community service we asked students when they complete their community service hours and again no shock after school week nights over the summer weekends um a few do it over their school vacation and then we asked well what benefits do you receive from performing community service and we had almost 40% of our students say you know it just really feels good to help other people um followed quickly by you know it really helps enhance my application for colleges or other activities um it helps me a requirement whether that's an outside of school activity or an in school activity they're often doing it to meet some type of requirement and 16% of our students say well you know what my family really encourages volunteerism um so we have students that are doing volunteer work with their families as well and then finally we asked students so what are the challenges of Performing community service and you can see that 64% of our students said it is really difficult to find the time to volunteer because I have so many other commitments um and then we had another almost 30% say I'd like to but I'm just not sure where to start that that whole process students also told us that it's challenging for them to find the actual volunteer opportunities some students also said that it's difficult for them to get to those opportunities they it's hard to get a ride there and then you had 19.4% of students that said you know I'm just not interested in volunteering um so we thought it was important to just try to get a handle on what are our students already doing um where are they performing these activities um what are the benefits and the challenges I'm going to invite Mrs puso up to continue so for the final portion of this presentation this evening we are going to talk a little bit about our student um enrollment within fairon student enrollment has has been a topic that has been widely discussed previously and it has even resulted in several referendums so tonight we're going to talk about some of that history our current trends and planning for the future when we think about why we analyze student enrollment there's a couple key areas that we really want to consider so student enrollment is essential to how we allocate our resources within our school district especially from a budget perspective from a teaching and support staff to um our educational supplies and then even on operational scale with planning of Transportation all of these things are based on our student population so during our budget process which you just recently heard me talk at length about um we were closely analyzing our current Staffing curriculum programmatic Deeds um as well as our students Services support resources and then how are we going to allocate all of these resources based on those programmatic needs and specific educational requirements so lastly we talk about strategic planning and how that encompasses all of the areas to develop a long-term plan that will be able to meet the goals and objectives of our district so what we did here was we really tried to analyze the past five years so previously there was already a demographic study that was completed within fair laon so the enrollment increase right now from 2018 through the present we are up about approximately 360 students so the previous referendum was designed to account for the projected increase in students that is currently moving from our elementary school population to our secondary schools the demographic analysis that was completed in our 2122 school year anticipated a shortage of seating in three elementary schools which are Forest Mills and Warren Point as well as Thomas Jefferson Middle School and fairon High School by the year 2027 with this information we have closely monitored our enrollment Trends as well as our program expansion throughout the district it is important to note that enrollment is not just based on students moving into fairon or people having larger families a big part of enrollment is the expansion of our educational programs those can be gifted and talented they can be special needs so we really need to take that into consideration when we're talking about enrollment capacity and what that means for our district and our buildings um during our 2425 budget process the administration had a large focus on current and projected enrollment because we want to make sure that we are always having um adequate staffing needs for our students those Staffing um needs were really analyzed from the scheduling perspective as well as what our projected enrollments will be for kindergarten and things of that nature the enrollment trends for the elementary schools are displayed again over the past five years and they show a peak in the 1819 school year as well as 1920 since that time frame all of our elementary schools have decreased in enrollment with the exception of radburn and West Morland elementary school radburn elementary school has steadily increased on a on an average of 28 students per year from 2021 through 2024 and West Morland has increased an average of nine students for that time period it was important for us to use the data from 2021 through 2024 because as many of you remember we did a shift and moved our fifth grade into our middle schools so we wanted to make sure that none of our numbers were skewed the largest variable when analyzing the elementary schools is obviously our kindergarten enrollment so we do take this into consideration when we're planning for our budget and we're thinking about Staffing this year we just approved four additional teachers in total at West Morland Warren Point and Mills uh we that does not mean we will hire all of those teachers but it does mean that we are preparing for what the kindergarten registration process could be because right now we don't have a full picture we really won't have that full picture unfortunately until August so we want to make sure that we're prepared for whatever comes our way the district also keeps in mind that we do try and and project our class sizes is well maintaining about 21 students per class as we move on to the enrollment trends for our secondary level you'll see that that bubble I just mentioned from 1819 and 1920 has now hit our secondary schools so the years 2021 through 2024 our secondary level schools have all seen an increase due to that Elementary population moving through and graduating to the middle and high schools as noted in the demographic study there has been sufficient capacity to support the increase of students to this point which is largely in part why those referendums were completed to uh be able to sustain the elementary bubble that was going to move through Memorial Middle School has seen an average increase of five students per year from 21 projected through 2025 and Thomas Jefferson has seen an increase of of an average of nine students per year for the same set of years the high school however has seen an average of 39 students per year from 2021 and projected through 2025 the reason why we use the projected years at the secondary levels is because we can actually move the students up right we know exactly how many students are going to graduate from 8th grade and move into the high school or from fourth grade and move into the middle schools so we have a little bit of a better idea when it comes to our Trend analysis at the secondary level and from a budget perspective an additional six period um I'm sorry additional six period stiens were allocated at the middle and high school to address educa educational needs as well as um a full-time Spanish and special education teacher at Memorial School okay so the question that everyone is asking what is next um so we're going to talk a little about a little bit about our timelines um one thing that I have been very passionate about is completing our districtwide facility assessment and I'm really excited that um with the board support and Dr dionio we have started that process that really lays the groundwork for everything we're going to do moving forward so that timeline is from April to December 2024 uh that will give us a digital webbased facility assessment that we will use to prioritize all of our projects it'll give us budget budgetary estimates which we will then be able to utilize some of those capital reserve funds that have come up pretty frequently in our financial conversations we are going to pair that districtwide facility with an updated demographic analysis and capacity study so when we talk about our demographic analysis that encompasses what the future is and the capacity is really going to focus on those educational progr programs we just spoke about so a lot of times a district will utilize these two studies side by side so that when they are making long-term plans the Department of Education will ask okay where are your enrollment numbers if you would like to build an addition you do need a demographic study to support those types of facility enhancements um and from that perspective we will then move on to the prioritization of Capital project planning so the first thing that we want to do is obviously I identify what our immediate and Urgent health and safety needs are things are like boilers that need to be replaced or masonary work Paving um all the things that are not very attractive to our community members uh once we have that information from that facility assessment obviously we'll we'll pair that with enrollment so we'll really take a deep dive into what our our programmatic needs are because that is a large part of our capacity issues and needs for the future and then we're also going to dive into those areas that we are seeing an upti an uptick in student population which are radburn West Morland the high school um we'll really have our de demographer focus in on those areas and uh see if we can get a comprehensive idea of why those schools are seeing the increase that they are and as we do complete these two important studies we will be providing the community with updates along with presentations that will be given from our professional team and now I will turn it over to Dr dionio he will be answering all the questions this evening okay this is the opportunity for the board if the board has any questions yes that would be great as Mayan we can have all the board members return to their seats so that way you have your microphones and then I'll I'll be happy to uh we can actually all return to our seats I'll have it do that way okay so this is an opportunity for if the board has any questions regarding any part of the presentation then uh Miss manuso Miss DeFranco Dr lactina and myself we be happy to elaborate on on any of it um I just like to thank uh everyone on the administrative team again for all of their work and effort you can see there's an incredible amount of progress going on here in our district um what we also do hope to establish moving forward in the future is a regular Cadence of smaller presentations because as you can see there's a lot to capture and a lot of these topics are items that we've been discussing over the past few months with our committee meetings and that the board has questions about and that we want to be able to share out uh and we think that establishing uh presentations on a smaller scale every month or every other month would be very fruitful for our conversations uh and also much more palatable to be able to digest so um I'll turn it over to miss Mayhan and the board if you have any questions regarding any of the parts of the presentation I will open the floor for questions is vich Dr berini thank you for the wonderful presentation I have a couple of questions uh has the ad uh during the education committee we heard about the languages and I wanted to know can the administration make a chart to determine what percent of our students take Spanish what percent of our students take French and what and what percent of our students take Chinese to determine whether we're currently what we have can the administration do that so we can see what percent of our students actually are taking the language that we're currently that's easy enough for us to be able to bring back to the education committee okay so okay great is the python a halfe course or a full year course that's a full year course okay great I have another question is I know that rgar and a lot of other colleges have a a uh computer science boot camp program in which they do like a 10 months where every and after that this the person can get a job making 60 70,000 a year and they really don't need a college education that's what they they can code basic coding I assume is there way as one of our CT program we can look into actually creating something like that so obviously we would do freshman through um seniors or even Middle School starter students to get the concept of coding so that by the time they graduate our high school they can get a certificate of something same thing that redgear provide that they can actually be coded ERS would that be something Administration can make be can look into I think uh with the work that you heard Dr lactina present on and the progress around coding there's a lot of initiatives and areas that the committee has explored so uh I think anytime we have opportunities to explore that meets our needs and aligns with our current curriculum um that's something that will we'll look into so your comments noted and the last thing is for the past couple of years we've been doing only three enrichment classes I was wondering if it could be expanded into four enrichment classes for next year because every year they say let's give it a chance let's do two three can we try to do four so that at least once a ye once a week a student for a full year has an opportunity to do some enrichment are you talking about the elementary a school enrichment yes so if you'll recall during the budget process we actually did uh slightly increase that account uh from a budgeting standpoint so we did allocate more funds uh what you'll also find is from the numbers that Dr lactina shared this evening we actually had more seats available than actually parents took advantage of which is why we then diverted some of those funds to the Mad Science Program uh so we did already budget for that for next year so hopefully the parents will be able to sign up and we'll be able to expand our offerings for our students thank you Dr berini I won't take said that was double uh very briefly I just want to thank the four five presenters including the Lin Crest principal who smartly left for the evening you did a wonderful job was very detailed it just shows the great work that's going on in the Fairland school so thank all the four of you that are here tonight thank you anyone else floor is closed this is the public comments on agenda items only please limit your questions at this time to agenda items please provide your name and municipality in which you reside and sign in comments are limited to three minutes this is not a dialogue between the speaker and the board all comments are taken at once and when complete the board president or District administration will respond as best they can the floor is open that's fine okay yes yes uh very briefly it's not a question it's a comment thank you for the wonderful presentation very detailed very nice uh indeed would be great to uh do it kind of smaller chunks in the future I completely agree special thank you for improvement of the reach program uh many of you know it's my kind of one of my passions one of several uh I specifically thrilled that your two will be expanded uh I'm sorry uh I'm thrilled that your two will be expanded for the full year this is absolutely great and I'm looking forward to next month's presentation about the details of the reach program and my name is Vladimir kkin Greenwood Drive fairon is there anything on the Google Doc there is Mel jurow Falon F uh shared the following comment F would like to congratulate Dr lactina on 21 years of commitment to our students and our school district we wish her nothing but the best of in retirement although we have you till the end of the calendar year we want to go on record now you will be missed PTA Council meetings won't be the same without you f would also like to welcome all the new hires on today's agenda particularly Kathleen Hoy Angelina Angela Marino Jacqueline Patty and Rebecca vote the floor is closed I will open the floor to public uh board comments on agenda items only M valich so I want to talk about the policies and can we please address there's a couple of concerns I have first is the for the regulation 5350 can everybody pull it up if you can just make your comment and then no but we need to look and we need to change it it's not a common this is our policy this is our job as a board it's not a common thing it's our job to fix policies if there's mistakes on them that's what we do as a board I'm going to defer that each trustee can choose to pull it up should they uh prefer it's all the way in the back 11 and it's all in the bottom 12 I'm sorry okay so for the regulation 5350 uh page two part three it says IM uh uh C3 it says immediate meets with the um uh the principal of design will immediately meet with the parents but then in the policy we took that wording out and just wrote communic with so I think if you're going to do that if you're going to take the wording out in the policy then it has to be also the word communicate and take away immediately meets with the parent or also in the regulations we can't just have flipflop if that makes any sense because we took it out in the policy but we're keeping it in the regulation okay so thank you for the comment what I'll do is is myself and the administration who oversees each of the specific policies and regulations um what we've discussed as a team is that we will make notes of that uh board members on each of those respective committees that reviewed those policies and regulations will also make notes uh and then because the process is one where we have a first reading for policies with no action which is tonight and then a second reading for policies and regulations which would be at our subsequent meeting which would be on June 20th um if there are any adjust adjustments that need to be made or that the administration and the board committee and then brings it back to the board chooses to do upon hearing the recommendations and the comments those will occur and then we'll make note of that for the subsequent meeting okay so another thing is uh I spoke to the board attorney and he agrees that for example in um page two of the regulation uh part B2 it says in accordance to C he said it would be fine to write paragraph C so it's easier to understand just writing C or writing B doesn't make it's not very clear and he said that it would be it's would be appropriate can you reference that again for example um page two letter B two on the it says in accordance with C he said it would be anytime we have an accordance to referencing we can do paragraph C or something like that so that so there's multiple policies so before we move on Mrs felich so if I may comment and give a recommendation to the board while I recognize that board policies is a function of the board um what I would also suggest is the board and the district pay Strauss esate to draft policies and regulations um I think the best practice for a board of education is to the best of our ability stay the course with what the recommendations are unless there's something glaring that's a concern and the reason for that is managing time and the amount of edits and how much it would take so if it was something that was substantive that would really impact I would say let's go and do that I I hesitate to advise the board that that would be a good idea to make that change because we could be doing that on 20 or 30 policies and regulations for each meeting so I think our our practice especially in view Miss fich of the point that you brought up over the past several meetings well noted about the importance of moving through our policies and regulations um making these changes is going to slow down that process so once again I think if it's if it's something that's significant I think we take a look at it if it's not and the board is comfortable with the language then I think we should consider just moving forward as is with all due respect we did change it in some policies we want to be consistent the law likes to be consistent if we changed it already in some policy and we already did a second reading and they're approved we should be doing it on all the policies to be consistent otherwise some policies are updated One Way some policies are updated another way it just doesn't seem consistent and I think it's wrong all right we've noted the comment thank you okay so regulation 3212 so in some in some of our policies we write uh immediate supervisor and this policy we wrote designated but uh design ated um uh designated by the supervis uh supervisor designated by this uh superintendent can they just keep it the same immediate supervisor for everything so that everything seems the same language to be consistent it's only two words to change it's regulation 3212 polic regulation 3281 we changed it to immediate supervisor just now so my other another I have a question for this regulation 3142 uh part B2 it says um on on or before May 15th of each year each non- tenyear teacher staff member continuously employed by the board of since the preceding September 30th shall receive written notice from SE how if they started in October they don't have to receive it in May 15th that's what I'm I have a question on that if they started any other day before after September 30th you're on regulation 31422 B2 and your question is repeat that please if a staff member starts in October 1st versus September thir like anytime after do they still got a re do they would they still get a letter on May 15 saying yes we're hiring you yes we're not hiring you yeah so um it's actually a really interesting point uh that Strauss uses those words uh continuously employed um the law requires notification by May 15 for employees uh and does not parse out for the context of renewal versus non-renewal whether somebody has been employed for a day or uh a year uh with regard to non-tenured employees so to answer your question everybody gets notified it has to be notified by May 15 so is there is there a qu does that make no sense then in our policy that we would we have to put September 30th I'm just curious I don't understand why would we even put the date if it's everybody yeah so um and may I please um as we mentioned as we discussed briefly before the meeting um and as our superintendent noted Strauss sesme and and Strauss sesme you it's like thinking of the universe you know we can look at individual planets Strauss has an entire fabric an entire universe as to how all of these policies and regulations work within one another um I would be happy consider this or the policy committee could consider this and we could look further as to why there's a reference here to continuous employment my some to September 30th that's what m my yeah continuous employment my right it says September 30 um but anyway the the point is sitting here looking at this in isolation uh without looking at where it is otherwise referenced and what the policy says and what the thinking is I'm simply making an assumption that Strauss has some reason to use that language in that data also when by the second reading would you be able to tell us the reason is that okay the comment has been noted okay so some of our policies we changed the his and hers to theirs and here we kept it hears and hers are we going to keep it hears and hers in this policy and every other policy we're putting as theirs I've noted the comment I'll take a look at that with the administration that's in part three and part uh eight okay let's continue Rita I'm just going to ask that you uh finish up in the next 30 seconds you're at 5 minutes and 38 seconds but our policies if we can't just stifle me on policies we should be able to talk about our policies at this time you're already over 2 and A2 minutes and you will get another three after the rest of the board has the opportunity to speak I think it's wrong to take to uh limit a board members to be able to do her job I think it with all noted please move on okay so in some policies we put board secretary business administrator and some policies we just put board secretary for example 4212 we put uh just board secretary and other policies we're putting in business administrative board secretary can we please be consistent and how we denote this um so in policy 4212 you call business administrator oh in the policy we call it business uh I'm sorry in the regulation business administrator board secretary and in the regulation we call it just uh board secretary so can we please be consistent with all our lines and then um um in one of the policies I'm actually going to stop you here just so you can um hold your thought I'm going to open up to the rest of the board and then you can Circle back for your next Dr bertolini uh Mr bansa I'm going to be as polite as possible just two points one policy is more General regulations can be different terminology because it's the guidelines that you follow for the policy Strauss SME is a very effective body that we use we spend a good amount of money to use stuss smme oh sure I'm sorry we spend a lot of money on Strauss Esme and uh I'm sitting here at I don't know what time it is right now to be honest it's 10 o'clock nitpicking on what word we're going to use I don't think anyone in this room maybe with the exception of a few want to spend our time here nitpicking over words on policy it is our job to do policy we have Strauss ese that gives us a very effective system we do have time limits for board comments and I would encourage our board president to follow those guidelines uh but to go over each word of a policy we're never going to get through policies we did I think uh our superintendent has done an excellent job in putting policies to each committee I know education did four or five last meeting and the other one I was on did six or seven so I think they did he's done an excellent job in making sure we go through policy but to sit here at 10:30 at night to go over what letter is the right one his or her I didn't get on the board for this thank you Mr Banta yeah on that uh we have a maybe not a policy but procedure where we get the agenda six days ahead of time and then we're supposed to if we have questions on the agenda we're supposed to send in those questions to the superintendent and I know everybody knows that because we get the 15 20 30 questions that are asked when they're answered so I don't think we should be entertaining changes to the agenda or the policies on a on a whim at the public meeting whether it's 10:00 or 8:30 we have a procedure the procedure is you see something you don't understand it you want to you want to talk about it write to the superintendent before the meeting that way the superintendent can have a response for you instead of sitting here going round and around so um that's my two cents we have a procedure let's follow it noted anybody else okay Mich I will give you another three minutes we care about equity and inclusion and you just proved as a board that you don't care about Equity or inclusion just making sure just uh because obviously I don't feel you make sure that I don't feel welcome policy uh regulation and policy 4281 we took out legal guardan from all our policies but we kept it in for this because parents were included as legal do guardians and we discussed that at most with our attorneys so we should take that out since we're going to be con consistent the law likes consistency so I'm going to be voting no for 6 A1 why because the conference already occurred why are we approving it just now it occurred on May 22nd now I have a question um my question is the history book does not have an online version why are we approving a book that does not have a digital copy I'm also voting I'm I'm voting so this is my question from Mr Denio I'm voting no uh that was my question now I'm going to say why I'm voting no for the books I think before you pick any book for any classroom there should be a year of piloting where the different teachers pilot the a different authors of the book and see which what they like what they don't like before it is adopted for everyone to be used I think it's helpful to make sure that everybody uses the book because when I gr when I went to Fon High School the history book was brand new it was two years old I didn't even know it existed because my teachers never used it the board bought it it was beautifully stacked in the back of the room and was collecting this the whole three years of History classes that I took so I think in order for teachers to use the book that we are spending thousands of dollars they need to Pilot the book and make sure that it is you they actually think it's useful and helpful in teaching the material material um I also would like to know since we are we're we want we are approving the communication director position uh uh the yeah my question is they're going to be taking lots of photographs which is great how will the district ensure parents such as me will that don't want their children's faces uh to be online to make sure that they will not be on Instagram on our websites on our things since it's since we're so big we want to 230 what's that okay uh I also would like to note that uh I asked this question already but it was kind of vague for the parents that go on field trips can we please put on the genda how much the field trip actually cost how much our parents are required to pay for the field trip and also if a parent if a child can't pay for the field trip I guess the district pays for it we never approved it in the past you're at 303 please finish your thought in the past three in the past three years I've never seen us approving any money for field trips for kids that can't afford it how is it how is it budgeted and how is it approved thank you um Dr dionio I will answer what I can and I will defer to you as as far as the communications liaison it will be handled the same way it is handled for any other photo taken by students our students parents or Guardians are provided an opportunity to opt out of all photographing or um inclusion on any of our documentation and it will be handled the same way um [Music] your it is noted that you are voting no to what you are voting no to and last question I had two questions it's okay I'll just refer to drct diio thank you um Garden State Coalition of schools presentation so I had a conflict in my schedule and uh I was able to attend that annual meeting fantastic meeting of board members and superintendents from across the state uh we had an opportunity to hear from legislators and really Advocate at the state level so um it was a wonderful event we do have a process for textbooks um where we actually spend quite a deal quite a a great amount of time in discussions about different types of textbooks which ones are appropriate getting feedback from our teachers before decisions are made um as noted already regarding uh photos for our students we have uh permissions that were uh are approved by parents and then as far as field trips um the current process in place will remain consistent regarding how we allocate for costs and we have a process in place for students who cannot afford field trips my question for the digital copy we're approving a history book that has no digital copy is that correct Dr L that's correct but my my question is not how do we allocate money my question is can we put how much the cost for the field trips on the agenda no is there a reason why yes it's more cumbersome work and as you can see we have a lot of high level goals to accomplish and as I've made it very clear to the board we need to remain focused on the areas that are of most importance anyone else Dr berini just two points one I wasn't trying to be exclus excluded any including excluding anyone I just wanted to follow the time limit let me it's my turn I just wanted to follow the time limit because I just wanted us to follow the time limit because we have a policy and procedure for that secondly I'm not too sure how to Pilot a textbook for the year because if the teacher is piloting a textbook the students have to have a book electronic or digital or hard copy and if you're I just don't know how how it would work we can discuss that in education though I'll put that on on the agenda thank you thank you anybody else the floor is closed can I get a motion for 3A so moved second roll call Mr Bowski yes Mr B C Dr berini yes m Brown yes Miss fich no on 3A the four items that we that was discussed in executive sessions where were they added I don't have a computer in front of me what sections they were told they would be told to I will be WR reading them in great Mr Rosenberg I Mr I'm Sorry Miss Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes pass motion passes so for we're going to go with five A and B we will do c uh 5 C separately so I can read everything in so can I get a motion for 5 A and B some mooved second roll call please Mr Bovi yes m Mr Banta I Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Miss fich can you please come back to me Mr Rosenberg I miss Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes Miss fich Oh No On Five Oh 5c no this is for motion five five A and B okay yes motion passes 5c will be reading in the resolved by the Board of Education following consideration of the appeal followed by parents to deny the appeal and affirm the Hib determination for Hib MMS 2023-2024 31 and Hib MMS 2023-2024 432 in addition to the current hibs on the agenda can I get a roll call I'm sorry can I get a motion so moved second roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes Dr bertolini yes Miss Brown yes Miss fich so no on the four hibs 31 abstain and 32 no 31 abstain and 32 no yes Mr Rosenberg yes Miss Yurman I going to abstain on all Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for 6 a through e so moved second roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr B yes Dr berini yes m brown yes Miss fich no on 6 A1 and 6E Mr Rosenberg yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for seven so moved wait I'm not done whatever it is so moved little sh 7 a through M so moved can I get a roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yeah Dr berini yes m brown yes Mich so no on 7 A1 7 A6 7 a A8 7 M2 7 a B2 and the rest yes Mr Rosenberg yes Miss Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion on 8 a through F so moved roll call please not playing the game Mr baldowski yes Mr bant I Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Miss fich yes Mr Rosenberg yes M Yurman yes Mrs Mayan yes motion passes can I get a motion for nine A and B so moved roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr B we that's French for yes that's our second it's number two Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes movich yes Mr Rosenberg yes m yes Mrs Mayan yes motion passes can I get a motion for 10 a through M so moved second well then talk faster sorry roll call M Mr balowski yes Mr Banta I Dr berini yes m brown yes Miss fich no on tensy three 10 C3 10 C3 Mr Rosenberg yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I please get a motion for 11 hold on there a lot of these I know I'm getting under the bottom 11a through 11 douv so moved second roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr bant C Dr ber yes m brown yes M fich we are in 11 or can you come back to me please Mr Rosenberg yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayan yes Miss felich yes motion passes I ation can I get a motion on 12a for first reading of policies and regulations moved second please 11 we did a through double v down ww WV ww is the approval of said reorg items yeah so it's right 11a through 11 VV okay it sounded like bb or DD but it's VV Victor Victor VV as in Victor Victor my apologies not even no VV as in Victor Victor would everyone like me to recall that is there anyone who needs to change their statements okay then we are going to go to 12a and we received a motion by Mr Banta and seconded by Mr Bowski roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta hi Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Miss fich no Mr Rosenberg yes Miss Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes this is the public comments on non-agenda items only please limit your questions at this time to non-agenda items please provide your name and municipality municipality in which you reside and sign in comments are limited to 3 minutes this is not a dialogue between the speaker and the board all comments will be taken at once and when comments are complete the board president or District administration will respond as best they can the floor is open Mila can I actually ask you to hold off for one second I did not read in two of our closed session I actually don't know where to put them I know can I defer to you um Mr Magno the chair is requesting by way of new business uh two resolutions with regard to I'm just going to the language U executive session residency matters um and I will read the first with the uh pleasure of the board president please to all right resolved by the Board of Ed after reviewing consideration of all relevant information including an opportunity to be heard by the board the board determines that residency number 20232 0243 is not properly resident in fairon from September 2023 through to and including the present date and authorizes the removal of uh 2023 20243 immediately do I have a motion so moved second uh is this the first one that was heard Danielle correct this is the first residency matter that we heard this evening motion and a second uh roll call please Mr Bowski yes Mr bant da that's German for yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes M bovich yes Mr Rosenberg yes M Yurman practice yes Mrs Mayan yes motion passes resolved by the board after reviewing consideration of all relevant information including an opportunity to be heard by the board the board determines that RI 202 32024 number four is not properly resident in fairon from September 2023 through to and including the present date and authorizes the removal of RI 202 32024 D4 immediately is there a motion so moved second this is the second residency matter that was heard tonight roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr B yes Dr berini yes m brown yes M felich yes Mr Rosen ber yes M yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes thank you um miss manuso and mrno miss Cora the floor is yours I hear you if you wouldn't mind just signing in your name and sharing your name which I already referenced uh just miss Cora lives in fairon thank you hi good afternoon my name is Lia Corola I am a mil's resident TJ resident not sure how that works so today I just want to say I am upset extremely this is my child's homework laptop we were trying to do a project that is due tomorrow the things that we were trying to do is find pictures of books so the project was collect a list of books that you read through since September until now it closes tomorrow the 31st and since we had the list today we sat down to do the slides and we were just supposed to find little pictures of every single book that he read through September so the problem that he ran into that these things are being blocked by Fair alone websit so things that are being blocked think and I apologize the computer is about to die so I might use use my phone cuz I took pictures the things that are being blocked is things like 100 excellent realistic fiction books for kids blocked by Fair alone websites um another one 100 best fantasy books for children images blocked um things like little poetry for children blocked so like basically like just to give you understanding it's different genres of books that we need to read throughout the year and then we just have to comp file a list so at this point we are very limited this assignment is due tomorrow maybe we weren't planning as it is but you know he's 10 years old so he tried to find picture he was getting extremely frustrated I thought maybe he was doing something wrong I went into this website and tried doing searches so like the search history is a lot because we've been doing this since 3:30 4:00 when he came home just to finish it so he could have a restful day but what I found odd that when I went on websites such as YouTube YouTube is freely open I'm able to go and watch Minecraft with things that have and I apologize the truck drivers would be ashamed the language that are in these Minecraft videos my child is able to access through your computer I am not using my home network I'm using a hotspot that is provided through school so like all of this is blogged by the district and that is upsetting because I've asked multiple times Administration the superintendent office why do our children have free access to YouTube and repeatedly I've been told that it's an educational yes I agree there's a lot of educational stuff on YouTube but there's also a lot of stuff that my 10-year-old should not be watching not any child should not be watching it is our parental rights to say what our children should and should not be watching I do not want to learn as a parent I Trail my language skills extremely carefully to ensure that my child has proper skills in English that he speaks that he knows the difference between May and can and there's no cursing in my house so when he comes home and I ask him where it is and I look through the history why is my 10-year-old has access to fortnite on the school computer he is not allowed to go on fortnite fortnite I Googled it it's for 13 plus my child is 10 yes he cannot go on the official one but there are ways to do it it yet he cannot research books for poetry uh fantasy books for 11year olds was blocked as well that is appalling what is he supposed to tell his teacher tomorrow when he is not able to complete his project yes he had a year to do it he has a list but it's a visual thing and it's upsetting to me as a parent to know that he could watch things that I at home do not allow him to watch yet he not cannot complete his home uh apologize 10:30 language skills he's not allowed to complete his homework so it's I am asking you as a board let's resolve this because this been asked from Administration it's been asked from the superintendent's office this is not okay I know that other District do have it blocked because I made it a point because I did not like the answer I was getting so at this point since January I've been in schools throughout Bergen and P County in the same classroom as my child with middle school children on a daily basis at asking and looking what they they have no access to YouTube and if the teacher needs to put some sort of video it provides it they could embed it into Google Classroom why is our district not able to do it and giving my child and every other 5,000 kids free access to YouTube if their parents want to do it at home more power to them but as I am as a parent there are certain things that he's not allowed to watch on YouTube he's could watch any kind of educational stuff these you know he could watch game things but he cannot things that have horrendous languages yet your system allows it and that is upsetting yet he's not allowed to do his homework that's that and may I also sorry so if you don't mind I'm just GNA ask you to hold your next thought if there's not anyone else yes and there's not anybody on the Google form I will defer back to you you can actually sit there is there anybody else Google form okay please continue um I also want to make a comment about the comment that Miss favit made about the children's pictures being taken never since seven years so like it's my son's going to go into sixth grade so he's been in school district 4 since kindergarten have I provided the school the authority to post his pictures but I could tell you and I could prove it by emails that my child's pictures were posted and that there's a flaw in this form so the teachers were taking pictures of my child do you know how upset I was when my I believe he was in second grade came in and said my teacher took a private picture of me so as a parent that is crazy so of course I immediately called the principal but why are the teachers taking there is like again like there is a form that Miss fich said that I said no you cannot take pictures of my child yet teachers were taking pictures of my child like I had to have a fight with the school and threatened with a lawsuit because my child's pictur was published on District um like mill sft I guess it's a district Mexico because I think they're all connected like that's upsetting to me there is a reason that I don't allow my child's pictures like that's my parental right I should not be justifying why like you gave me a form I said no yet there's a complete flaw and I'm you know that that is something that needs to be addressed and maybe that flaw has to be closed because I'm pretty sure I'm not the only parent who has issues with these things and it's it's going to grow because everybody's on like you know we want to like our school district is great and we want to see our accomplishment but certain parents do not want to have their children's faces you could you know the names and then one other thing so I have again I'm sorry am I allowed to talk you are good you have about a minute and 10 sorry real quick 10 I know it's exhausting I apologize um the email addresses there is I've had an issue since my child got an email address it is his first name and it is his last name and it is the year that he is graduating now that he's getting a little bit older He's Able again he's able to go on this machine the machine that you guys provided him and go into website and register there is a um I'm sorry Copa which is online Privacy Act protects personnel a personal information so the personal information is name and age so it does not take a genius to figure out if you provide my first name last name and the year of graduation how old that child is if he's going on a website and registering for sites that you know I can't control like I can't sit in here change histories but like I know for a fact that children are doing this you're overriding our parental rights you are basically saying you know what here's his name here I never gave permission for you to create an email for him with his full name and his year of graduation it's basically giving my personal the personal identifiable information of my child to the world because as they progress they will register to websites that you might not even know maybe your it might not even know but until he's 13 years old this law protects his information that is something that I again I've been asking Administration I'm not getting any answer so I'm asking you as a board please address this and please like let us know because I'm not the only parent that have these concerns like my child's privacy is important because we're live in the world a dangerous world it's no longer like I grew up in Fairland I've been here for a very long time and I love this town but it's not about Fairland it's about the world and the craziness that's going on online and we don't know who the Predators are we need to protect our children thank you sleep thank you thank you so much guys for the board for the opportunity for me to speak thank you the floor is closed I'd like to open up the floor to board member comments on new business Miss fich okay so this is my fourth time asking in a board meeting so hopefully I I also wrote it in a questions for for this week I still can't get an answer before last year before we were doing the budget when Mr ncia was here I guess it was a year and a half ago they said that they ordered the benches for Forest they showed us a picture of the benches for for a school and everything is going to be great it's been a year and a half I've asked for what is the progress for it oh it'll be installed soon we'll get the benches later what is later one is do we have the benches one is it scheduled to be because first we have the I was told we have the benches we're waiting for the installer now I was told no we don't have the benches do we have the forest benches are they going to be installed and what's the timeline it's been a year and a half I can answer that question so I did not say those things I don't know if you're referencing me but Mr nor did pick out a sustainable bench when he was here um that bench was not in stock and by the time it was in stock it was Winter and benches require footings that cannot be installed when the ground is frozen so we decided to go with a different brand because we wanted to make sure that there was Equity amongst all the playgrounds not just Forest so we did a comprehensive analysis we went through we did an assessment of the benches that were all within the playgound ground areas so that we could replace all of them so that every Elementary School not just Forest had new benches within their playgrounds I responded in the board question documentation that said that once we actually have the product in well it's not ours once the manufacturer has the product that they will give us an installation date they do not have the product in yet therefore I do not have an installation day as soon as I do I will keep the board and the community apprised of that installation date thank you anyone else Miss yman I'm just going to tag along with the uh the mom that was um talking about uh know privacy and not having their children's face on the internet and what I found with firsttime moms that are actually having babies within the last year that because of AI um they're not putting they're putting the back of heads toward the camera so you're not ever seeing the face of or they're putting a sticker on on the face um you know like a teddy bear or a you know um you know anything that would just hide the face itself just because of the new technology that's out there so you know I just think I think it's important and I'm a professional photographer by trade is that you know it's important when somebody doesn't want to have a picture and it's hard when you have 20 30 kids in a picture it's very very difficult um but I think more importantly it's the whole new um data security and AI That's changing the world now and I just wanted to you know tap into that and and say that you're going to see soon you're not going to see anybody's picture on social media except for the back of their heads and um and that's because of you know AI which has become you know far bigger than anything else so that that was it thank you very much thank you the floor is closed we have upcoming meetings June 20th is our regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. in Edison school room 9 19 on July 25th is our regular monthly meeting at 7:30 at Edison school room 19 and on August 22nd 2024 is our regularly monthly regular monthly meeting at 7:30 Edison school room 19 I will also add a fourth date of Fairland High School graduation on June 18th um I hope to see you all [Music] there and at at this time I would like to get a motion to adjourn so moved Joe second thought somebody would jump on that all in favor Shai D Chinese for yes have a good have a goodin thank you all for being here hey I'm just practicing