e e e e e e e e e e e e we're good can everybody please stand for the flag I Ali toag United States America in accordance with the open public meetings act adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising in the record posting notice of this meeting in burrow Hall and the superintendent's office I hereby call to order the public meeting of the little fery Board of Education Thursday April 18th 2024 at 7:04 PM can I have a roll call please hoing here Mrs Patel here Mr fos Mrs scle Mr mey here Mr vuso here Mr vorc Mr Benelli here Mrs Bradley here and that's Alla thank you we have a quum Madam president thank you be it resolved that the Little Ferry Board of Education approves the minutes of the regular public meeting held on March 18th 2024 do I have a motion Mo second second hey Mrs toy yes m t yes Mr mey yes M ruso yes Mr Benelli absent who's absent for the March for all right all right Mrs Bradley yes thank you I'll now ask Mr parado to provide a superintendent report all right we're going to start with the students at above I see our only one here which is exciting so our fifth grade student month for um the month of March was Nicholas hample speakers in the fifth period had the following things to say about Nicholas he has made significant strides in mastering new Concepts he demonstrates positive character traits he is kind respectful and helpful when interacting with his peers and he takes an active role in classroom discussions congratulations Nicholas come on up excellent job great job take pict okay [Music] go dad I mom d you know what I I just because we have a lot of his staff here tonight piure I don't see any [Music] congratulations make your matches thank you thank you very much thank you bye nior okay all right that was nice um our hi report for uh since our last board meeting was zero in Washington School reported one report in Memorial School which was founded um moving along chronic acente survey U the the newsletter that's being compiled for that is almost ready but we don't want to rush it so that'll be coming out soon and that'll be go after the community with some tips some helpful tips um just kind of what the survey results were and our our responses to that second advisory um lunch advisory meeting was today we took a little bit of a different approach for the second meeting of the year and we doubled the student body that attended so last month we had about 16 students this month we were close to 40 students that were in attendance which was great they had four different food options they were able to determine whether or not they should become new lunch menu items they were surveyed spoke to kind of told a little bit about it and we use our student ambassadors so they can take that information back to their home rooms I wanted to congratulate I didn't get a chance to do it last meeting but Mr Aponte was our American uh Legion teacher the year and he was honored at the American region on April 6th uh today for those of you sitting in attendant has been a pretty pretty busy day over here in uh kns Village we had uh traps going on in the gym we had our family engagement night the planetarium going on in throughout the building morial school we obviously have our board meeting today so it's been very very um I think rewarding I think there's a lot of really good things going on and the crowd today was incredible I really want to give a lot of credit to miss Mal and his son for you know organizing trips they went from 15 or 16 vendors last year to over 30 this year which is incredible it's it's nice that it's growing and if you were in the gym earlier it was uh pretty crowded the kids seem like we were having a great time uh a lot of facility things going on if you walk around the grounds I'll let Mr Gomez take most of that for his report but I just did want to update that the courts outside are all but near complete they have two sides of the fence left the striping is done the paving is done and the backboards will be going up over break so when the kid students return they'll be out there playing basketball on the two fresh ports hopefully the tripping hazards are gone and uh they're I mean there's Middle School teachers here that the and even Elementary School teachers the kids are chopping at the bit not only to get back out there but to get on the course and they've been watching it kind of go as we as we've been building it here the preschool playground is anticipated early May to break ground on that which we're also excited about and um I had on my report here to congratulate our student representative for making it to the academy but he's not here tonight so I will save that for next meeting for him to hear I can proove my report great thank you Mr parado um now I'll allow Mr Gomez to provide his board secretary report good evening everyone so in terms of facilities uh the Washington School demolition all the payments are up to date we're waiting for them to actually close out the project final paperwork and then remove their equipment so that's basically done uh we did a roof scan of this building to see what condition our roofs in they completed the field work and I should have a report within the next couple weeks but um what I was told is it's in pretty decent shape so considering that there's solar panels out there that's pretty good news um Mr per talked about the basketball court so I'm very excited about that so that'll be done next week uh we went out for a request for proposal for architect of record we received six respondents the committee scored everything so we will be awarding that tonight uh we are going to start working on a project to improve air quality in the building we're going to be comping some of the unit ventilators so we're trying to make some final decision on which route we're going to go with the bid or with u one of the state contract so that's all about ready to go uh food service so for the month of March we served between two schools a total of 7,380 meals uh participation we're running where we should be good news is the program year to date has made a profit of $ 75,4 198 the guarantee on the contract I believe was right even and that's pretty impressive for the for first year of the program so you know and we had the students today uh sampling some of the future food items it's something that we do we requireed to do so the comments from the students are just that's what you need because it's their food it's for them so that went well today so finance and close the month of March in record time once again uh our Auditors working on obtaining a snapshot of where we are fiscally so we can get to the end of the year and possibly do some other enhancements to the facility based on the number they come back with so that should be done shortly our preliminary budget to the County was approved on March 20 they have until April 20th so I believe we were one of the first ones who were approved so our budget hearing is scheduled for May 1st that's a public hearing we'll be doing a presentation on next year's budget so that's May 1 um last thing we will be making a payment to RB in the morning and it concludes our business from 2122 that's all thank you Mr Gomez we'll Now open up to committee reports Mrs beru for personel Personnel met on Monday evening uh custodial negotiations are still ongoing on the agenda this evening is a memorandum of agreement between the little F secr Association and the Board of Education in addition to several new teacher hires we're adding an additional full-time nurse to the school staff and lastly just thanking Mrs Mr solers BL on their retirement thank you for their years great thank you m Mrs vuso for Education uh students are completing their screen High ready diagnostic initial result results show uh growth teachers have been train in New consistent family messaging software rooms family engagement planetarian and tre's Marketplace concluded early this evening and where a sucess great thank you Mr Benelli for finance I was actually absent for the finance meeting on Monday but just looking over the overview of what was discussed Mr Gomez great thank you Mr M and for policy the policy committee did not meet since our last sport meeting however on tonight's agenda we have a second read of the policies that were on last month's agenda with board approval tonight these policies will become active policies for the district thank you Mrs Patel for transportation um no no update on transportation we hope to have a meeting for the next great thank you and for expansion uh no substantial update here other than we are continuing our bi-weekly meetings um and uh we had our second meeting on April that was our that was our second meeting on April 8th um and once again just reiterate that our goal is to go out to bid um by December of this year so we'll open it up for public comment um on agenda items only if anybody has any questions concerns comments p26 just for the board and for the public p26 I think it's P2 no hold on P22 uh for Alisa Gonzalez would be step one bh2 555 it read 55 either and John will make that correction in the minutes just start f all right we'll now take a block vote on F12 to f17 d42 to do 57 p21 to p29 with the correction on P22 co5 to co6 fa4 and P2 do I have a motion motion second okay Mrs broli yes M Patel yes M uh Mr meley yes M willo yes yes Mr Benelli yes Mrs Bradley yes all motions pass We Now open up to public comment on non-agenda items nothing all right um do I have a motion to adjourn motion second second thank you all for your time thank you um May has be we were but e