uh 7:00 now Mr F you can take us out of the practice session um for all board members we're going to begin the meeting very shortly uh just remind your microphones are turned off to help the acoustic in the room and picking up the sound of the video um please bring that close so when you are about ready to speak U Mr Ferrero again just give me a thumbs up okay we have one Mr Gall we are ready to begin whever you are welcome everyone uh please note this meeting of the m 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 of 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 at Zoom the webinar ID for this meeting is 886 8256 68309 and the required passp password is 975 459 have a call to order and we call M Nano here Mr D Silva Mr Denise here Mr Hughes here Mr kiz Mari Dr Park here missone here Dr morthy and Mr Gall here adequate notice I apologize and um student representative Max Max adequate notice of agenda of this meeting has been provided to the Ridgewood news and the record specifying that the Mawa Board of Education will meet on December 6 2023 in the administrative offices at 60 Ridge Road malwa New Jersey a copy has been filed with the Township Clerk and miss Aro can you lead us in the salute to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all we will um have an exec session after our primary meeting so we will skip to the next section um we will now move to um public action and our first item is agenda questions can we have a motion to move to agenda questions Chris and Linda I invite anybody who has questions related to items on the agenda please come forward see no one we will close to the public and we need a motion John and Matt uh we go to the superintendent's report Dr Doro thank you Mr Gall um my my report will be brief I wanted to U congratulate Mr Roger peler uh allow me to share the accolades that he received the director the directors of Athletics Association of New Jersey selector selected Mr Roger peler the MAA High School athletic director as the da NJ sectional Award of Merit recipient representing North section one for the following outstanding achievement dedication to the students and professionalism throughout his career he'll be receiving this um award in Atlantic City later on in the spring I just wanted to say thank you to Mr peler for all he does for our athletes here in Ma I also want to say happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate taking place um starting tomorrow evening and uh last but not least I just wanted to welcome Mr Gallow as our acting president I don't know if you know this or not but this is not a normal gavl this is a speal may I touch it um this is a special gavl allow me to share with you what it says on his gavel this says North Jersey debate league second place speaker MAA High School February 7th 1979 so this is a very special artifact that we have brought and I just feel honored sitting next to it so thank you so much for doing that and your service it will be relocated to the M's Museum after this meeting perfect um the rest of my report I'll be doing with Dr Fair during his report celebrating the wonderful things that are happening in Mawa schools thank you very much and congratulations to Mr pelier um Kyle thank you um few items for report this evening uh first just uh procedurally to share with uh members of the public that our next Board of Education meeting held on December 20th will be held at Len medows uh Elementary School in the multi-purpose room uh same time 700 p.m. but we are relocating over to Len Meadows uh because of the agenda we have for that evening our transportation committee met recently and uh survey has been released to members of the public uh we encourage everybody to please take a few moments and fill out that survey we have that survey open till January 10th M St I think we'll speak a little bit more about it during her report uh for election since our last meeting the county office has released the official election results from the November 2023 um election for school boards uh for here in MAA the final official results uh in the order that the candidates were on the ballot were are Danielle Ryan 2350 votes Janine tting Jansen 2,650 votes Mr Richard DVA Jr 2859 Mr Jeffrey lenheim 139 Michelle Salman 2,110 Rett coplin 2885 and personal choice were right in votes there were 20 uh based on these results the candidates uh Mr coplin Mr Silva and M Jansen will be sporing at the reorganization meeting on Wednesday January 3rd that will be here in this building um the January 3rd reorganization meeting for finance I just want to thank members of the finance facility committee who attended a meeting last week um where our uh financials from the um 2223 school year we reviewed with them by Miss Heidi wab who is the uh partner in charge of the district's um audit for the firm disaia LLC uh they are District's independent Auditors and w share the district continues to be fiscally strong and healthy uh her staff are complete in the last final sections of the report and we expect the full report to be available uh for the board and we'll have a a corresponding resolution for that report when is available uh within the next meeting or two and that's my for tonight thank you Dr fa all right good evening everyone I just I have a few items to share before dror and I do some celebrating of some of the programs going on across the district the first piece as referenced by Mr bleer we will be uh highlighting a staff member from each of our six buildings on uh the meeting on December 20th which is why we will need a larger venue over at l the second piece agenda item 18a we have a retirement to announce Irene goit she is the administrative assistant over at Joyce commer School Mrs git's contribution to JK and MAA Township Public Schools is one that's hard to capture in a single statement as shared by her colleagues Irene or Sarge as she is lovingly known by her our staff is the great resource of JK her wisdom knowledge and understanding is often sought after by our JK staff if you need to need a schedule you talk to Irene if you want to know how that ceremony was done in the past you would ask Irene and as Joyce Kilmer's Queen Garian nearly every letter message or email that is sent out is reviewed and approved by her Joyce Kilmer school will miss her voice at the end of the day for afternoon announcements but most importantly they will miss Irene's presence and the friendship she has given so many in her time at Joyce Kilmer school we congratulate her on completing this stage in her life and thank her for all the memories she created with her JK family we wish Irene well as she enjoys spending more family time with John her husband along with her children and her beautiful grandchildren uh from her JK family they wanted me to say do POA chenya which means goodbye in Ukrainian which was nice right all right so um Dr wanted to highlight some great things uh going on across the district um if you're able to check out our social media platforms there are pictures posted all the time but we at least wanted to take some time to highlight and celebrate some of the great things so the first picture we have is Betsy Ross in a wonderful cafetorium there um the students were recognized for acts of kindness and overall empathy for others receiving kindness certificates during their mindful Monday meetings look at their faces uh our second highlight from George Washington School um this December students at GW are collaborating across the whole school to design and create a glass tile mosaic that will live in the school school for many years to come this team created art project will highlight the word believe so students always remember to believe in themselves so they can reach their full potential believe also happens to be this year's theme over at George Washington School this year The lenpy Meadows staff have been looking to catch their amazing students soaring students who demonstrate being safe on task achievement and respect are awarded with a soaring bracelet which they wear with pride over at George uh over at Joyce Kilmer school a few weeks ago during American Education week it was well attended with approximately 200 parents um this past November uh here's a picture of an innovation lab parent challenge activity we have so much should be proud of our Athletics and our Performing Arts this is for Performing Arts this is at Round Bo Ridge we had three students from our chorus who were accepted into the 2023 Bergen County Middle School choir ashini theide Alina gini and Charlotte Huffman the Bergen County Middle School choir is an audition group consisting of seventh grade and e8th grade students from all over Bergen County we also had three students who qualified for B County Middle School honors band Sophie Wang OBO second chair ranked second overall for seventh grade Andre Lennox alto saxophone second chair ranked third overall seventh grade and Taha sastri trumpet first chair ranked third overall for eighth grade we are proud of our music students and their teachers the ridge is looking forward to their Winter concert on December 14th which will feature all of our performing arts groups and if you've been able to check out any of the Mawa High School uh social media postings whether it's through Instagram um or Twitter SLX um there's a there's a lot happening so the first piece uh I've been talking about the the growth of the homework club over at the high school um I want to say the last few years just because it it truly represents and that's the the picture on the left um it truly represents um MAA connects and what we've been talking about for years in terms of connecting our our older students in more of a mentor um ship with our younger students so um it's grown to have over 40 students um that participate uh in this club our high school students showcase their kindness and enthusiasm towards helping our younger students they've created a safe and fun learning learning environment for our younger students to thrive and we are also proud of our younger students for Having the courage to seek help from our high school students um the relationships being built really exemplify what hash Mawa connect is all about I don't have the picture here but there are also um high school students that attended the fall play with our younger students so you can see that mentorship living outside of the club which is really cool uh the second piece you can see um Mr Pascal he looks confused there um I promise he knows why He's there um he he um he what a wonderful gesture but he helped the senior class in working at SQ Pizza um this past Friday um prior to the high school talent show as a fundraiser for a senior class and in doing so they raised over $2,000 so thank you for everyone for participating uh thank you for Mr Pascal and thank you for all the students who who showed up sure of course um I don't know if it comes out or not he's very proud of his apron on his apron if you look very closely it says principal Chef that was a custom gift given to him by his wife that he wears with pride so he he looked and he did the part very well nice and on the right we have um two members of the ma High School community that were highlighted this month uh Dylan dilon uh student and Mr David Janowski one of our English and digital media teachers over at the high school so this year um the top soaring Thunderbird program has been initiated by both the MAA High School administration as well as the student government Association uh to highlight positive members of our school community so the t- bird's pillars are uh T trusted B Brave I inspiring R resilient d determined and aspired uh Dylan Deon is a student who has been um honored because of uh the T and the D trusted and determined Dylan is a trusted and determined student who participates daily in class is always there lending a helping hand to his peers Dylan was nominated by both his teachers and his peers as one teacher stated quote Dylan accepts challenges and is not afraid to take a risk in answering a challenging math question in geometry class Dylan is a team player with his peers he is friendly respectful encouraging and inspiring Dylan is highly motivated and is dedicated to academic success Dylan is in 10th Grade a member of our String orchestra and a member of the engineering and Technology career pathway a lastly Mr David Janowski has been highlighted um because of how spirited he is um he was nominated by both his colleagues as well as his students um all who nominated Mr Janowski Rec recognize the positive energy he brings to the building one of his colleagues wrote quote he has a strong dedication to a students and gets them excited in the classroom as well as in the club Sports Talk he is at games cheering students on as well as getting a live stream up and running one student also shared students feel his enthusiasm daily and know that he is there as a helping hand you feel the care he has for the students also Mr J's lessons are engaging and fun so um a lot of great things happening um we'll make sure to to to continue to highlight all that that's going on in the district and that's my report thank you thank you Dr um for president's report we're going to have two pieces to this our first part will be um a review of the the board self- evaluation report that'll be presented by Mr Matt Lee from New Jersey school boards Matt is our field service rep for Burton County and we welcome him uh to our meeting thank you Mr acon President um we go before I begin though I did introduce to some of you um before the meeting uh I wanted to allow uh my colleague to introduce herself I'm I'm working tonight with uh one of my new colleagues in the field services department and I'll just have Kelly come up and say hello hi everybody I appreciate the opportunity to observe you today my name is Kelly Mitchell I'm the new uh field service rep for Sussex and pic counties so um super excited to uh to see how this is going to go and uh I appreciate the opportunity welcome to MAA thank you so much so um all of you have in front of you a copy of the report of the board self- evaluation for those who um are familiar uh you'll recall that this is a uh service that njsba offers to all boards and it's a tool tool for boards to use to practice the continuous Improvement that we expect out of our school districts as well um it is not required for boards to do this but it's certainly a best practice and um looking at the tool as a a way to help develop those board goals that are in the spirit of helping you guys improve as a governance team um this is a great tool for for working toward those um objectives one note I will have when I start to talk about the inside of the report is that um if you look at the indicators on each of the sections that we uh will review as we go through the report those indicators are really a job description for board members so as you're going through there and looking at the various aspects that we're going to walk through understand that those um indicators there on the side of the uh the charts are actually what boards are responsible for completing as as board members so um couple notes before we dive into the report um just to kind of refresh you on its format the first page uh which is uh sort of a mouthful the quantification of relative value is just uh basically looking at the nine different aspects we'll examine and having the board sort of uh give a rating to how important that is on the overall governance um function so basically we're setting a uh a standard there and as we go through each of these we're going to end up comparing how we scored in those particular um sections against the standard that we've assigned from page one the scale is a 4.0 and happy to report that the uh the Mawa board came through with an average of 3.6 on here and there's also in terms of the structure of the report a top and a bottom rating in each of those areas the top is where the board rates itself as a governing body and the bottom is how individuals each board member rates themselves as a contributor in that area and then if you'll recall from filling this out there are two final questions the first is about what the board thinks are the priorities for the coming year on a district level and the last is about areas of additional Focus for the board or additional training for the board in order to become a better governance team so now we're going to start to walk through each of these areas and each of them has room for comments so in addition to the uh evaluation score I'm going to give you a little bit of time to read through the comments as well so starting with uh aspect or characteristic one that is the planning function of the board looking on page two we see the score there at a 3.4 and then I'll give you a few moments to look at the comments and when I see most eyes up I'll know it's time to move on for okay any questions or comments on the planning part great moving on to page four this section revolves around policy a score there of 3.6 and then comments at the bottom of four and top of page five questions or comments on the policy section all right on page six moving on to section three student achievement score there 3.5 comments at the bottom of six topic page seven questions or comments on student achievement okay moving on to section four page eight this is the finance piece score there of 3.7 comments on pages eight and nine questions or comments on [Music] finance all right moving on to section five board operations score there 3.6 comments on page 11 for questions or comments on board operations okay moving on to page 12 section six board performance score there 3.7 comments on 12 and 13 questions or comments on board performance okay moving on to section s page 14 board superintendent relationships score there is 3.7 comments on page 15 questions or comments on board superintendent okay moving on to page 16 board staff relationships questions or comments on board staff section nine board and Community score there 3.5 questions or comments on board community okay as I mentioned at the beginning uh the next two uh questions that were asked on this um evaluation are for the board to identify the three major challenges that are currently facing the district and having gone through them and kind of throwing them into buckets they revolve around kind of five major buckets so we have academic curriculum instruction um we have student conduct Staffing finance and political environment for okay the other question that we ask for um sort of verbatim answers on um revolves around uh training an additional Focus for the board now board members individually know that mandatory training is part of their obligations of their statute and code as new board members come on board um they take training in the first three years of their service and then any additional terms that they serve they must take training in the first year of that this particular question really revolves around whole board training though and what are the things that we can do as a governance team to work better together so those kinds of um the answers once again we looked at and kind of classified and they revolve in three different areas basically so we have board operations we have training and we also have uh legislation so I'll give you a second to read through those as well for so the last three pages in The compilation are simply uh graphical representations of the scores so if you look at chart one chart one really plots the top score in each of the sections against the front page which was where we kind of talked about relatively speaking how important each of those areas were and uh what we're looking for when we look at these charts is it there any significant gaps between the two bars that are presented there and they really aren't here here as we move to chart two we're looking at the top score versus the bottom score on each of the sections so that's comparing the board score to the individual score and again no real significant gaps here the only thing that I see that sort of approaches that is the finance piece which is really quite common um there are a number of people who serve on boards that just aren't really that comfortable with the finance part so um nothing unusual there all and then finally uh the last chart chart number three is where we compare the scores for last year's evaluation versus this year's evaluation and as you can see it's really quite consistent all the way through so um I think this is an outstanding board self- evaluation I think the board used this tool in the way it's properly meant to be used um and you know if there are things that the board in its further discussions about this uh wants to get training on or discuss uh njsba is happy to come in and work with you to have those discussions thank you very much Matt and uh we'll certainly take you up on your offer for uh prospective training once we have some time to digest sure everyone's comments in the document y um thank you for your service to our district and Kelly thank you for coming out to visit us hope everything goes well on your assignment out in ssex and County thank for coming out thanks Mike happy holidays to you all and have a good night thank you so the second half sit back relax and enjoy the show because I have some words tonight and as I'm known to do um in one of the slides that Dennis and uh Mike shared about Betsy Ross um every week the P3 level the principal send out emails to their school communities highlighting uh things that are happening in the school and in the case of Betsy Ross there was one two weeks ago or so where um Miss Mrs Davis recognized particular students and I just want to read so there's the the picture where you saw the students this one here but I'm going to read some of the actual detail great so miss bregman has recognized Kaden body second grader in her class who is always helpful when someone needs it she does things without being asked every day Miss pran has recognized Michael ciglia second grader in her class who is very helpful to his friends when he sees someone who's struggling he goes over and helps them pick things up he's also very helpful to me when I need something I can always count on him Miss bregman she had a lot of candidates has another student Nicholas white second grader in her class who pushes in her pushes in every chair at the end of the day without asking he makes the room look nice and neat before he goes home every each day I am so grateful Mr Durant has recognized Kenzie McGriff second grader in her class who always greets Mr Durant and is sure to say goodbye to her every day she is always doing the right thing while waiting for the bus she sits quietly always paying attention to the quiet signal both during morning meeting and at bus dismissal she shows great social awareness and understands the importance of routines and expectations and finally Miss Nito has recognized Natalie Odon who in her class who is one of the best listeners in the class you can tell she is listening because she's looking at you and even nodding to to you showing that she is with you her positive and kind attitude makes her makes her a great friend and all her teachers love teaching her so this granular detail sometimes can get lost in the shuffle of a a district with 2,800 students but sometimes these Little Gems come across our email and I thought this was one of them and I and you guys with that we didn't coordinate no we did and I just wanted to recognize in detail some of these students whose names wouldn't normally rise to a board meeting but I think um you know these these there's there two things that this I think signify the theme at bety Ross this year is empathy and each of these students demonstrated some particular aspect of empathy so what we're doing what the team over at Betsy Ross is doing parents teachers administrators is having some impact on these kids and uh we look forward to having them progress through our schools and eventually graduating through our high school and uh we look forward to their future achievements as well congratulations to these students band concerts sometimes we forget when they are but I reached out to Moren and to Jeff Bitner and I have the band concert schedule the J band strings and chorus concert will be Tuesday December 12th at 7:00 p.m. at the high school please attend the rampo Ridge Middle School band strings and chorus Thursday December 14th 7 p.m. at the ramp rampo rdge gym and finally the high school B strings and chorus Tuesday December 19th at 700 p.m. at the high school my children were heavily involved in the P arts program so we want to give a shout out to them um couple other things our march marching Thunderbirds participated at the Ramsey holiday parade this past Saturday and as usual their performance was excellent but I think one of the highlights for me where if you see were to look at the pictures the kids took tremendous amount of creativity in their costumes and how they how they accessorized their instruments and themselves for the holidays it was it's really quite remarkable and there's not an unhappy face in any one of those pictures they are having a blast and I'm sure the Ramsey Community appreciated that the Mawa band was able to provide them some excellent service um we also had some Mawa High School course students recently participate uh perform at the Atlantic City and New Jersey pack all state course concert this is um this is a culminating event for these students first of all there's a whole series of auditions and once you get selected you are an intensive uh rehearsal program for days and often on weekends um so getting invited to participate in this process is first of all an honor and then there's a lot of work to be done to actually do the performance and it's and every year we have some kids or some of our students participate in this program and it's really another Hallmark of our performing arts program um in the last day or two and I think Mike may have mentioned that we had six M high school students accepted the buron county B congratulations to them um we also had M High School string students perform at the Roman University High School honors Orchestra congratulations to that Mr Pascal as we saw uh he was working at square and he was like an air traffic controller at O'Hare Airport during us blizzard he was he had all the order tickets there he was managing everything when when my wife and I arrived to order our pizza he made sure that we were at the right spot in the line um he is always um uh working for our students I mean the fact that they raised $22,000 is kudos to them um but he always accepts the challenge to help students in any way he can um big shout out to our woodworking people our woodworking team who's putting together a flute for the upcoming Mawa uh holiday parade and um tree lightting this will be a return of holiday floats it's been absent our town for some time the fact that our uh woodworking team was able to participate is another sign of our Mawa connects how um our students and our community work together to make Mawa the wonderful place that it is um and a final word of thanks to our Leo club members they have for the last year or two now been helping out with the access for all folks and uh one of the largest events that access for all sponsors is their ugly sweater holiday party and as um there I don't have any they must have had 100 people there plus parents and Guardians and our Leo club members were very um were helpful in making the event successful um again that's one of those things you the access for all folks post hundreds of pictures um and it's it's a great event for that me those members of our community and uh our Leo Club is uh their assistance is very much appreciated by the actess for all people so now I'm done glad you were able to stay that um yes welcome Max are you ready to provide a report ready Max is a product of the bety ra School Sy school as well so that's why we give a little extra highlight to that's else today and and Joyce Kilmer so um the SGA and National Honors are working together with families for families to to provide gifts for the holidays to people in need we have we already have all the gifts and now we are we are Mrs Fred and Miss Brown are handing them out on Friday to the family in need um FCA is doing a code drive again we did this me and Coach Diaz did this last winter and we raised 75 coats and the um we had company come pick it up and they were able to give it out to different homeless shelters and people in need um the drama club had their fall play and went very well it was around three weeks ago um last Friday the senior class organized and ran the annual talent show um there was lots of great talent here at the the high school and it um we also so SQ we raised around 2,000 and the talent show we raised about 2500 so it was a great day and Mr Gallo you said two of these already but the wood the word working club uh advised by Mr Co and Mr kazum built a float for the holiday parade and um our and our marching th Thunderbirds was in the Ramy parade and Dr fair you said this one about the M High School stole all your but um we we definitely want to honor Dylan dilon and Mr J for um being um so Dylan was nominated for trusted and determined and Mr Jay for very spirited and Mr Jay is very spirit always upbeat and then lastly we have the winter sports are are upcoming with hockey they are on Friday at 9:00 p.m. at the ice and they're taking on Ramy so a game to watch and that's all for me Max where do we Dr off the coats um during lunch on Fridays are the best we all meet in the carer room right near the fette office and um it start it started on Monday thank you thank you very much for your report Max have a good weekend and we'll see you on the 20th or maybe you're I'm not there we might see Gabby yes you will great happy holidays take Max any other committee reports Mr Gall also stole many of my talking points it's okay we'll coordinate better next a couple pick updates um from just Community uh programs that are going on right now we mentioned the holiday parade it was rescheduled CU surprise surprise it rained last weekend um so it will be this Sunday at 4:30 fingers crossed the only day it's looking like it's going to rain this Sunday um we're just not allowed to have nice things hopefully we can do that I pray at 4:30 and then culat of the um tree lighting our townwide Hanukkah celebration will be Monday 12:11 at 6 p.m. it includes LED robots this year I saw the flyer I'm very excited I don't necessarily celebrate Hanukah but will be in attendance because who doesn't love LED robots um this weekend the rampo mountain tribe is holding a craft fair in their newly renovated tribal Community Center um on stack Hill Road it will be a really great opportunity to be able to go and support um local tribal Artisans that are based here in northern New Jersey um when we say like shop local and support local um this is as local as you can get if you're in the Mawa community so I really encourage everyone to stop by between 11 and 3 on Saturday um I think that this would be a great experience for everybody here um the Joyce F rour Ridge Middle School student councils are running their coat drive um in partnership with Jersey cares from now until 12:20 um big boxes at least at Joyce filmer as you walk into the school very easy to drop off um same thing at rampo Ridge again a nice um connecting program that we're doing here connecting the student councils between joy around corid they really work together to do this program um so it's very exciting to see um we talked at the last meeting about CFA donations and blessing baskets I just wanted to to point out that this is the time of the year when the CFA needs the most donations um now you're coming out of Thanksgiving you're coming out of a very very big week for them when they were you know supporting the community now going into the rest of the winter holidays going into the winter months this is when the shelves need to be rested the most um so I really encourage everybody to go out there you never know the members of your community that you're helping and um so this is the perfect time to stop by either here in MA or any of the other Regional cfas in our area um this is when they need it the most that might be it for Community um Mr Beaker mentioned that our transportation survey is out um this is you know a year of work when Brett was running it and a year of work for myself and the uh the committee um of data and research and you know really where do we want to go this um the survey was emailed out to everybody it truly takes less than 3 minutes to complete it is very simple it is very easy it's just going to ask you a handful question um you know are you eligible for busing yes or no like what what school are you in how many students you have in that school um if you're eligible for if you say no you're not eligible for busting the the survey ends there so very easy if it says yes it brings you to the next one um essentially do you ride the bus if you say yes yes survey ends there if you say no it takes you to the next page and we give you five or six options of why you're not on the bus um in the body of the email we explain a little bit about why we're doing this survey um you know we've talked about it at several meetings now when we're looking at a program that is 10% of our overall budget and we're only at essentially 40% writers ship there's definitely a disconnect there um we talk a lot about being financially responsible here making sure that we're using the money correctly and that we're was still giving me good customer service so this survey is the first of probably two um the results of this survey will dictate what the second survey will do or not do um but this is this is important for us because we can't fix what we don't know it's broken and we can't fix if we don't know the why um so we're very excited about this on a personal level you know from a data standpoint you want to have at least 66% of your your um audience respond to the survey for it to be like meaningful there was a word I Wasing for out my head um but you like you want to be able to say like yes this is the reason why um so you need to hit at least at 66% as of today we're I think just under 800 responses in two days which is amazing um so thank you so much for everybody who logged in to do it so far like we are essentially halfway there um the survey will be open through January there will be reminder emails that go out probably to an annoying level um but we just want to make sure we're cap capturing the entire Community um so please please please take the 3 minutes it means so much to me and to the committee and all the people who have done amazing work to bring this true permission so we want to make sure that we're crossing the Finish Line with that um one more last night was the last access forall meeting of the year um I truly cannot say enough about access for all and what they're doing for the Mawa community and our surrounding communities um it was almost an emotional meeting as we reflected um or as they reflected on what they were able to do this year and what they want to do in the following years if you follow along their Facebook page or follow along with what they're doing the amount of events they were able to add this year is a EST day they did several events every month um when our community newsletter went out this month you would have noticed that there's nothing wased for Access for all for events I had to not submit their um December events because they hit capacity so fast it didn't make sense for me to put a event out there that you would not be able to RSVP for um so we obviously didn't put it out to the community because they were at capacity within 48 hours of opening the event um some of what they talked about last night is the senior center is maybe not big enough for some of the more important events that they're trying to do it's now sourcing um areas or you know churches or BFW or whatever it is in the area that maybe they can U rent space from for their events so that they can open it up to more of the community they're touching so many lives here in MAA and so many towns around us who don't have an access for all program available to them come here to do that um some of their biggest donations they received this year were from families from MAA families from Southern Rockland County or or areas in Bergen County where they don't have programs like this so they will more than have you to drive to MAA with their families to give them you know socialization and making friends and meeting peers um donating back to the program to make sure that we can continue to do these events and it's really a pride point for the town um it changed me serving with them for the last year I know that we will reorg January I've already made it very clear I would like to do it again next year um I think that it's it's so important um making that connection also between them and the MAA schools has been something that's been really a pride point for us this year and I want to continue to see that grow um so just if you don't know about them please check out their Facebook page and look at what they're doing um make donations if you can because they really are are banking on that um it's great it's good thank you very much anyone else Linda oh yeah last night Mike and I and and John attended the second meeting of the school year of the Bergen County School boards Association the topic was branding and communication and you did tonight exactly what they emphasized how important it is to share with the community all the positive things that are happening in the schools they talked about using utilizing various social media platforms um the one thing Mike already mentioned that we wish they had on the way home in the car we Mike and and I and John said that they really didn't tell us how we could reach members of the community who don't have children in the schools because we always think that that's um an area we should be targeting the second meeting uh not the second meeting the third meeting will be held on Tuesday February 5th there will be a virtual meeting only the topic will be education in New Jersey and uh the topics will be discussed with the Commissioner of Education from New Jersey and that's it thank you thank you Linda anyone else Chris I just got a quick question so I was approached by some parents and they're asking about uh the bathroom pass situation in the high school and they said something about like having a a time limit I wasn't too privy on the information myself I was just wondering if is there any information on the uh High School bath B pass or bathroom app or I should I say directing Mr Pascal or yeah something as specific as that the the answer to the community would best be suited to go to the principal yeah uh the principal and assistant principal are are putting together things to create efficiencies also obviously allowing all the students to use restrooms so I don't want that to be a misunderstanding in the community but Mr Pascal can definitely provide anyone with um all the information that they need I don't want them to speak now he shared the information with us but I don't want to missp speak at this time okay I'll just uh briefly Echo uh some of the things that Kyle said for the finance report um we had a very productive meeting with our outside auditor um she characterized our financial status as strong um I couldn't get um but um the district has been very very successful over the last number of years dealing with the headwinds of inflation the pandemic Etc um we are starting to notice in some of the financial trends that those headwinds are becoming um A Little Bit Stronger but we're always looking for Tailwinds to help our financial uh situation improve we um were able to put away $1.2 million into our capital and maintenance Reserve accounts as a result of unexpended funds from last year so that was a good thing um we hope to do something similar again in fiscal year 24 that we're in um so uh Heidi was very helpful also in uh sharing the experience of other districts with certain uh aspects that of of our cost structure that we're dealing with and she basically said you're in the same boat that everybody else is in so uh we I found that heartwarming for myself where Le you that we know that we're not not out alone on the gang plank um uh as uh Kyle mentioned there will be some further clarification on some minor issues in the report and at that point we'll report again on the close out um but all the financial aspects of the audit are closed so we're we're in pretty good shape and again Financial District the financial condition of the district is strong that's my report uh board member remarks comments I just want to remind everybody that as promised the results of the equity audit are on the website um i' encourage everybody to go and read them and check them out everybody out in the public um so just a reminder that they're there and ready for review thank you I'm going to Echo Kyle again because um I just want to congratulate all the the um candidates who ran for board ofed it's always great when a community has um people who want to come out and do service for the community um and I so I congratulate all the candidates for spending the time and effort to put their um name and time into the into public service I want to congratulate and recognize the uh the people who be joining us um Miss Janine Ting Jansen and Brett compan is a attorne e and uh and Rick Thea was reelected so we will welcome at our rework meeting on January 3rd so again congratulations to all those who participated our Civic system should look like and work um and uh as a candidate potentially for next year I have to think about how that all works for me but um but I again congratulations to all those who participated so we're going to move to Old business um need a motion to open for old business Linda and Chris okay this is a roll call for old business minutes from um prior meetings Miss Deano yes Mr Denise yes Mr Hughes yes Dr Park stain missone yes and Mr Gallow yes new business 17A [Music] through M motion to entertain those John Denise and Linda zakone any questions you go okay Miss Deano yes Mr Denise yes Mr Hughes yes Dr Park yes Mr con yes and Mr Gala Yes except on 17A I will be abstaining on check number 13726 thank you moving on to new business Personnel 18a to AA motion Lon and Chris Miss davano yes Mr Denise yes Mr Hughes yes Dr Park yes Mr con yes and Mr Galla yes and again uh I think we have some volunteers on the on the agenda thank you to our parent volunteers on AA yes we're opening for our second public comment section 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 are asked to limit your questions to know more than one and your remarks to no longer than 3 minutes if you are here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you are here as an individual please give us your name and address need a motion to open to the public John Denise and Chris good evening John F 20 Falcon cour malan New Jersey uh at the last meeting the equity audit was introduced and distributed and I was able to uh copy everything on to hard copy and one of the very first things I did whenever I look at something like this is to see how much time was spent by the consulting firm to review the uh ma Mawa School District you know uh time is very important if someone spends some time on a subject they should be uh very versed in all the uh components of that subject so what I did is I looked at the data that was in the report and being that this is a school board meeting I have a little show and tell and I'd like to distribute uh that should be enough and if anyone would like a copy what I did here is simply take the information that was in the it and lay out the amount of time that the four person team from us Consulting spent and when they spent it and you can see that the team on Tuesday uh January 17th started at 11:45 at Joyce Kilmer and spent the next 3 hours and 15 minutes taking 11 classroom observations and speaking with 72 folks in focus group of in in a focus group environment now at the bottom there are 29 Equity audits audit Focus sub points for every school so in this three and a half hours they were very active because they were doing focus groups talking to a lot of people and then checking off the boxes for the 29 focus sub points that are listed below in the six different uh majors points so I was curious that's spent that was a to me a short amount of time to do an awful lot of work with an awful lot of people but the next day was a much um more active day starting at 700 a.m. 3 and a half 3 hours 15 minutes at the high school ending at 10:15 and then starting at 10:30 at Betsy Ross ending at 1:15 and then running over to lopi Meadows at 1:30 until 4:00 and again they had a lot of classroom observations and spoke to a lot of people and then the next day Thursday rampa Ridge from 8 to 11:40 and then George Washington so my point is that there was an awful lot of activity but when I look at the amount of time as I indicated here it's uh .3% of the school year and that's not a very much amount of time to do all this so my concern is that not not enough time may have been devoted by the US consulting company to really understand what goes on in the Mawa School District um if you came to my house and spent 3% of the time trying to get a sense of John Feen and Pat fe's environment it's only 33 minutes out of out of a 168 Hour Work Week a week um so I my question to you is do you feel comfortable that they spent enough time to get a sense of what Mawa is all about so uh Mr Feen in addition to the um classroom observations and the focus groups um a large part of their information gathering was related to surveys that were completed by students parents um so there was a wealth of information that was developed yeah I've read all the comments um that's very commendable yes I think I may be the only one in town to do that I've read a lot of comments one young man or woman wants to be Chef Boyard which I don't understand it all uh and there were a lot of yeses about I love my school but there were an equal number of NOS I hate my school so it's it's uh it's filled with uh some uh great information as Mr Dila said last time there's a lot in here uh and there's a lot duplicated because the comments are here and then they're there um but I've not gone beyond just looking at the the very top layer of what's going on I saw that in addition to the uh number of people on this page that was 335 but actually 385 because there's another 50 persons who they interviewed uh including seven board members but I think only 39 parents and that to me is a very low number 39 out of I guess about 1,800 uh amilies uh so again it kind of raises a a concern that I would have about did they really understand because most of this 500 pages um is recommendations so how can you make a recommendation unless you know your subject matter so I'm just curious if you feel comfortable I'll I'll feel a lot better but just on the surface I want to make sure that that audit is the very best it could be I I'm not sure if I can answer the question that this was the uh most superlative audit ever conducted on the face of the earth I can say from my perspective that the information that was gathered um represented authentic Mawa voices I think one of the the Hallmarks um of this of the report was that the data Gap have everything that somebody said is in this report oh yeah it's not as though you know I said something and they go oh he he didn't mean that they collected everything and I think that was part of the challenge of actually getting um taking the data and boiling it down to the 60 Pages which is the meat and potatoes of the recommendations and then I credit our administrative team to Boiling that down to the district's synopsis so we had all these voices hundreds and hundreds of voices that I think are the authentic voice of Mala I mean I I don't have any point of reference to say that it isn't but the fact as you observed there were people there were respondents who said hey everything's going great for me and there were some respondents who said hey things are a little bit more challenging to me one of the voices that I heard in several places was related to the direction of my education where am I going to go in my life I'm lost I'm lost and I think that I would say based on you know other young people that I know that is an a common um theme among people in our generation of you know you know when you hear things like AI wiping out jobs and all the technological change that's occurring you have to it's I think it's a legitimate point of view that a student today would say hey I don't know what you know we're I going to fit into this society as an adult part of I think our response in the district is and and Dennis has talked about this many times is finding that why not only just for our our Educators but also for our students you know why are we why are we here what are we doing what's the purpose um and I think I think we had an inkling that that would have been a response from our our community so when you say do we think that this represents the voice of MAA and the voice of our our our school Community I would say I I think you know I can't say definitively that 100% of the voice is there I can say that I think the things that were said are said with authenticity and to that extent I would say that yes it does reflect our school Community um I I think there's some clarification needs to be made first I I I appreciate you putting this together but I think something I want to clarify along lines of these data points this what you have in front of you is specific classroom observations correct right okay so the yes the classroom observations did take place there were 73 classrooms that were observed which in my opinion is is a good sample size and you're starting to look at a district that's size 73 um what I can tell you which I am happy about is that wasn't the singular data point that they were utilizing to make their assessment well they had the Fus groups they had a number of other things so let me just kind of share with you the different opportunities that they took to gather information um which when you're looking at a um an organization in this size you have to make sure that you're casting your net in in in a broad fashion they had the town halls which was they were very well attended we had over 100 people at each of the Town Halls that they were able to share their perspective of the district they also had classroom observations they had the focus groups and within the focus groups I think that's what you were referring to along the lines of speaking directly to 39 um parents along the lines of of of the surveys which were another data point um when they did share the surveys with the with the families we had um let me take we had 432 parents respond to the surveys um and then we also had all of our students respond to the surveys um they also did an internal audit of of our policies of our curriculum um of our overall practice so I just wanted to provide you some clarification when you're talking about an audit you're absolutely right if if you look at this piece of paper and if we just solely base the recommendations on just this time it's completely in inadequate what I can tell you is along the lines of the comprehensive nature of the data Gathering I am comfortable with it um because of the multiple opportunities for people to share their perspective now if they sh they shared the perspective or not it that's that's a different story um what we tried to do to make sure that we fully transparent with this is we sent out the surveys prior um to allow the families to look at them then we also tried to uh provide reminders because we know people are busy and then with the information that we gathered well they gathered not me um they provided us a report what we said at the last meeting which I I think is really worth sharing again um I didn't write that report but what I can tell you is looking at that report and I think you put it perfectly there are students who are doing really well which I'm glad and there are students who really need our help which that's my job um and real what I want to do is make sure that we're putting together an educational experience for our students and our families um that are attending to the needs of all um so and I know you were here for the last presentation last um last board meeting and I am I am proud of the plan that we have in place for the short term and we're going to continue to look at those long-term goals as well and I think those short-term goals are you know Mr Gallow says this all the time um in in the six years I've been working with him is you know going from good to great and I think we have a really really good District but there's opportunities to grow and I think this experience as lengthy as it was um has provided us an opportunity to reflect on what we're doing from an outside eye and create opportunities for us to build a a better school District okay my other question is okay this is distributed what happens next and when okay so so at the last meeting after at the very end of our presentation because we knew that was going to be a question because it's a great question um everyone wants to know all right so you have this information what are you doing now right um and we posted this and I'm not pushing you off I just want to make sure that everyone knows where to go to find it um we posted our presentation on the website underneath uh where it says Equity audit and we talked about the very immediate plan of action then we also talked about the long range plan of action what's now is which I'm happy to report aligns to our district goals along lines of continue to look at our communication making sure that we're effective and we're and we're able to um get our information out out to all of our stakeholders whether it's our parents whether it's our community members whoever it may be that's the first piece we're staying committed to our NJ TSS model you've been at that so we're focused on making sure we know the students we have in front of us what they do well and what they don't do well and what we have to do to make sure that we're continuing to move them forward I'm saying it very briefly but it's a a lot more comprehensive than what I just said um we also talked about looking for opportuni to have some sort of round table with our community or round tables with our community to have our community come in sit with us there could be two different ways for that to happen we can either share information to make sure that everyone's aware of what's taking place or create an open forum for discussion that people can share their experiences in Mawa on an ongoing basis they don't have to just come to the board meeting we can do it um at different times um then also we talked about our continued efforts that Dr Fair has done a wonderful job with of of our hiring practices and making sure that we're bringing in the the best possible candidates for our students that's the immediate longterm there's a there's another slide for that I'm not going to go into details about that but the immediate the immediate stuff those are our our immediate things that we're going to do with that okay that'll thank you for your time and attention thank you very much Mr motion pleas close uh the public anybody nope Mr Hughes M con uh let's see going to Executive session so we need a motion to go into executive session we will be adjourning from executive session there will be no board action at that executive session um thank you everyone for coming out tonight and we welcome you to our next meeting at Lampe Meadows December 20th so we're need a motion to go to Executive session or do we do the motion we vot I I just need a motion Mo in a second John and Linda thank you it's Mrs Gallo's birthday today so wish