all right we have a very full meeting as everyone can see so if you could let us begin and we will get to your portion very quickly good okay the live streaming from Zoom has started we ready start all right if I can have everyone's attention please I'd appreciate this meeting of the Mel Board of Education is open to members of the public to be physically present members of the public that attend will be asked to follow the same procedures as all other visitors to our schools those procedures can be found on the agenda page of our website Additionally the board meeting will be live streamed for viewing purposes only anyone wishing to view the meeting May do so via Zoom the webinar ID for this meeting is [Music] 88175 8842 and the required password is 7069 9 1 I call this meeting to order roll call please Mr bler okay thank you Dr morthy Miss Jensen here Mr cin here M davano Mr D Silva here Mr Denise here Mr Gallow here Mr Hughes Mr kisari here Dr morthy here and student representative Max ingerman here thank you adequate notice of agenda of this meeting has been provided to the Ridgewood news and the record specifying that the MAA Board of Education will meet on May 22nd 2024 in the administrative offices 6 Road malwa New Jersey a copy was filed at the township uh Mr inkerman would you Le Us in the salute this evening I pledge alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands Nation God indivisible withy and justice for all all right we do not require an executive session at the beginning this evening so I'm actually going to turn it over to our student representative who has a senior night movie to attend so he's going to give us his report at this time Mr thank you um so first off we had miles for Marcus on Saturday this was a third annual and it was a uh huge hit um we have the sports for spring we start they we started our uh state run tonight with girls across being earlier they won and boys lacrosse are right now when I left they were winning at halftime and baseball has tomorrow vers High Point um action through Athletics is doing a their fourth annual um spike ball tournament during lunch um FCA and ATA are doing their second annual softball tournament and the winner will get to choose their their fund TSA completed in different technology challenges at tcmj College there are over 1,000 students from over 65 schools in in New Jersey and they compete in 42 challenges um the senior movie night is tonight at 8:00 p.m. senior Sunrise is May 31st at 5:15 a.m. um last night was the spring concert it was amazing as always um Thursday um Thursday we have the our spring choir concert we want to congratulate Conor IGI on his Monclair Theater award win for outstanding achievement by student Scenic Design technician for play you can take it with you and congratulations to all of our nominees and the Thunderbird Thunderbird drama club um and congratulations to the drum club for the five Metro Awards nomination they receiv received for their production of Le Miz the nominations include outstanding performance in Cameo for Danny Fernandez outstanding performance by student pit musician for shashin Choy um outstanding achievement in Scenic Design outstanding achievement in graphic design for Delina Wong and outstanding student technical achievement for ficon I think you want to take a bow too [Applause] Happ we have a full meeting excellent all right agenda questions um please letm me your no oh no no we're going to the teachers sorry I apologize I'm turning it over to Dr joro for Teacher recognition appreciation thank you yes um I just want to thank everyone for coming out last uh last board meeting we had the opportunity to uh celebrate staff members today we're celebrating staff members and the next board meeting we're going to be celebrating our retirees and it's great to see some retirees out in the audience today so welcome back um this is something that I I hold very special um I think it's something that was long overdue we started it last year it's for Bergen County teacher of the year award the Bergen County teacher of the year recogn teacher recognition program was developed in 1985 for the purpose of acknowledging teachers to exhibit outstanding performance last year was the first year we took part in this event and it was a tremendous success according to the program's guidelines each school district is invited to select teachers to be recognized for their achievements the the criteria for each nomination is as followed positive interactions while functioning as a Frontline advocate for the student between home and school fostering an appropriate environment for Learning and exploring creative alternatives to enable all students to function to their full potential supporting student achievement while addressing the educational social and emotional needs of all students and in personal interactions with students that demonstrate professionalism while retaining respect humor compassion and concern for the whole child so let's start off we usually go elementary to high school we're going to switch it up a little bit I know I know we're going to go with Mawa high school first this is great so the ma High School teacher that has been recognized for this year is Miss Sarah kazinski Miss kazinski has been a high school math teacher for 24 years 19 of those years in MAA her motto is others above self she is always the first staff member to assist a colleague as the club adviser for Habitat for Humanity which has over 70 students her club members tutor and offer homework assistance shovel snow for senior citizens in Mawa and find ways to form social connections with younger students by inviting the fourth and fifth grade students to various High School events Mrs kazinski is a teacher is a teacher leader who is deserving of being recognized two of Mrs kazinsky students are here tonight to speak on her behalf ruy and Bobby would you like to come up [Applause] I turn it around not again only once hello um my name is Val fetus I'm a senior at Ma High School um so I'm here to speak about Miss kazinski who has been such a great role model and um person I've learned from throughout my time at Ma High School um in the classroom and outside the classroom uh she's um engaged and very involved in um the township of ma when community service through Habitat Humanity and um also in the classroom she clearly teaches very hard subject in calculus so um she never gives up on anyone um and that has grown on to me and I've never given up on myself because of her and her kindness makes um everyone better and she's one of the people um in the world that because of her everyone is better because of [Applause] her hi my name is Rory I just have something short that I wrote about Miss J um I have had the honor of getting to know Miss kazinski these past three years at M High School I can truly say every day I see her she brings a smile to my face not only is she an amazing teacher she's also an inspiration to all of her students I met Miss G through Habitat for Humanity and anyone who truly knows her knows how special this is to her getting to see her spread her love for a cause as special as habitat truly brings me so much joy the power of our community and the way she's able to bring people together is truly magical it is through her that I feel like I'm not only bettering myself but also my community there's no one more deserving of this honor as Miss J in class she's always is kind compassionate helpful and caring she always wants what is best for her students even though we can get annoying at times I have learned more from her than I have any other teacher and that's not just mathematically she has shown me that I can do anything if I work hard enough for it Miss kazinsky I wish one day to be half the woman you are today from the bottom of my heart I love you and want to thank you for everything you do for me in our community [Applause] that was awesome thank you Mrs gazinski can you I don't even know where you are in the crowd oh there you are you're stand hi you can uh if you can there we go we have a little something for [Applause] you mov night oh thank you thank you so much I know you did oh well hi everybody thanks so much for being here and for supporting everybody tonight congratulations to everybody who won tonight you're all amazing two of the teachers who went tonight actually had my daughter and I'm so grateful for that um but I just I love my I love teaching I love my students and I'm just so grateful that they came here tonight and thank you so much and thank you to all of you for doing this thank you thank [Applause] you and before we move on to the next um staff member to celebrate Mr D would like me to share with the crowd um that is okay here is is a ma lumni class of [Applause] 1993 special things that class amazing so next to honor Miss Kathy kesi she's our school psychologist at rampo Ridge Middle School Kathy can you just give us a wave there there she that's very Kathy of her um Miss K's expertise as a school psychologist is noteworthy but beyond her expertise what makes Kathy so special is how she goes about her work Kathy remains committed to a Hands-On approach with her students and her case as she continually pushes out of the office to connect with students in the classroom in the hallway in the cafeteria or at recess in addition to being an incredible resource and support person for our students parents and Guardians Kathy is the go-to trusted colleague for countless staff members she remains a steadfast advocate for students and as a s side note um Kathy is the easiest person I know to scare Miss Rizzo our director of special services knows Miss kesi well and wanted to speak on her behalf this [Applause] evening good evening Dr Fair Dr Doro I apologize in advance I thought this was a roast and not an opportunity to talk about how amazing she is as a member of the child study team Miss kesi is the person who will run towards the challenge if it means helping a student or a colleague and she never shies away from difficulty even if she is confidently unsure she goes forward with her gut and intellect and doesn't look back Kathy's work ethic is second to none and because of who she is she will take care of the person or the student in front of her and the rest especially paperwork and emails can wait Kathy is has all the qualities that you would want in someone on your child's team or your team hardworking dedicated and if she's working with you then you are her priority and even if she isn't assigned to work with you she will jump into action regardless her advocacy skills for students with special needs is driven by a passion that started in her youth her work in MAA is just a fraction of her lifelong dedication to people who can otherwise be marginalized by the rest of the world she is a champion for all let me share a recent tangible experience that can help you understand who Miss kesi is one of her students was was not able to leave on time to go to school because his nurse was delayed Miss kesi called the parent who expressed upset over the situation while the call ended with an Abrupt hangup from the parent there quickly came a solution and when Miss karesi tried to call the parent with the solution this time he did not answer the phone knowing that time was of the essence to get the student to school Miss kesi drove to the other side of town to knock on his front door ultimately the student was on a bus and to school and education was not not interrupted for her student as my daughter stated to me I like talking with Miss kesi she gets it even if she does call me out Miss pes's astute knowledge for child psychology her depth of intellect on remediating and addressing the special needs of Learners her Frank yet loving way of speaking her willingness to dive head first into any situation and her infectious love of a good prank or a running joke makes her an outstanding representation of a MAA educator Kathy welld deserved [Applause] congratul now you have to show yourself yeah sure I'm so proud of thank you very much [Applause] a few a few words SAR this is a struggle so I apologize um I'd like to First wish everybody here tonight who's been honored congratulations um and I'd like to thank uh everyone for um acknowledging the work that I do here I feel really blessed that I work for MAA 24 years ago I didn't know that 17 went as far as it did but I'm happy I found it and I called three times they didn't have GPS back then um but I it has been uh truly um a just a wonderful experience for me I loved every single student that walked through my door um and I viewed them as my own child so I made decisions based on what I'd do if I if they were my child so I just feel so lucky and blessed to be here and to work with the amazing people that I've worked with for 24 years at the ridge especially Lisa and her guidance um so thank you again for the [Applause] acknowledgement our next staff member is Liz OK Calahan from Joyce Kilmer School Mrs o Calahan is an incredible teacher who exceeds all expectations in her own professional way she is structured she is kind inclusive and is always there for her students Liz regularly has students with IEPs in her classroom and includes them with Grace and dignity she participates positively in IEP meetings as an and is an asset to the team many people might Overlook m o Callahan because she quietly gets the job done but but her excellent teaching and interpersonal SK skills should be recognized although Liz's students and families wanted to speak on her behalf this evening many have a commitment at the JK Spring Concert which is actually happening right now they wanted to share their message through a video instead here a few things that I like about Mr she's so helpful and makes our class in school a better place she's so kind to us as students and a selfless she's great at solving problems and cares more about us than she does herself she's very friendly responsible and her class is really organized which makes learning so much easier she's really clever and creative which makes the class fun but we are working on our Field Day project and she has such great ideas to make it look better overall she she's a great teacher a nice person to be around and we really enjoyed being in her class thank you Mr Gahan for being [Applause] awesome I just want to add something um along lines of my experience with missan I Ser I served in jwi Kimmer school as principal with missan for seven years and I just have to Echo something that was said here missal H is is is a a quiet Force at Joyce Kilmer school she is so respected by her colleagues you you rarely hear from her but you see the product each and every day whether it's the children walking down the hall like little soldiers right behind her or you walk into her class and you see such amazing teaching going on that she is tapping into each and every one of the students in her class and getting the absolute most out of them Callahan serves as a mentor for so many teachers new teachers and Veteran teachers and I can't say enough about the ability that she has and the impact that she has on the Joyce kber community so congratulations [Applause] Liz I know this is so not your style I'll do it yeah I know you can from the one you never hear from um it's been when I was thinking back 28 years ago I kind of stepped in it in a in a good way where I was student teaching here and I was lucky enough to get a job The Following fall and Ma has always welcomed me with open arms and I feel fortunate to still be here and supported by Administration my friends and colleagues and of course the students and parents thank you very much for everything I really do appreciate it thank [Applause] you and a shout out to Avery Avery was the student who uh jumped on the video for us our next uh honorary is Miss Alan Mahoney I saw Alan earlier can you just stand up briefly Ellen okay yeah there she is teacher kinderart at Len Meadow School Mrs Mahoney has dedicated over three decades of her life to teaching our children in MAA many have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the remarkable dedication and passion that Mrs Mahoney brings her role as an educator Ellen ensures that each student feels supported valued and challenged in their Learning Journey Mrs Mahoney embodies the qualities of an outstanding educator advocacy for students clear communication invol involvement in the school Community leadership and a passion for teaching the right family has had two children who have had the fortune opportunity to be in Mrs Mahoney's class and are also here this evening yes Mr Right um when I spoke to uh Mrs R over the phone they were so excited to speak about you my cell phone's going to die uh ladies and gentlemen so I'll get technology you want to hear me okay so this is my daughter Parker this is pton and my wife Jennifer being a teacher is not an easy job there are many different kinds of teachers those that just teach get the job done go home check the box then there's the teachers that go above and beyond now the job of a kindergarten teacher is probably one of the most difficult exhausting jobs there is rent the mov Kindergarten Cop if you guys she wipes tears cleans runny noses ties shoes and for my high maintenance children post sticky notes on automatic toilet sensors to stop it from flushing right when it time comes to send your firstborn off to kindergarten many parents are met with a mix of emotions as were we in 2018 it was our turn to send our first child Payton off the kindergarten we were not okay the time had come for Len Meadows kindergarten orientation and now this is through my wife's words I'm just going to repeat I actually walked into the kindergarten classroom and took a seat we listened to the hso president speak and lastly one of the kindergarten teacher spoke to us about the kindergarten experience and what to expect as an anxious parent I sat and listened the teacher had a warm friendly smile throughout her presentation and I started to accept the idea of sending my baby off the kindergarten all all I could think of is wow she is really excited about kindergarten maybe I should be too I knew that we were going to that we were going to be brave and get through this I needed him to have this nice teacher with this big smile standing in front of me I also discovered later on I was not alone and everyone wanted to have her too true that too apparently she was the teacher you wanted to get at the end I learned that the teacher's name was Mrs Mahoney as the summer progressed ner set in and finally that day in August the day that all the parents eagerly wait by their computer to find out who their teachers is going to be we got the word it was going to be Mrs Mahoney I jumped with excitement and the decision was made pton was going to kindergarten and he was going to be okay he was going to be in the best hands the day before school we had the opportunity to visit the classroom and at the end I quietly walked up to Mrs Mahoney and introduced myself I spoke of my concerns and she patiently still smiling listened to my 5-minute anxious rant she calm me down and told me it was going to be okay and I was going to be okay cuz I found out she was a Giants Manan I watched my little boy grow up in front of my eyes he loved the school and absolutely loved his teacher he was thriving Mr Mahoney would frequently let me know of his progress and or even when he was testing her knew the freedom away from home we were a team she loved her students and it showed one Saturday she came to watch him in some of his other classmates at their soccer game he just loved his teacher and we loved her too it was a great year fast forward 3 years and it was time for our baby our little angel Parker Eloise to go to kindergarten that's right this was even harder I made the decision that if Parker didn't have Miss Mahoney she was just not going to kindergarten at all until she had Mrs Mahoney I mailed her over the summer remind her that Parker was going to kindergarten hint T she would be she responded immediately and told me not to worry she would be in good hands no matter what my wish came true and Parker was beyond excited on the first day of school my little six-year-old baby ran with excitement right in the building to see Miss Mahoney I left me at the door crying it was another amazing year Parker loved kindergarten and going to school every day they developed a very special bond Parker felt so very loved by Miss Mahoney she just loved their hugs fast forward one morning Parker was upset crying and wouldn't go into the building maybe because the Giants lost this was very unlike her Mrs Mahoney came out side kneel down wiped her tears away and brought her inside she messaged me shortly and said don't worry she's smiling now over the years Mrs Mahoney has become more than a teacher to both Payton and Parker her love her hugs her smiles have a lasting impact on both of them even if they left their classroom she has always and continues to make them feel special as she does with all of her students and former students When you mention the name is Mahoney around town parents eyes light up Parker is now in second grade this past December she danced in her first kn of ballet she asked me if I could email her teachers and invite them to come watch her then she said and don't forget about Mrs Mahoney Tomy she'll be so so excited to see me dance on stage and Mrs Mahon responded to my email within minutes and a response I can't wait to see my shining star on stage I will never forget the look on Parker's face when I read that to her she felt so special more recently after every track me Parker says mommy did you send Miss Mahoney my video I think she the congrats to hugs and praise every Monday morning and lastly we all have teachers in our lives that we remember for forever I have them my wife has them and all of you do and I think Mrs Mahoney is one of those teachers that my children are going to remember for the rest of their lives they always remember her smile her hugs and the love that she showed them inside of school outside of school and years after they were her students and that's what makes her extraordinary teacher and person l Meadows is so fortunate to have his M Mahoney on their team to welcome our newest members to the school Community they are in the best of hands thank you Mrs [Applause] Mahoney say of course I don't want to take the stage from Parker you good you thank you when I spoke to Mrs Wright she shared that she she didn't want to jump on the mic but she said that her husband would do a great job and killed it so next time put it out okay yeah sure you're you're here yes yes anyone who knows uh this pair Maryanne is Ellen's sister and they both happen to teach kindergarten together at Len medal school so Mr R you stole some of my material but go as a much younger sister I have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the passion dedication and unwavering commitment that Ellen brings to her work every single day it's not just a job for her it's a calling from the moment she steps into the classroom she radiates warmth kindness and enthusiasm creating an environment where children feel not only safe and cared for but inspired growing up with her I always knew she had a special gift when it came to working with children her patience creativity and her love shines through every day whether it's through her storytelling Hands-On activities or just a hug she has an extraordinary ability to connect with every child understanding their needs their strengths and their challenges throughout our career Ellen has touched the hearts and minds of students in ways that extend beyond textbooks and lesson plans she creates an environment where curiosity flourishes students feel empowered to ask questions to challenge themselves and to grow both academically and personally Ellen can often be found at a student soccer or baseball game dance recital or even at their homes dropping off books or projects that you didn't want them to miss Ellen attends the high school graduation every year she has saved her class pict from each of her 39 classes and can name every student Ellen makes the effort to find each of those students to wish them luck and offer words of praise and encouragement Ellen is a mentor a friend and an inspiration to her colleagues she is always willing to lend an ear offer advice or share her wealth of knowledge and experience most days Ellen is the first teacher in the building and the last to leave at home she can often be found doing her school work in between Innings of the Yankee games or at half timee of the Giant games she is always one week ahead of the rest of us and can pull a book activity assessment from a folder faster than anyone else her dedication to her students and her profession is unwavering serving as an inspiration to all who have the privilege of knowing and working with her today as we honor her as Teacher of the Year let us not only celebrate her achievements but also express our deepest gratitude for the countless lives you have touched and the countless Futures you have helped to shape so please join me and congratulating my sister not only for this well-deserved recognition now I'm getting emotional but for her dedication her passion and her boundless love for teaching may she know how valued she is and how much she is loved by me her students colleagues and the entire Mawa Community I give a few words congratulations justat thank you thank you I am truly overwhelmed with this honor um I'd like to congratulate all the other teachers who were nominated as well and the whole staff of the MAA public schools because we work together and we wouldn't be where we are without each other and that's the key I've been so so fortunate from the time I was a small child I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher so I am still living my dream 39 years later um and I'm so lucky I look I am sad in June on the last day of school I look forward to the first day of school and every year is is wonderful and I'm always I'm happy doing what I do and I face each day with a smile and our little ones need to always feel good about themselves and to feel safe and loved and I hope that I've provided that for them thank you thank [Applause] you our next teacher is Miss Kelly picarello Kelly picarello seeks ways to continue to grow her practice all year long this school year she has led professional development for our multilingual students in the classroom and C with colleagues to integrate new resources Kelly also introduced a schoolwide initiative with students related to recycling snacks Mrs picarello keeps students individuality at the Forefront of her mind and gives her all to making a meaningful educational experience she is willing to try new things and always approaches education with a positive thoughtful and let's do it mindset Mrs Petri as one of Mrs picarella's class moms has a few words to share about Mrs picarella and her impact on her [Applause] students good evening thank you for the opportunity to honor Mrs picarel tonight as teacher of the year my name is Jen Petri and my son Aiden has been in her third grade class this year I'm a class parent along with Patricia who could not be here tonight but I will be sharing some of her sentiments as well we'd like to congratulate Mrs picarella on this well-deserved honor as teacher of the year Mrs picarella has wonderful energy and enthusiasm and a great rapport with her students her classroom is a very positive and inclusive environment in which my son has thrived this year now I'd also like to share some of the wonderful things some of the other parents um in the class of of students in the class have shared as well she is a committed teacher she challenges her students to think critically and lead with kindness and respect she is a great communicator and keeps parents in the loop with students progress frequently with regular email updates which are always appreciated goes above and beyond to ensure their child receives the educational support they need she provides a positive and engaging environment she strategically uses teaching method best suited to meet each individual child's needs and engage them in a fun and exciting way she's a vital influence on their child's education she's encouraging and empowers their child to believe in himself and finally I'll close with some words from one of her students when asked what she likes most about Mrs picarella she said she's sweet kind and does the best cartwheels and helps her to do her best at school what more could you ask for congratulations Mrs picker [Applause] and if anyone knows Kelly she also has the best sense of humor so Kelly everyone want of course I oh my go congratul thank you so much I'm so sweet thank you hi my whole family want to come of course as they should um I just want to say thank you I've worked with so many amazing teachers over the years and um I just come to school every day I want to make it fun because I want the kids to want to be there so if that means dancing singing cartwheels you name it I'll do it to keep anyone's attention um and I just love coming to work and I'm so lucky to work at my school GW um and with a lot of the other teachers in this room um so thank you so much that's [Applause] it last but certainly not least I see Courtney waiting patiently at the front there um So based on the nomination for Mrs Courtney bird she's a third grade teacher at Betsy raw School uh she's a colleague and a teacher who inspires and motivates not only her colleagues but also her students she continuously Works collectively with her direct third grade team but also with her collaborative teacher they plan create and promote high level instructional practices to elevate their student achievement she promotes a loving and caring community of Learners and if you ever pass her classroom you can see and hear just that we are honored to have Courtney on staff and I know that Mrs branck who is in the crowd has even more to share as one of Courtney's parents and I called Mrs branic uh to speak on cor's behalf she was uh so excited to do so um and and honored sincerely honored to do so she spoke so lovingly about you Courtney so um this is branck and Cole Cole's gonna say one all right Cole go ahead Miss birs is my my favorite teacher ever she is so nice to me in my class and I have a lot of fun in her class she taught me math and reading she was always happy and I love talking about Martha's vineard with her and I'm lucky she she is my teacher love Cole Betsy Ross holds a special place in my heart Not only was it my elementary school but all three of my boys were lucky enough to attend there as well next month will be Bittersweet as it will end our 11-year tenure there each of our boys had a wonderful experience Betsy Ross literally wraps its arms around the students and is the epitome of the Cozy Elementary experience that families envision our youngest son Cole entered Betsy Ross facing numerous academic and personal obstacles not that I wasn't confident in the staff but to say they had their work cut out for them as an understatement when he received his IEP after kindergarten Year miss ly assured me by saying we got him I will never forget those words Cole's team had him in every respect he is a completely different boy than the one that entered those doors four years ago and I contribute his success and accomplishments to the profound passion and love of his best teachers Miss Burns was the cherry on top of our Betsy experience she had the opportunity to see the coal that was just about to reach the Finish Line what is so incredible about her is that she had a way of being being super nurturing comforting and supportive yet at the same time she held Cole accountable she introduced him to self- advocacy skills and she was the final puzzle piece to Cole's unfathomable success Cole wanted to please her he always came right home and told me if there was something important in his folder or something new on the Google slide she is a type of teacher that creates a spark within the students one that makes kids want to do and be better she was the perfect balance of fostering the elementary experience while also preparing him for the next chapter in his schooling one of the greatest things she did for him was to show him that his dimples can't get him out of everything she made him believe that he is capable and set the bar for him accordingly you are a treasure you are diligent organized motivating and sweet with just the perfect amount of I got I on you you have a gift in this field and every child that has had the opportunity to be embraced by your passion is extremely lucky congratulations on such a well-deserved honor and thank you from the bottom of my heart for setting coal up for Success you along with all of the teachers my family has been fortunate enough to have to come to know and love our gems and we are forever thankful [Applause] Co you stole the show man great job I don't to say anything all right thank you hold no of course not say a few words thank you I'm overwhelmed right now I feel so loved I feel so supported and I think Mrs branck said it Betsy Ross is our home it's our cozy little community and I started out as a parah in first grade I was a student teacher I was a substitute I was a classroom teacher I am a classroom teacher and I just feel very very lucky that Betsy Ross is my home away from home so thank you to my family who's here to my students who are also my family their families to my Betsy family thank you all thank you and congratulations to everybody here [Applause] I just wanted to say thank you first to all those who who participated tonight it was wonderful to hear just the different ways that each of these incredible teachers touch the hearts the minds of our students and connected with our families and you know any time that I get a chance or anytime people will listen to me I talk about how special ma really is and this is a perfect example to show the impact that each and every one of you have on our kids so from from from Administration from MAA I just want to say thank you and congratulations before I hand it over to Dr Mory I just wanted to share with everyone the teachers who we celebrated here tonight are going to be honored at at down in tck for the Bergen County teacher of the year lunch in tomorrow so enjoy every second of it you all [Applause] deserved um again on behalf of the board um of Education I mean it is heart Waring and I mean truly I think I was tearing up as probably all of us were a little bit because um what this really demonstrated especially when students come uh and your colleagues uh to recognize the contributions um and to know what a difference you're making in child's life I mean it is it is really amazing so thank you congratulations again uh to Sarah gazinski I wrote the names down so I'm going to say Sarah gazinski Kathy kesi lizo Callahan Ellen Mahoney Kelly picarello and Courtney Burns um and again congratulations enjoy uh the lunch in tomorrow and obviously very very welcome deserved um and thank you for coming out this evening to uh be recognized would you appreciate that so um we will give everyone perhaps a minute or two um you're please welcome to stay for our remainder of the board meeting but if you decide not to perhaps you want to meet for a moment and then e e e e e e e e e e e e e e thank you all again for coming we're going going right to 18 [Music] we' done our [Music] [Music] uh allow me a couple of moments to introduce our next presentation um it's about that time every single year that we come together and we start to talk about the work that's being done with our strategic Plan before we go forward I want just take a step back I know I've said this a number of times but it's worth repeating is to give the historical perspective of our strategic plan so back in 2019 we came together and we started to talk about where the different schools were going we have six schools in the district they all work extremely hard and each School each individual school starts to develop plans they come together they work with their teachers and they accomplish their goals but what we noticed was it was splintering and what we needed to do is bring everyone together to really work towards a common goal in order to develop our strategic plan we were able to engage a number of stakeholders we held a number of meetings we brought our community members together our teachers our administrators we spoke to our students and we started to identify themes within uh those discussions and that was the what that was our springboard into creating the Mawa blueprint when we developed the Mawa blueprint what we were committed to was to come together and give a report twice a year to our Community to share the work that's being done it's really important to not just build the plan but to make it relevant and guide our practice year after year so in order to do that in order to showcase the work to not only our community but to our teachers and our administrators we developed a page that spoke about the progress and we were able to monitor our progress so what Dr fair is going to do is he's going to bring up this is house on our on our website and as if you can see as you can see you can see the four frames that we identified facilities curriculum instruction social emotional learning and Community connections and within each of those frames we have goals Dr Fe if you can click on curriculum and instruction fac or facilities on curriculum instruction when you click on that page you'll see the different goals that we have established and you also see our progress monitoring bar which will be discussed as we talk about the work within each of the frames but if you scroll all the way down to the bottom there are two important documents that I want to bring your attention to the document on the right which you have a copy of our Board of Education as a copy of is really our vision statement so back in 2020 we developed our goals and what we wanted to do is we wanted to identify what will this look like by the time that we're done what are we shooting for and then from those goals we're going to unpack them and start to be strategic and and break them out into yearly goals so you have a copy of that at your at your place right now the second tab that is on the left you'll when you click on it you'll see all the work that has been done from 2020 till 2024 so when you go to the initial page you'll see these progress bars but a lot of people are going to say what was done to get to that place within this document you'll see all the work that's been done from 2020 to 2024 that leads me to my last Conversation Piece is what's next so as as we discuss all of our work today which I'm extremely proud of it took everybody in this District to accomplish all the things that you're about to hear about we have to start to think about what's our blueo a blueprint 2.0 next year we're going to come together we're going to do the same process of listening to our constituents hearing what's going well identifying our points of growth and bringing it all together and identifying themes and creating goals accordingly and that's what's going to allow us all to be rowing in in the same direction no longer are we going to be creating goals and going left and right and splintering it's really going to be important and Powerful for all of us to work together in order to attain the goals that we have and it's my hope that you're able to appreciate the work that's been that that's taking place we're going to shift it a little bit usually we go year by year or January to June this is our work being that this is our fourth year of our strategic plan Dr Fair Dr Dr bino and Miss Rizzo as well as Mr bleer are going to talk about the work that we have done from 2020 to 2024 because what I want us to start to do is frame what's next does that make sense yes okay okay uh good evening everyone thank you very much um I'm going to speak about the facilities uh section of the Strategic plan uh our goals are listed here uh these are the goals that we've mentioned and highlighted before as I go through each um goal individually uh we'll also highlight them as Dr Toro had mentioned as our this slideshow is presented on our website later going here you can click on hype link that will take you directly to the website portion that Dr Toro had highlighted a short time ago goal number one for facilities was to regular evaluate our learning spaces to ensure that they're flexible enough for our needs um this goal I've always referenced as we've gone through it as information gathering and the goal that takes information takes data that we find through various resources and learns from that how we can apply and how we can um achieve this goal so some of the things that we've done is we've uh completed our facility audit we did this right at the start of the Strategic plan plan process about five years ago um at last month's board meeting or the board meeting earlier this month uh we approved a resolution to have a new facility or done or refresh the one that was done several years ago that'll be a nice framework for us to um look at going forward other things that have been done is we've taken a look at our infrastructure in various areas of it our Wi-Fi infrastructure Paving HBC vehicle Roofing um replacement and Creed schedules to maintain and to plan for for going forward uh we also increased and had um strategic and specific meetings throughout the course of the year with various stakeholders to discuss areas uh to evaluate and areas to improve them on for next year uh the top right we have our goal we have the progress bar that Dr mentioned uh for this goal we see we um value this as 85% complete to date and in the bottom right for next year um as mentioned uh a short time ago we're looking to update that facility audit and also to to um upgrade security system this will bring us some consistency throughout the district for goal number two uh regularly update Innovative learning spaces uh on the left hand side are various different projects that we have completed over the last couple years since we started the Strategic plan um goals and projects that have been done um that coincide with this goal include refreshing and enhancing outdoor classrooms and Courtyards uh the work that we did at Joyce Kilmer school for the Innovation lab that is a nice um um counter to or a nice tie in with our steam lab uh that we have at the high school the steam Edition that we did several years ago uh LED lighting throughout all the classrooms and expansion contined expansion of our onetoone computers for our students throughout the district uh also to update Innovative learning spaces uh at our wood shop at our high school finding a location of appropriate for CNC machine so they can add to the the projects that they can do there for goal number two uh we value this as 90% complete and for next year some of the projects that we're looking to do is to have a roll out of interactive boards and some of the schools at the K5 levels um continue to finish up a project at George Washington School for HBC elal and continued expansion of um technology at grades K through 5 rle number three identifying outdated and underutilized spaces uh so this again we're going to back to our facility audit as something that was done previously to help us in accomplishing this goal uh We've also had um uh intentional meetings throughout the years with Administration with board members as we discuss various different projects and various different uh specific elements of each school and what can be done to uh work towards this goal uh Ava needs were improved at Betsy Ross and Joyce Kilmer school also our um grand stand and track specifically our grand stand repl that was done last summer that has improved Ada accessibility for um that area of the school for any Spectators or fans or students who uh want to attend and um visit that area and for this goal we also value similar to goal two at 90% completes and some of the items for next year uh that we have plan that uh tie into this goal is transition of the K3 selfcontained to L meal and continue development and maintenance of of our priori list of specific School needs then goal four allocate funds yearly to ensure the safety of all staff and students uh over the course of the years and I mentioned this before in goal one but it's also applicable here as well is there a development of replacement schedules for various parts of our infrastructure systems um those meetings with principles throughout the year to identify any specific needs and creation of the maintenance Reserve account that's another one to highlight uh a a new source of funding that when we start the plan we did not have it was created at the uh beginning of the Str plan process was um opening up that account establishing it and funding it as another funding Reserve to um allocate funds and to accomplish any of the goals uh any the projects that we have this goal for goal number four we also um identify this as being 90% complet And for next year some things that we have scheduled that align to this goal uh is refreshing the facility Bo that we had mentioned previously and allowing us to begin to project and plan for projects in the 25 26 year and Beyond thank you very much sorry sorry for it's good I can see yeah put it to the keyboard it's all right darling thank you for the accommodation I appreciate it so much I'm here tonight to uh cap some of our social emotional learning experiences um relative to the blueprint obviously our goals are here and they'll be restated um Slide by slide our first goal is to regular evaluate social emotional student health and wellness curricular offerings and experiences and some of the highlights from this slide I'd like to share with you is that we created a responsive classroom K2 and 35 curriculum um we found this to be obviously necessary for qac won't be the first time you hear that tonight and um certainly because it helps to facilitate for us um a cohesive dialogue around responsive class room and keep that initiative alive as we bring new faculty into the district additionally um one of the other items I'd like to highlight in the list on the left is that the seal coaches are creating theal handbook for teachers a resource guide with various experiences and ideas and in our prior presentation I talked about obviously the generosity of the board to see to it that within each of our buildings we have at least two seal coaches who are um given that position and are working towards that um relative to all of the initia initiatives around seal and in particular within the building as you'll see the last bullet Mel March is literally run and executed by our seal coaches um we've determined our success at this goal to be at 75% um on the right hand side the one bullet that we are actively working on right now is creating with the guidance Department not for this year but for next year because their survey already went out a survey in which um the high school already does a post experience survey we're going to be adding some questions relative to seal to that population our second goal is cultivate a learning environment that creates empathetic Learners appreciative of our diverse community and communities as at large are eager to understand the individual experiences of their peers and recognize the value of human rights of all people um and some of the activities I want to highlight on the left is long coming and previously known as Harmony day is our International Day which we celebrated in grades 6 through 12 at the high school our goal is to obviously include JK the following year and at one point get to a districtwide international experience um additionally we have expanded our school calendar that was created by Dr Doro and the central office team to embrace um perhaps holidays that hadn't otherwise been embraced by our calendar before which is um certainly a celebration of our unique cultures um an item that on the left we are very proud of and is in the making is the Habitat for Humanity goal to um essentially build a house for a local family you'll hear more about that so I won't dwell on it but it is certainly one that we are very proud of and um as is the competitive nature of Dr dor and Dr Fair we will build that house um we certainly use the castle competencies in all that we do with our students and staff so again seal is not something random that Dr bovino and I have pulled out of the air but in fact there are competencies that are also acknowledged by the department of Ed relative to that and we um awarded ourselves 85 points relative to our success there and and um we just at lunch today finalized how we are going to create a Thunderbird partnership in which our youth will be identifying themselves as potential Thunderbird Partners in which to trickle down their knowledge to our other students in the district and we are also talking about on another slide I won't preempt it a little bit but parents are going to have their turn to help parents as well goal three is to create programs and provide tools for parents and resources needed to support their children both socially and emot emotionally and I'm always going to and I'm never going to rest and plug the parent Academy so that Dr bino and I can have friends on screen with us and our goal is always to do greater than 40 participants so we certainly have seal presentations you can go to Dr Pino's website and view those because we have the luxury of recording them through the means in which we do it um propio and talking points are applications in which we are able to communicate with our ml families um and I believe that that inclusive opportunity this year has broadened experiences for parents and students and um this year we also developed um a document in which our guidance staff and our therapeutic team can provide parents with resources and information um basically at the search of our website so we're really pleased to have that as an offering we've achieved 75% of our goal and as I said earlier we're looking to create a parent forp parent or a parent forp parent Thunderbird partners ship in which parents who have skills and wish to share them with other parents we can do that as well again created at lunch today that's Advanced planning if you ask B four build the K12 social emotional learning curriculum through support of a comprehensive School counseling program and comp complimenting Seal program with unified language consistent practices and level appropriate structures obviously I spoke about the curriculum um but here obviously I want to highlight again the generosity of the board that we have our elementary counselors in place and I can't overemphasize how much the K5 Continuum of Care for social emotional experiences exist for our students and of course our 6 through 12 has always been there but has certainly been bolstered through the vision of our strategic plan and we believe in and want to continue to connect with the community's access for all and we hope to be able to r that experience as well we believe we've reached 90% of our goal here and um these were very lofty on the right when I created them maybe someone should have told me to simmer down but I'm not going to stop and I'm going to say that one of the things I really want to work on obviously is creating a dropin center experience for our community and certainly conducting annual screening of student resiliency and grit along with our njss student support service uh initiative as well so that is that is to come as well and lastly our fifth goal 100% completed was to establish explicit yearly professional development opportunities for staff as it relates to social emotional development and challenges that may occur in their classroom in teaching a group of students with diverse backgrounds and needs we all know the wealth of PD experiences our teachers have both in and out of the district um some of the Highlight is certainly the last bullet in which we are leaning and almost there of creating our own internal training and this was a commitment we made to the board in which we said thank you so much for the generosity of funding a consultant we took everything that we could from our consultant and in the infinite wisdom of Mawa staff we are ready to fly on our own and create an opportunity in which we will have a MAA seal certificate based on experiences for our faculty so that is with our strategic plan for SE all right ready to fly own all right so we're going to talk about instruction I'm not over each Bullet review you you've heard these before and you know what they are um back to this uh link the 2020 I will go over them on each side this is the um vision statements that we had which Dr TR talked about so you see there but we're going to talk through them there's a lot of information on all of these slides so I'm going to attempt to highlight a couple for you as opposed to going through all of them um the first goal really has to do with updating our curriculum and ensuring that our is well balanced and always they were always monitoring it we did that so we went through the qack process yes check check is over so I can't officially tell you where we are but I will tell you they were happy when they left and we are happy that they did leave but through this process we were able to obain our curriculum where we needed to but it really gave us an insight as to where there were holes in our curriculum development so we're going to be working on that not fully there we have our our points at 90% um the next thing that we're going to do really have to do with understanding how to create a well-rounded curriculum with an evaluation process of that curriculum so that's on that left hand side or the right hand side for you the other thing I want to highlight here is njss we talk about this a lot we talk about it usually with data but what ntss did for us in terms of curriculum development is it gave us an insight into where our curricular holes were so we found through our data analysis that we a we were able to fill in units and mini units in courses like algebra one for our foundations courses at the middle school so ntss should be highlighted here for the reasons of updating curriculum for go two this really talks about how we create opportunities for our students to be glal fers um and be supportive to Society at large so there is one thing up there Habitat for Humanity my colleague already mentioned this but we are building a house it is not here in MA but it is in Oro and we're really excited because we have enough money for Sheck and I think is it liting I think some we have we can have plugs plugs and she so we would love to continue this but the important piece here is that it came from our kids habitat um as a club and Sarah gazinski actually is the club leader for our students they were the ones who who thought of this and who said they wanted to do it um another really important thing is um has anybody been to Center for food action recently so when you walk in you're going to see a beautiful mural that came from our rid GMT uh students they actually partnered with Center for action and they they developed a beautiful mural these are how our kids go out into the community and help others we want to continue that we are only at 70% here um and we are looking to do a day of good so how can we expand this to our whole District how can we create a day of service for everybody okay goal three all of these words mean professional development so um in our professional development um all we we provide to all of our district is we have individual professional development we have January professional development we have uh something new this year is called micro PDS um so we send those out and obviously we have the ability to send our teachers and staff anywhere they would like to go as long as it aligns with what they're doing the next step for us though with PD because we have ourselves at 75% here is a Ludo a Ludo is a PD Hub where you can have anytime learning on topics you are interested in um and this is something you actually approved so it is coming soon we wanted to put a little sign there that said coming soon but this is going to get us over that threshold okay number four this really focuses on authentic learning problem based learning um and this was the start of the th partnership so we have to give ourselves a pat on the back if we just said those two words it would take up this whole SL um and we are at 100% we're really really excited there are a bunch of other things that our kids are doing and our staff are doing but that's our major highlight is that th partnership program another thing we wanted to highlight is the DECA enrollment our Deca enrollment went from 49 students to 78 students this is amazing this means that our kids want to get out there and experience things Beyond just that classroom which is really really important for us feel we have like balloons 100% all right and number five last but not least this is our commitment to offering post secondary and organizational um commitments so we created a dual enrollment program a while ago but we've expanded it we actually have seven universities that partner with us now we have 24 courses where students can receive dual enrollment and we per with over four different trade schools which is amazing so that that alone for our kids is just a wonderful opportunity for them the other thing here is our internship and externship program and I'm not going to take my the vender away from Dr Dr fa because he's going to talk a little bit about that but again a huge opportunity for our kids next is micr credentials so coming soon we have badging this year for pathways on our transcripts but the next goal for next year is micro connections conne all right so as Dr Pino uh already inferred there is some overlap uh with Community connections obviously with uh each of the other three frames so um the fourth frame of our strategic plan centers on these community connections um and our goals are listed on this slide our uh ashma connects theme that we created several years ago has actually stuck over time and it certainly encapsulates these goals on the following slides I will review uh and showcase our great progress along with uh along with the work that we've done over the past four years of our strategic plan implementation so on this slide uh goal one speaks to our internships externships and mentorship opportunities for our students and based on our progress thus far we believe that we are 85% complete with this particular goal on the left hand side you'll see a list of what we believe to be the achievements uh towards this goal already and on the right hand side of each slide is a work that we believe still has to be done so we've obviously grown with our thunderbear uh partnership program we've talked a lot about it over the the last few years uh with almost weekly visits of loal experts we're also really proud of our career Pathways program which we've showcased as several board meetings with our middle school program exposing our students to the range of Pathways before the at M high school and we have a list of those career Pathways uh below we piloted our internship and externship program during the summer of 202 3 at Ma high school with significant expansion in program and participation amongst our students so last summer we had approximately 15 participants in our internship externship program and uh currently uh in preparation for this upcoming summer we have uh a little over 40 students will be participating which is really exciting what we plan on doing in achieving this goal in our final year of our strategic plan implementation uh is found on the right hand side of the slide so uh we we look to continue to expand our Thunderbird Partnerships to include a wider range of potential offerings so uh exploring all types of contributions by our local experts uh so experts in the classroom professional supporting professionals Community Service Partners jobs and action and uh find your passion we look to continue to expand our internship and externship programs and also to take a closer look at Capstone opportunities for our seniors to C our senior's career Pathways trajectory our second goal focuses on the development of a program that supports guides and informs our new families in our district uh we believe that currently we're at 85% of completion towards this goal so we have worked hard to convey information to our new families on a more consistent basis but you'll see on the right hand side we we're working towards creating a system where once we learn a new family in our district we we have something that is automatic where we uh provide information to our new families related to programs and anything Community related we have increased the district's intentional branding highlighting the many achievements of our program so uh there have been some award recognition with Future Ready schools from the international Technology and Engineering Education Association uh we have an application in for uh School of character we've uh as a central office team we've done Statewide presentations on our Thunderbird partnership program um we've written and published local and National articles and educational viewpoints which is a New Jersey based uh publication as well as school administrator magazine which is National and we've been able to uh been highlighted with uh US News and World reports for ma ma school and ramp middle school as Schools of Excellence uh We've recently engaged with Laur Bishop Communications Consultants uh to audit our communication practices and provide districtwide recommendations for our strategy forward uh some press releases that have been written um and collaborated with uh this this uh consultant H have been topics related to our Gem's evening showcase uh which is girls in engineering math and the Sciences um also highlighting our mock trial successes as well as our habitat for Humanity work on the right hand side in our final year of our strategic plan uh we're looking to uh obviously continue our work in building those systems towards uh communication with our new families and continue our work in partnering with our schools hsos to propel this work forward our third goal centers on engaging local experts to expand our students exposure to Career Education uh we're almost there we we're currently we believe at 95% completion towards this goal um on the left hand side you'll see that our career Pathways program uh obviously provides opportunities for our students with our work beginning in middle school as a purposeful precursor for our middle schoolers into our program we've also increased branding for the district uh as I discussed in the previous slide and we look to concentrate our efforts on providing our secondary students with expansive career fair opportunities so uh similar to all the other fairs we've included over the last year or so related to uh volunteers and Club fairs uh we also are looking at um building in career fair opportunities just today we actually had an alternative to four-year college fair for our students which include representation from trade and technical schools so we're super excited about that as well and lastly our fourth goal uh looks to explore how our school supports our diverse population we believe that we've achieved 85% of our goal this far with support of by our board we've engaged in our inclusivity audit across the district we've also connected with our multilingual families more regularly through our talking points application over the years we have increased our dual enrollment course offerings as Dr bino had mentioned and we've had intentional opportunities for student Partnerships which have grown across the district so through thoughtful transition experiences we've had um as students move up from third grade to uh the new building of JK and transitioning into our middle school and high school um we've had really thoughtful work done by our building principles to engage in um making that transition a smooth one for our kids our Habitat for Humanity Club has connected with our students uh Beyond just community service work but through tutoring opportunities and through uh social connections as well which has been really important our parenty have addressed a range of timely and relevant themes uh to our district families of all great levels as well and moving forward on the right you can see that Although our dual Ro dual enrollment program is is really robust uh we're looking to always ever improve that work and to continue to build and sustain our trade school Partnerships to expand those opportunities for those students who wish to follow that path post Mala high school thank you than you so just to summarize it's funny because when we talk as a team and I know it takes a little bit of time to get through the presentation I say this all the time time this is one of my this is one of my favorite meetings of the year because it gives us an opportunity to take a step back and reflect on what's currently taking place and if you listen to each of the presenters there were points of Pride that we talked about there's a lot of great work that's happening across facilities and curriculum and seal and Community connections but there's also the next goal because it's something that we're constantly going to be committed to we can celebrate we can be proud but we also don't want to rest on our Laurels we know that there's opportunities to continue to grow we know that there's opportunities to to identify things for us to make a little bit better or just shift and change it all depends on what we see as we go on each and every frame it talks about assessing and I think that's the most effective way for us to look at our status as a district our status curricularly our status facilities wise our status is specific to making sure that we're giving our students the tools to navate navigate the social terrain and also our status of Are We opening up our doors and welcoming in our community so um this is something I'm extremely proud of it's through the hard work of our administrators at the school building they have worked tirelessly to make sure that our our schools are going in the right direction um it's the work of our staff that are constantly committed to doing right by kids and I definitely want to take a moment to thank the board because you you are have been very generous and and very Comm to this work and all those reasons are the reasons why we're here today so I just want Tok take a moment to thank everyone who's been involved because our work's not done but sometimes it's it's great to take them step back and say what have we done to this point so are there any questions a question is a as a comment I think that everybody I mean you guys central office administrators teachers all the way you know right down the line really should be proud of the work that you know that we're doing here I think that it's it's rigorous it's it is a lot of work it's not easy work it sets a very high bar um and you know the fact that that kind of everybody's in the boat so to speak is is really a huge accomplishment because it is a lot of work and it's you know our our students and our community deserve no less so proud you know to to sit and listen to you know to to you guys talk about this stuff there's there's obvious obvious pride in the presentations and you know you guys are are doing a fantastic job I think it's it's just fantastic great I I'm just going to go back to at the time we hired Dr dor to be our superintendent a lot of us did research on the other candidates who were to the job and one of the things was uh the candidates often talked about oh I was involved in strategic planning but if you went to the websites of the places that they work you'll find that those strategic plans were on a shelf they were not updated they were not part of the regular um living um Catalyst for what the district does Mawa and and the leadership team here has really taken the strategic planning process seriously and you can see it by the work that's done every year it's uh comprehensive it is uh in every corner of our district um in big ways and little ways um it's it's a real it has it has dramatically focused our efforts on continuous Improvement for the student experience if I had to summarize everything um and we have a long way we have ways to go and we' we've come a long way and as as Rick said we have a lot to be proud of but um as as all the things on the right frame is we still work to do and and you guys are still enthusiastic about doing it which is very important so I want to thank everyone for all their contributions to the accomplishments that have been achieved and I look forward to the accomplishments that we will set up uh to do in the future and I look forward to getting the community involved in the next phase I could also add being someone who in the room December 2019 as a parent to provide input with a child um in second grade it this was a really great opportunity to see this all come around there's really truly Community input teacher influence as well as your direction and that comes together through partnership and being open to that Fe so I really want to thank you all for continuing to update us because while there is the the check the box moment that you filled the goal there's also that this is important you get it right so I think that's really parent and the way you've delivered your presentations and the way the parents are engaged so I think there's a lot here where you go from here where we can continue to challenge that we can deliver the best for the kids and you can see that in your intention so thank you uh no I just uh you continue I was my no I was saying sorry more Stu continue Dr dor please continue I want tole anybody all right I'm going to I'm going to keep this brief for sure um there there are things to celebrate uh that just recently happened and I I definitely wanted to um commit to our theme of highlighting Student Success each and every uh board meeting just recently MAA High School submitted uh for the New Jersey Board of Education student recognition award there there were over 30 submissions in Bergen County alone each county has one recipient the following were two re were our two submissions one as we said I think 15 times today Habitat for Humanity which is a volunteer Club focusing on supporting Community within a school I really shouldn't even explain what Habitat for Humanity is but for anybody who's new I'll give you a little bit of a summary uh they do snow angels for snow angels they don't do snow angels but they're called snow angels um and they they shovel for our seniors uh there's a tutor tutoring and homework help club that our high school students connect with our elementary students and they do tutoring at the library miles for Marcus which our student rep spoke about they have an ongoing relationship for with access for all and as we said 15 times hopefully everyone's interested in contributing we're building a house for a family in orido the second submission is for Community problem solvers the project is called project Outreach each year students in our community problem solving class research and identify a variety of school and Community issues before choosing a year-long focus area their goal is to implement solutions to help improve the identified problematic Sol uh situation this year students chose to focus on the needs of our growing multilingual learner population project Outreach recognizes issues faced by multilingual Learners who are new to our country and to our community they have spent the year providing support initiatives so that these students can have a more positive High School experience identifi they identified their ml students specific to social supports basic needs and academic supports the social supports that they're providing they created a meet and greet and they have ongoing opportunities to provide a friendly face for our students in school as well as providing guidance as needed the basic needs they created a closet designated to to provide access to food and also hand out MAA clothes and gear for various spirit days and they were able to fund this by collecting and fundraising throughout the year academic support they they're providing peer and also teacher-led tutoring they also raised money to purchase reading material that were at their level and most interestingly our students provided PD to our teachers on how to support our ml students in class I'm happy to report that out of the 30 submissions to Bergen County our community problem solvers were selected for the New Jersey Board of Education student recognition award Mr delesio the county superintendent came to our school yesterday to speak to the class and they will be attending the ceremony done in Mercer County tomorrow um two quick things um uh we have our second tberg talks that's coming on May 28th we sent out an RSVP a couple weeks ago we're actually going to send out a reminder tomorrow that is going to take place um at my high school think tank at 6:00 p.m. um and as it pertains to Athletics because I love my Athletics are we are in States for lacrosse our girls team won today 12 to5 against Cedar Grove and I just got a text from Mr Pascal our boys team also won today so both advaned to the second round of the states last thing I promise uh this is specific to school security as we have shared over the past six years MAA is committed to an ongoing assessment and upgrades to our school facilities and Personnel around school around school security over the past years we have upgraded and outfitted our school facilities with various security measures such as security vules traffic fards enhanced communication tools and a thorough Homeland Security assessment performed by our Police Department to guide our work to name a few 5 years ago we partnered with the MAA police to bring a school resource officer in SRO to MAA High School the MAA High School SRO serves in many capacities beginning with a police presence at the school to address or avert any security issues inside or out it also forges relationships with our students which is an important part of our school commity Community Connection this is not the first time that the MAA police has been involved in our schools we have been fortunate to have the MAA police serve in an educational role which they LED our students through the lead program which focuses on sound decision- making and problem solving at the elementary level further the Mawa police are in our buildings daily performing walkthroughs or stationed outside of our schools for increased police visibility in talking to the police we agree that increasing security presence in our schools is a logical next step in our ongoing efforts and improvements I'm asking the board to consider adding a school security officer to rampo Ridge school this individual is a recently retired police officer with all the accreditations needed to serve in that capacity Chief Oar and I met with the finance and Facilities committee to speak about the benefits of this position this person will not not only serve as an additional security measure but will also have opportunities to build relationship ship with our students teach about topics specific to safety and be a member of our school Community this individual will be working hand inand with our SRO and the ma Police Department due to the due to the success of the SRO at Ma High School this is a logical addition to our Mawa staff and I will ask the Board of Education to vote on this position at the June 12th meeting that's all I anything else you sure all right thank you Dr Doro and and thank you for the Strategic plan um update thank you to the the full team um I think what's critical about the Strategic plan is seeing where we were what we've accomplished and where we're going and I think to have it even though there are times that you feel it gets lengthy our our meetings but this is really the Crux and the important stuff that we're doing in this District um and so you know I'm glad that we are giving it its due time as well and we look forward to are we calling it strategic plan was on the flight 2.0 all right well I'm looking forward to it it's like you know keep keep uh keep your ears out for those details of of the uh those planning sessions anyway um all right thank uh Mr Blake do you have a report for us this evening no report this oh oh and Dr Fair do you have a report for us this evening I I do because um I sort of feel bad for the the four U people that we are recommending uh to be part of our leadership team um they've endured the evening thus far um but I do want to thank uh other administrators from our team who have uh stuck it out through the evening so I really appreciate you being here in support for your potential new colleagues uh so the the first person uh we are recommending uh into an administrative role is fil Sheik he is in the front there we are recommending Fel as our new supervisor of mathematics grades 6 through 12 Mr Sheik comes to us with an extensive knowledge of mathematics currently teaching middle school math and serving as a math coach for Mont Clair public schools in our hiring process we reviewed all 50 candidates application materials screened 20 through Zoom video conference had six candidates in for inperson interviews amongst the committee of Administrators supervisors and teachers from the math department with two finalists conducting a presentation related to Mawa specific math data Not only was Mr Sheik the Clear Choice by our Math teachers uh as their new supervisor but we believe that his knowledge of mathematics and Mathematics instruction will be helpful and moving our math department forward okay cool um our next uh our next recommendation is Mr Michael Hensel Mr Hensel comes to us with 12 years of principal experience in cresc and River Edge most recently spending the past 10 years as the principal of Roosevelt Elementary School a case6 building in review of over 100 candidates we Zoom video conference with 30 applicants calling in seven candidates for in-person interviews with a committee of Administrators teachers and parents from both Betsy Ross and George Washington School Mr Hensel demonstrated an evenness with regards to building based procedures and has a personality and obvious leadership that can benefit the building of Betsy Ross school we are very excited to have Mr Hensel join our leadership team in the months to come Mr hensel's references described him as down to earth and someone who genuinely believes in school Community I know that Mr henel has been practicing his wave so can you do the wave for us sir yes that's Mr h uh third we have uh Mr Michael Hagopian we are recommending him as the new building principal of George Washington School um in review of our over 100 candidates for principal ship uh again we Zoom conference with 30 applicants colan seven candidates for in-person interviews with our committee from both Betsy Ross and George Washington Mr Hagopian has been assistant principal of an elementary school in idell for the past seven years and before that served as a supervisor of instruction for grades K through six in or in orell as well in his interview Mr agopian exhibited an authenticity and a collaborative working style and Leadership that we believe will be a match for George Washington School his references characterize Mr hopan as having a strong work ethic uh and as someone who is able to forge very strong relationships with anyone and everyone uh we look forward to potentially having Michael Lee GW in the coming months and last but certainly last not least is there's an asteris on the agenda 19e Mr Thomas lamb business administrator our central office team met with all credentials applicants via zoom and completed a full interview process with the final four finalists M that sounded four finalists Mr lamb serves as our recommendation for the position of business administrator to join our central office team with 14 years of business administrator experience Mr lamb demonstrated through his interview an understanding of budgeting fiscal forecasting and thoughtful execution of procedures that will ultimately optimize our business office staff using specific examples from his own work experience to problem solve with thoughtful Precision we look forward to welcoming Mr lamb to our team so that is my SL our report this evening well uh although we're still having to vote uh congratulations and welcome to Mr Shake Mr Hensel Mr Hagopian and Mr lamb I'm just curious Mr Lim is that your family sitting with Sor oh okay I'm wondering the little boy in the back okay is has sat patiently and quietly for this whole meeting and I'm very appreciative okay um so anyway welcome to Ma I think this is probably a great meeting you've got a great flavor of MAA and uh we look forward to you're joining the team thank you very much um all right so let's move on to uh my report I will I will keep it quick um I just wanted to April's top saring teab Birds uh we have um Izzy Molina who's a grade 11 student um who is inspiring um and our science teacher Kristen fre uh for being very trusted um also congratulations to senior Julia grao who was honored with the njsi AA scholar athlete award um at the annual state Lon um and also for our te- Birds who have signed commitments to continue uh their academic athletic careers at the Collegiate level there's several uh students going to continue on which is exciting um and lastly the Habitat for Humanity I think you want to just say go big or go home that's it I think that's it I wanted to just mention the the link it's web link. donor perfect.com slah habitat so again uh they're hosting events they're looking for donations if any corporate donations are out there please get in touch um because again uh I think that's a it's a really great Endeavor so let's hope we we meet or surpass our goal um all right uh do we have Board of committee reports this evening Mr G I promise to be very brief is this an end of year report Mr okay very good so um reporting for negotiations um we have preliminarily come to agreement with um the supervisors Association that's the last of our representative groups uh we look forward both both parties are currently reviewing where we ended up and hopefully at our 612 meeting our next meeting uh the U membership of the Mas and the board will approve the contract and will'll be good for the next four years um in terms of financing facilities very very briefly we had one little glitch with um a project that we had been talking about for a little bit the gas piping project at the high school um that's going to be re-engineered hopefully and they'll be coming back in a different form as the bids came in way over budget um and just for our GW compatriots the retaining wall in the front of the building will be the other half of the wall will be worked on very shortly um there is a a ton of contract renewals on our agenda this evening all very sensible continuing the working relationships we have a whole with a whole bunch of groups I did want to Circle back to um one of the items though is is the prek um partnership that we're developing with B County Special Services which will be introducing a new level of service uh an IND District level of service for students with um autism um so this will be a new service delivered in a different way in our school building and it presents many many opportunities to really serve this community in a better way and a more fiscally sound way as well so it's um um has a lot of excitement we'll see how we do for the first year we look that partnership thank you Mr Gallow any other committee reports this evening Mr Denise yeah I I attended the um irban County School boards association meeting on May the 7th um there was supposed to be a vote on the bylaws but that got table to a future meeting there was um some updates from the county and the uh state level um at the count level the qac report is due to come out in July or August um and at the state level uh future funding um is projected to be either flat or just slightly increased for the next school year 24 25 school year and um the funding formula is um going to be tweaked and improve luiji board and that is my report thank you thank you Mr Denise uh any other committee reports okay from uh instruction and curriculum um we had our May meeting a few things to highlight and a few things that are actually on this agenda tonight um we actually have 18 uh MN and O uh related to curriculum instruction um one of the things um is under 18 there's a new course called pre-algebra Solutions um Courtney carella and um Danielle pway came uh to speak with us about how this um idea came to be um and this course came out of discussions of how best to support our um ml students ml multilingual Learners um and most of uh the multilingual learner students um are almost about two grade levels below in certain skills um in math particularly um and English language skills are a critical piece of understanding the math curriculum so they wanted to Pilot uh this course at Ramapo Ridge first um and in actuality um this will be um a class they have a ml um English class already that's like a support class but now they're hoping with this that this will be um specifically to address math support for them um and it will be a intervention and there will be entrance and exit criteria for students in the course um I bring you to um curriculum writing there's quite a lot of that going on over the summer 180 um there were some new state standards that came out in November 2023 um and these are ones we must be compliant with um Dr bino um assures us these are mostly changes in verbiage and language um and no significant curricular change so that's that um and the other new course of study under n is there um is Mander in Chinese 1 that is going to be a new course um at the eighth grade level um the last thing which I think we were all very excited about on curriculum instruction um is some of the I ready results um I ready is our Universal screening tool and overall for the entire District um and this is just from beginning to about a six-month check-in um there has been considerable growth in all content areas um f and was it was just it blew us away I think on curriculum instruction we were very impressed um and it's working that that was the Crux of it uh data teams the program it's working and we're hopeful that this will reflect positively in our njsla scores K through three for sure um that's instruction and curriculum all right do board member remarks uh Mr cin wanted to expand on some of that Max report on uh I had the privilege of attending the monair State Theater Awards and when I say privilege it was a two and a half hour ceremony that was running late so it was definitely a privilege as my daughter kept reminding me all night there was about 20 of us there with Mr naam um and not to go too far into it but what I learned that night was mon State University theater Awards is actually named a former teacher of of M Joanne Fox Joanne Fox was theater director and police cor if I'm off here in the 2000s um in 2009 she and a professor from Montclair State founded these Awards and unfortunately shortly after she passed away uh after her death uh the university and Professor I forget her name uh decided to rename him the foxy Awards so every year high schools as far down as moristown Princeton all the way up to us here in MAA and Bridgewood and all throughout BR County and all throughout that let's called Central to northern part of New Jersey are up for these Awards and there were a ton of awards given out and it was all in the name of joyan fox so it really made the 20 of us we we were all sitting there I don't know I think Mr Mayhem knew but I don't think the parents that were there especially the kids didn't know the connection to Ma so it was it was very cool and congratulations to Conor he was our winner uh we had six nominations for the play for the fall play and Conor walked away with one of the foxy so congratulations there yeah it was really cool just one other thing Dr trell I have some questions regarding security update you want hold on to it for next meeting you want to go over now I it's up to you regarding the security we we're talking about doing it at the ridge um can we discuss why we're not looking at expanding this for the four other schools that would not have the security officer in the building that's a great question um along the lines of our goal of expanding it um we had the SR we've had the SRO at Ma high school for I think about 5 years now and in that capacity we were able to develop um what that role looks like especially at the high school level um as we start to move down I think that role is going to shift and change along the lines of outside of the security realm so at the middle school level we felt like that was the next the log a logical Next Step um working under the that SRO model but also looking for more opportunities to create the connection with the students along the lines of of supervision and oversight from not supervision but oversight and presence from the the MAA police when we spoke to Chief O'Hara there's a commitment from the MAA police and if you go around the schools each and every day they walk through the schools each and every day they're outside the schools each and every day um and they're they're in the elementaries uh in the capacity of the lead um what I really want to look at with Mr Corey and Miss whing is how do they how do they work with our staff and our school community at the ridge how do we build that presence along the lines of the the teaching component of it the presence and the relational part of of that role and once we have that established my next step is to recommend um having that Presence at the elementary level so I just want to be thoughtful about what that looks like it's not just let's just put a security guard into a school building I think it's more important for us to do it in a in a manner of um that not only creates a security enhancement but also the relational enhancement and expands that experience for our students just to be clear this is not an SRO this is not an SRO but this will be an armed security officer correct okay and then from a cost standpoint is this built into our budget I don't know if this a question for Kyle or this is built in as another uh payroll or staff member that will be solely for the district correct yes correct for uh for one position at the rid is is budget for 2425 thank you any other board member remarks I just have a real quick one and this is really for John motion for the past year or two I've been working as an election pole worker and uh a year or two ago the um in t they piloted having high school kids work at the election polls um 30 kids from AWA were trained in the last few days to be election poll workers we're number two in the county behind te we have 30 they have 37 R is 25 so we're ahead of them um but we have 30 kids who stepped up to engage in our Civic um election process I don't know if they're all working on June 4th but uh there will be another push to recruit more people in the early fall for the general election so very proud to some long kids getting on the ground floor in our electoral process and and very lucrative and lucrative you get paid for that you get $50 for training $300 to work and because there are opportunities during early voting you can really you can make this a nice supplemental income if you're retiree it is not taxfree income they send you a form well that's one that's that's wonderful here interesting um all right uh any other board member remarks and the foxy Awards thank you br I I didn't realize that we've been talking about it about who was nominated and all and I'm surprised that that piece got missed because that's very important yeah remember this is in addition to the Metro Awards also different ones Bas in rocken county and I think Max met we had like four five yeah yeah for that one too but but I didn't know that uh you know was Rel to Joan Fox was who was very integral at Ma so that's interesting all right should we take 17A old business um miss anything else no 17A do I have a motion Mr Gallow second by Miss janon a roll call please Mr bleer Miss Jansen yes Mr cin yes Mr dilva obain Mr Denise yes Mr Gallum yes Mr Gorski same Dr morthy yes thank you all right let's take uh new business we have 18a to II Mr kmari second by Mr Denise uh Ro call please miss Jansen yes Mr cin yes Mr dilva yeah just to follow up on um Mr gall's comments 18K is actually we have the field trip for the AP social studies kids to go to locations and you know that's something that we've been talking about getting engaged you know in Civics more um was to see that I think that's fantastic yes thank you Mr Denise yes Mr Galla yes um [Music] any thank you I will beain on 18 check number 115478 for ESS Northeast thank you my wife's employer excited Mr Kari I am a yes but I must abstain on eony a check number 11 15555 I'm actually not sure check [Music] to the township so definitely I I also have tostain on 18 FF um while I'm obviously in full support of the SRO program is a shareff service and Dr Mory yes all right let's uh move on to new business 19 and our Personnel uh we have again 19 A2 I I and um Mr kmar you have a motion yes second by Mr Gallow um and thank and we have quite a ton of appointments and so thank you to Dr fair and and your team for um you know making sure that we are well staffed coming in the upcoming school year Mr Miss Jensen yes Mr coplin yes Mr D yes and congratulations to uh everybody in the audience Mr Denise yes and congratulations Mr Galla yes and congratulations thanks for sticking it out and hopefully you stick it out for the next 20 years with us thank you and yes on all those items Mr karski yes and welcome to Ma and Dr morthy uh yes and we promise most of our board meetings aren't this long all right right um public questions or comment public participation at board meetings is in accordance with bylaw 0167 at this time members of the public may ask questions or make a comment on educational issues or School matters of community interest as a matter of fairness you asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than three minutes if you're here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you're here as an individual please give us your name and address you need a motion to the meting meeting to the public Mr copin second by Mr just Sila we are open to the public Mr Fe good meing good evening good evening John feas 20 Falcon Court Mawa New Jersey land of the free home of the brave um I think this is the end of the second year where uh in this District the subject of climate change has been weave woven into the curriculum for all School all subjects all grades everything and I was just wondering what's the board's feeling about the success of that has that been 100 50 zero is did you get receive push back from the public and who said we don't believe in climate change why are you spending so much time on it or has everyone accepted it so if you could kindly remark about what's happened over the last two years I would greatly appreciate it he yes the board he yes the board I I I would say I don't well I I wondered if you had an answer I think from the board's perspective I mean I I I I think it's been it's been uh embraced Mr Fe and I don't think we people have not um provided feedback or come to board meetings that uh I'm aware of let me put it that way um to say that there guys so I'm I'm thinking that it has been a smashing success smashing success smashing success but perhaps Dr dor or Dr V has more specifics to uh Mr Mr Fe thank you for the question there let me kind of just go and explain the the climate change standards um and expectations that the state have is an obligation and and not a choice right um but what I can tell you is and I appreciate you say using the term woven um what what the district has been able to do is identify opportunities that it can be included within the curriculum as opposed to taking something out and putting something in often times with topics like this people are saying why don't you just teach X Y or Z why don't you just teach reading and writing and start to talk about the topics the fact of the matter is is there's opportunities for us to put this content these standards into our into our everyday experiences while simultaneously teaching the content in other subject areas so no we have not got gotten the push back that you're referring to um the training that needs to take place along lines of where it logically can be infused is taking place if as you can see I believe all one of the professional development um offerings um allows one some of our teachers to go and find where those opportunities can be logically placed so we're trying to do it in a thoughtful way it's something that the state has um like other things have said well this is what you're going to do um but it's you know that type of content um can be infused in many different content areas um so that's what we're we're looking to do thoughtfully thank you for your response and thank you for your time and attention and I hope we all have a good Memorial Day weekend seeing no one else coming forward at this moment I need a motion to close a meeting to public uh Mr kisari and second by Miss Jansen uh we will be uh s yes going to Executive session okay and let's and a welcome a warm welcome from the board [Applause] from administrator your business office and we um uh thank you again for you know sticking it out with us this evening your time and attention um I need a moous to Executive session Mr K Mari by Mr Gallow and we will adjourn uh directly from there this evening thank you very congratulations and welcome welcome