all right it's 7:01 p.m we're going to begin this regular meeting of the Rutherford Board of Education April 8th 2024 ask everyone to please stand face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States ofer [Music] stand I'll ask Mr Kelly to please take Ro Mr bagoan Mrs Cole here Mr Healey here I'm sorry Mr KY present Mrs Jones pres Mr maone here Dr wiim here Mr Sprayberry Dr olot here you have a quorum thank you the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Rutherford board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place posted on the bulletin board outside the burough clerk's office mailed to the Herold South bergenite in the Record newspapers and filed with the burough clerk hard copies of the agenda are available in the meeting room and the agenda is posted electronically on Friday before the meeting date on the district's website at www. Rutherford schools.org subsequent to the meeting a video of the meeting will be uploaded to the district's website www. Rutherford schools.org the video link can be found by opening the Board of Education link and clicking on public meetings and then videos uh so board members there are minutes to approve for the regular meeting and executive session of March 11 2024 there any comments or questions about those seeing none I'll ask Mr Kelly to please enter those we'll move over to the report of the student representative Miss bimson yeah good evening this past month has had lots of academic and extracurricular activities for rhs choir students performed at Carnegie Hall this past Saturday to work with college conductors and get a new musical experience in a different environment psychology club sold dress balls and stickers for a donation to an Alzheimer's organization the junior formal was this past Friday where Juniors enjoyed a great gasby theme night and speaking of Juniors they also completed their NJ GPA testing this past month the girls lacrosse team is continuing their undefeated season from last year and with one player for North Jersey lacrosse player of the week up for voting two F members placed third in the F sports and entertainment management competition in Atlantic City they participate in National finals in June in Orlando looking forward the rhs music department has many exciting things coming forward the rhs pop cert is April 10th in the auditorium and the choir and band spring concert is May 2nd any World Language Honor Society student will be inducted on May 1st and academic to cathon starters are participating in Virtual National Finals in the upcoming week so many RS students very proud of them keeping their streak alive AP test are now soon approaching and many students are using spring break to take a break from academics and also prepare for these big tests in May finally with the end of the year quickly approaching photo Club has begun taking photos for the 2023 2024 yearbook the high school kids look forward to the spring season and this new season and also the closing of a well-rounded year thank you all right thank you a lot of good information there questions or comments from board members how was the testing it was good I'm pretty sure two if I'm not mistaken two students did you took it too right yeah everyone took it it was pretty I mean overall good I don't think the scores are back yet I'm not sure no but did you find it hard you know no I mean I thought it was all right most people thought so do test yeah well some students find it hard but um not poppy um then be in trouble no it's it's it's it's a relatively challenging test but you know it's uh I think I think we've done a lot of things also like we've been talking about right to try to prepare students better for it yeah there was a lot of preparation for for my teachers like every Monday my English teacher would do a practice tests or math they did like a full week of practice problems like dedicated to the type of stuff yeah it was helpful right and you know we've been saying and talking about this uh um the test is based and the same with the test of the other students take throughout the district are they're based on the state standards right and the standards is what is what our curriculum is based on so you know when we're talking about test prep we're really not talking about test prep we're talking about making sure we're hitting the standards in our lessons and uh providing students the opportunity for the type of questions that they're going to encounter when they when they take the test so I think you know U we're hopefully going to see some of the dividends in that um it's always impressive though to hear um the the variety of of activities that the students not only participate in but excel in um you know I mean had that report she talked about the Arts and she talked about academics and she talked about Athletics and she talked about community service um it's it's really remarkable and one thing I do want to add um is and I don't know if you mentioned it but if you do I apologize but I do want to thank Mr scutty guance counselor and um Dr Hopkins the whole guidance staff Mr Morano but Mr scutty was really the the the driving force behind a a career a day at the high school um probably had 20 or so maybe more um vocational schools trades unions um military police Public Service you know different uh different beauty schools I different career choices for kids and um I think all the Juniors went down if I'm not mistaken and seniors who were interested went down and it was it was really very I think um well received and I think it gave a lot of our students uh some options uh that they may not know even existed in terms of career choices so it really was very successful um day and I believe in our digital newsletter that's going to be coming out it's going to be one of the things highlighted so you get to see more about it any other questions or comments all right hearing none well pop thank you very much we always appreciate your board reports uh and you're more than free to stay uh if you'd like to and if you have other commitments we understand um thank you and have a good evening thank you thank you she's still all right we're going to move on now to the report of the superintendent thank you um brief report tonight well I did send in the communication a list of many activities that are going out you know through uh June till the end of the year and then I'll just you know edit those in subsequent Communications one thing though I I would advise you to do is just check the school calendar double check because I I get these off a master calendar that comes out earlier and I did try to check with all the principal see if anything has changed and a couple of things did change a little so I think it's up to date but just uh you know if you get a chance if you're playing or going to a a play or a concert or art show just you know double check the calendar um I made an error in um the date of committee meetings I I just and on what I gave to you folks in January May 1 is a Wednesday night um so I don't we don't meet on Wednesday night you know I have to watch Survivor we can't meet on Wednesday night um but the U May 6 is the date that we should be meeting ahead of the May 13th board meeting so I'll send something out to everyone and we're also looking at probably needing a building and grounds meeting as well that night so we're looking at Personnel curriculum and instruction and um building of grounds I think all of them are none of them will be uh very long meetings I think we get all three accomplished in half hour slots so I'll I'll double check with Mr Kelly and uh Mr Ryan because they're involved in these committees as well Mr Gamboa and um I'll send you out uh ahead of the next board packet I'll send the whole board word out the correction and and when the meetings will be in confirm times and things like that okay so I apologize for that um I did mention the uh school performance report um I sent you a sheet with the summary for the district there there's it's a rather long and detailed report is on the website if you want to look at it like I said nothing there is um surprising because most of it comes from the testing and also uh just from other reports that we have to submit throughout the year but I do think it's it's um some very positive information I you know I do see uh and in digging a little deeper into the report I do see some improvement uh in areas like for example um our subgroups in Hispanic uh student test scores um District y there's been some slight improvement over the past years uh I've seen some improvements in the overall scores and and I like to think uh it has to do with some of the work we're all doing the faculty's doing um in terms of addressing some concerns we have in the uh the big picture you may have noticed uh some very I think positive things uh for example um in our 11th and 12th graders uh 79% are earning college credit through dual enrollment classes which means they're taking courses here that get them credit from either fdu through the middle college program or through Bergen Community um and the state average for that is 24% so that's you know that's a a tremendous I think opportunity plus we have 50% of our students enrolled in AP classes 11th and 12th grade State average at 34% so you know we're showing I think a lot of positive things there uh the state talks about atrisk students and they really are talking about and youve probably been reading a lot about it in recent years chronically absent students and they figure that based on being absent 10% of the school year which is why our attendance policy and many attendance policies use 18 days as a measurement for if you go over 18 days you lose credit because that's approximately right 10% um if you looked at the data that's in the state report uh we have about 5% of our students who are at that at risk you know hovering around that 18-day absence States at almost 17% so again there's a lot of factors uh that we're doing uh I think very well that we should be proud of our test scores like I've said we want to do better but we are exceeding the standard in language arts for student growth and we are close to exceeding we're a couple points away in math now one of the things that you hear me say every October or November when I report test scores is that the state sells the test scores on the concept of student growth yet we report every year based on a comparison or a contrast from this year's fifth graders compared to last year's fifth graders what we really should be looking at are last year's fifth graders how do they do in sixth grade right because we want to see growth they have that data but you know it's not what they advertise and not what we have to report on and in student growth we're doing we're doing pretty well okay because we're exceeding or right at that line of exceeding um in performing of the assessments you know the the graph is green is good blue is great we're close to Blue in language arts we're kind of in the middle of green and math again I don't think that's good enough that's why we're working to do better but not being good enough is different from not being good right so I think the report shows a lot of good things uh it does show some areas that we need to work on and like you know we've been saying we're not afraid to do the work to work on those areas and to get them better so if you get a chance you want to go through the full report is there on the website um and then just a reminder obviously that we are on break next week um schools closed for the week the uh district offices and the buildings are closed on Monday and Tuesday uh they're open for 12-month employees who you know choose not to use vacation time and come in so there'll be people in the buildings if uh there's any need um um I'm probably going to be out for a couple of days and I'll be in the office a couple of days as well but I'm always reachable you unfortunately I'm always uh but if you need me you can reach me okay and that's it for my report all right thank you Mr ear questions or comments Mr YY uh one question about the uh industry industry valued credentials those are votech courses that that's I was going to ask you what would be an example of uh if you had a um order repair program or something like that yeah so traditional votech education which is why you see you know we don't have that but you see the state's at 1.8% right right and and you know one of the things that happened with vocational schools years ago is the state decided to um cut back funding to those programs and many of them have gone by the wayside they're starting to make a comeback um and um they do rank it as a high you know something that they really want to promote yet they really have cut back on a lot of the funding in past years for that education thank you all right uh we are going to move on then to the report of the president to start I want to continue to elevate and acknowledge the academic committees that are doing all that great work that is reflected in our curriculum and instruction committee and all of the changes and things we're approving and I think everyone received the recent newsletter that was sent home had a really good summary of work that was being done in the Committees too so that the larger Community is aware of all the things that are going on Mr Earley mentioned the district newsletter the digital letter that comes out and the first letter there was an article I focused on the idea of us being a strategic board and for the second article it was about board evaluation and so for the third based on feedback and what made sense the article is that's coming out is going to be on committee work in board committees and how we work in board committees to do the things we do so I think that should be uh something helpful for the community to see hopefully look forward to that newsletter I wanted to thank the board members who were involved with the negotiations for the Rutherford administrators Association wetherford supervisors Association contracts you'll see those are up for approval this evening we had successful negotiation meetings that really I think reflected mutual respect and and understanding and really trying to understand priorities and I think everyone's walking away feeling that uh the contracts are are fair at all ends so want to thank all the board members for their time and also members of the Raa and RSA who are involved in those conversations as well we have a few events as usual coming up that we can all participate in just to be involved and I'm just going to highlight a couple of the end of the year there's obviously shows and pops are and all those fun things every year there's an end of the year party and it's on June 13th this year and I'm particularly elevating it because uh we have some big people who are going to be retiring this year and leaving the district so it's an opportunity if we want to elevate our presence there it's on June 13th there'll be advertisements to be able to purchase tickets be a nice opportunity it's at the Gray Cliff starts at 5 5:30 p.m. and then our Union Middle School graduations on June 19th and I know I told everyone last time June 20th Rutherford High School graduation 6:30 p.m. be there and finally just Kudos on the profile of a graduate work that Mr Hurley and his team have done in the district to put that together I think it's going to be really exciting when that's unveiled for the community that's it for my report any questions what was the date of the end of the year June 15th June 13th 13 thank you that's a Thursday yes it's usually a Thursday [Music] okay any questions or comments all right hearing none then at 7:19 p.m we're going to open the meeting to the public for anything related to or not related to the agenda seeing no comments we're going to close the meeting at 79 19 p.m. and we're going to move on to new business where there is action to be taken and we will start with Personnel Mrs Cole good evening uh so tonight we have 29 motions to put forward tonight under [Applause] personnel number one is the uh approval for resignation at the at Rutherford High School number two is to the approve uh the submission of propos contract of the superintendent of schools to the executive County Superintendent for his review number three to approve submission of the proposed contract for the ba board secretary to the executive County Superintendent for his review number four to approve submission of the proposed contract for the school ba board secretary to the executive County Superintendent for his review uh number five and six is to approve the contract between the r ruford Board of Ed and the ruford administ rator Association and the Rutherford Board of Ed with the Rutherford supervisors Association from July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2027 number 7 8 9 10 and 11 are the approvals of replacement positions number 12 is the approval of an adjustment in the start date for a substitute teacher at Union Middle School number 13 is the approval for for a long-term substitute consultant in the business office number 14 is the approval of a long-term substitute elementary teacher at Washington School Number 15 the approval for a coordinator instructor for the Summer band number 16 is the approval for a counselor for the Bulldog Care Program number 17 is the approval for Helping Hands for the Bulldog CARE program as listed number 18 is the approval of a transfer from Washington School to the Lincoln Washington case Center number 19 is the approval of the adjustment and disability leave with with pay number 20 and 21 is to approve a disability leave with pay number 22 is the approval of extension of a leave of absence number 23 is the approval of an extension of a disability leave number 24 is the approval of an adjustment in the start date for disability leave with pay number 25 is the approval of a volunteer assistant girls lacrosse coach number 26 is the appr to approve the following substitute teachers for the 23 24 school year as listed number 27 is to approve the following substitute teacher assistance for the 2324 school year and number 28 is to approve the following travel reimbursements for the 2324 school year as listed and number 29 is to also approve the following travel reimbursements for the 2425 school year as listed all right thank you questions or comments from board members Dr for for clarity for for three and four I think for not but it's it's uh it's the Cy contract still till July 31st it's a it's a yeah yeah we don't want to use the other gentleman's name um we I know but we're not public um the contract of Mr Kelly's retiring August 1 so he has to have a contract and the contract is 12-month contract that's prated that's how it was approved you have to have to have ba contracts you know you can't just do a one month contract okay um and um it's a new this has always been the case that for a business administrator or a superintendent those two contracts and a whole lot of supporting data has to go to the county for approval before the board can approve it um this year the U State Department of Education added uh a resolution requirement to submit for approval so in the past my contract or Joe's contract would go up there and then you get it after the county approved it to approve but they changed they want a resolution saying the board's approving the submission of the contract next question was do approve it again do yeah because you didn't approve the contract you simply approved themission right you know it's similar to the Merit pay thing where you have to approve submission and similar to that the first we're doing it yeah there's it's welcome to the state I don't want say um so that's what that's about all right yeah um I do also want to mention that you see a a pay accounts payable person and then coming in for one month we have jobs in the business office like all the jobs of the business office are are including Mr Kelly's are extremely extremely important jobs obviously right we can't function without that they're all Singletons you know they're they're everybody's got a unique job they do it no one else does it so uh we're trying to arrange things where we could bring somebody in so they get a couple of weeks of their belt working side by side with the individual who's leaving um so that we don't you know so we have our bills paid in a timely fashion and things like that because as you can imagine is a really uh voluminous job and and a rather complicated one uh so that's why you'll see that being done okay thank you Mak sense enough um in number 13 a long-term substitute consultant what that's the person I was just talking about oh get great there you go we have to call her we can't because again you have to have you can't pay two people in the same title at the same time it's all these all these bureaucratic rules got it so related to that my other question 26 and 27 this one person is listed as both a substitute teacher and substitute teacher assistant is that yeah Al that happens a lot because they're willing to work whatever there's a job opening for there's a different rate of pay you know different so if someone wants to be on both sub lists they can be cool okay um and one other comment um I'm I'm pleased that band camp is back uh we during Co it was gone and then for a couple years because of uh construction we couldn't have a site for it so it's back and that uh salary like some of the other like the summer enrichment program uh that money comes out of the tuition that comes in for the it's a self-sustaining program got it all right uh Mrs Cole do you want to approve those yes so let's move motions 1 to 29 under Personnel all right we have a second Mr Cony any last questions or comments hearing none I'll ask Mr Kelly to please take rooll Mrs Cole yes Mr KY yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Dr A yes motion is carried thank you thank you we'll move on now to curriculum and instruction Mr Jones thank you we did have a curriculum instruction meeting on uh April 1st uh in attendance was Mr Harley Mr Charles Ryan uh Christina Cole Dr alot and Dennis Mason and myself um K was up for approval and many courses I won't say them all the other thing that was discussed was prek K3 and prek K4 enrollment is complete uh summer programs for the summer enrichment uh Academy will be again held at Lincoln School miscellaneous was the profile of the another graduate and we did have a other um professional development day this past week on April 3rd and hopefully we don't need another one what if we do that might be for time um motion number one is curriculum guidance and platform uh management platform uh it's listed two out of District placements three service providers four Fields chips now totally 152 five another service provided for functional Behavior assessments um and six to approve the the f following provide to provide evaluations for the child study team as needed seven harassment intimidation and Bully decision and eight an overnight trip to the track and field um state championships on June 7th and 8 is that an automatic are they already there no you have to earn the spot but overnight trips have to be approved so we do it just and that's that that's that's it 128 all right thank you questions or comments from board members hearing none Mr Jones you want to move this I move resolutions 1 through eight under curriculum instruction all right do we have a second Mr mazone any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take rooll Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr mazone yes Dr rine yes Dr aot yes motion's carried thank you all right thank you we'll move on now to finance in Mr Ban's absence allows Dr rine to carry us through anore that's it Encore uh there are four items tonight Al no no Finance meeting the last last meeting here U four items tonight number one the bills number two our reports um number three budget transfer and four to approve Phoenix advisors as our Unity advisers done like a pro y all right questions are comments I hearing none you want to move those Dr like move items one through four and finance okay do we have a second Mr Healey any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take a rooll Mrs Cole yes Mr KY yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Dr aot yes motion's carried thank thank you all right thank you we're going to move on to policy now Mr Hy yes uh we did not have a policy committee meeting since our last board meeting uh tonight for the uh as a second reading there's one resolution with 19 policies and our regulations of being put forth for approval tonight okay listed thank you this is the second reading for these any questions or comments hearing none I'd like to put these forth all right we have a second Mr uh Mr County any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take roll Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr mazone yes Dr rine yes Dr a yes motion carried thank you all right we'll move on now to buildings and grounds in Mr sprayberry's absence Mrs Jones car did not have a buildings and grounds meeting and there are no motions on the agenda for this evening all right tough one uh all right we're GNA move on now to Old business is there any old business Mr KY I attended the uh the pure Pont choir concert last week oh yeah it was pretty awesome I have to say nice the kids did a great job and Mrs Jordan M Jordan did an awesome job as always so awesome good anything else all right then we'll move on to legislative update Mr jnes well I when I saw this one I couldn't resist it because upcoming tonight for the NCA final game this is assembly Bill 4141 which came through last week on 44 2024 representative Sean Keane from uh Mammoth and Ocean County requires New Jersey state in inas Scholastic Athletic Association to adopt policy on use of instant replay as playoff on playoff tournament basketball games the head coach of each teams uh will shall be permitted a maximum of two games clock re challenging two yeah two games that's what it says check for challenging for the for each game instant replay in high school well there was national news story um at the end of the state tournament in boys basketball this year when an obvious um mistake at the end of the game yeah was made by the official that allowed one team to go forward and win at a buzzer when it was the shot should have been good right and it was very clear I mean it wasn't it was very obvious and U but the bylaws do not allow for instant replay and the bylaws do not allow an officials decision to be overturned even though anybody who saw it anybody who was there knew that that team didn't win the game so um it's happened once in What U that we that this this proportion in 100 years but now we're going to have this legislation and uh probably he's from the district at the team that lost um and um but you know it would only be in the state tournament um uh you know I don't know it's the way everything's going I know when I saw it I said oh well this is tonight it's a good night to mention that one but yeah it was all over I mean it was all over all the network programming and all that mad Squad Camden yeah madis Squad Camden y all right thank you Mr Jones at 7:34 p.m. we're going to open the meeting up to the public for anything related to or not related to the agenda oh wow now I'm just gonna real quick the uh it was mentioned by the student um representative but the rhs choir played sang at Carnegie Hall I have a program here that I'd like to share with you uh but a big shout out to Patricia Blanchard for organizing this whole thing and it was an amazing concert such an amazing experience so thank you thank you thank you thanks for sharing that how many went calling the whole the whole was over wow it kind of makes the uh School Board performance look not as important now you know carue hall right I mean you know like the cafeteria Atlantic City Convention Center but still it was nice that's where they got their start all right any other Open Session comments uh hearing none we're going to close the meeting at 7:35 p.m. we do have a need for an executive session for one student issue should be out five minutes uh at the most no action to be taken need a motion to go into executive session Mrs Cole seconded by Mr Healey all in favor all all right we are going into executive session thank you