ready all right good evening everyone like to call the meeting to order everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I alance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mrs Herold here Mr Pico is absent Mr Valley here Mr vardo is absent Mr Y ynam is absent Mr muscatello here Mrs sharpstein here we have a quum all right thank you sunshine law statement this is to advise the general public and to instruct that it be recorded in the minutes that in compliance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act Stan hope Board of Education located at 24 Valley Road Stan Hope New Jersey has caused this notice to be posted at the office of the Stan hope Board of Education mailed to the New Jersey Herald the municipal clerk of the Bureau of stanh Hope The stanh Hope post office and posted at the valley Road school and on the Stan hope Public Schools website setting forth the time date and location of the meeting Stan hope school's mission statement the Stan hope school district will provide a diverse and challenging educational environment that encourages individual initiatives Fosters Success Through teamwork promotes accountability demonstrates a passion for educational excellence and ensures student a achievement related to the New Jersey student learning standards the Stan hope school district is committed to the development of our students and staff so that individual aspirations can be achieved through their lifelong learning uh an executive session will be held tonight for the purpose of a facilities discussion formal action may be taken all right and with that we will move to our presentations right join [Music] me all right good evening everybody thank you for coming um I appreciate your commitment um it was shortsighted of me to uh have planned this on Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday I apologize for that um but so happy that you were able to come and join us tonight um as most of you know because I have a lot of repeat honor rooll recipients our middle school students earn honored honor rooll recognition when they earn all A's and B's on their report card for the marking period students can earn high honor role recognition when they and straight A for the marking period um we just did this last month for marking period one so thanks for coming back again so quickly uh as as proud as we are of the students uh for putting in the time and the effort that they do to be successful in school again I will continue to thank our parents for being so supportive of us and so supportive of their children to make sure that they are doing everything they need to do uh to learn and to grow both academically and socially um so to start I'm going to uh I believe I pulled all of the certificates of the students that I see here tonight um although I do see one that I didn't catch yet uh so I'm going to read those uh so that you can come on up receive your certificate from board president Mrs sharpstein uh and then afterwards I'll read the rest of the names who are not in attendance tonight um so first for honoral I'd like to welcome up violet hanusek [Applause] next Kylie [Applause] Hoffman Olivia [Applause] [Music] yo Abigail Andrews [Applause] Kathleen [Applause] Pano Daniela [Applause] sampa all right my high honorable recipients who are in attend tonight Faith [Applause] Anderson John [Applause] banini Jacob Campbell Hannah [Applause] sharfstein [Applause] Grace wisman Braden light arth [Music] [Music] kapi um am I missing some all right I think I got everybody that's here if I'm missing anybody I'm going to call your name anyway and then you can come up and yell at me okay so we're going to go back to honor roll um I'm going to read off the names because I don't believe any of these people are here uh but I would like to recognize them uh publicly on our U on our live stream alacia green Juliet [Applause] Hines s Morales Scarlet Stansfield Aiden Bruner Amy deselen Claire Frank John Gada Caitlyn ' Conor Emily Perry Joshua Perry Tess Roth Demi small Sienna Zapata Anderson Calderone Ava Conlin Linda FR Dylan Kelly Dominic Lama Christian Monroy Vasquez Christopher thoron Donovan vergano okay for High onor Roll Kylie McDonald Tabitha Mueller Angelina robbles Alina twam Charlotte Harold all right thank you all again for coming out and for your continued support and commitment to your children thank you again all right so my next presentation of course I left everything over [Music] [Music] here apologies um so for those of you who are una aware uh many years ago our Board of Education created a staff recognition program uh where staff students and members of the community community uh can nominate one of our staff members for the we are vrs award this month uh we have Miss Mrs Stephanie diano who was nominated by one of our staff members and I'm going to read off why Miss Diana was nominated before we call her up to embarrass her in front of all of you um Stephanie has been an amazing asset to our school for the last six years this year she stepped into a new position as our Ela RTI teacher she has gone above and beyond from uh providing literary resources to all families during fall conferences has created an awesome schoolwide interactive bulletin board and recently presented to the staff a refresher on RTI protocol and resources she also has even made a public Instagram little free book club for anyone in the community to have literacy resources and inspiration Mrs Dio come on up congratulations and thank you [Applause] God get to Sho finished yet it's a something thank you thank [Applause] you right so so thank you everyone for coming we are going to break for our executive session at this time can I get a motion motion second thank you all right um be it resolved that the stanh Hope Board of Education adopts the following resolution whereas the open public meetings act chapter 231 of 1975 permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting in certain circumstances and whereas the Stan hope board of education is of the opinion that such circumstances presently exist now therefore be it resolved by the Stan hope Board of Education County of Sussex and state of New Jersey that a closed session of the Board of Education where the public shall be excluded will be held at this time for the purposes of a facility's discussion be it further resolved that the action of the board with regard to the above entitled matter shall be disclosed to the public at a later date and to the extent that the same is not prejudicial to the interest of the parties involved and would not result in a possible invasion of their right to privacy all in favor say I I any anybody no extensions okay and we are okay we're going to reenter public session can I have a motion please motion second okay all in favor say yes yes yes yes any nose abstain all right we are back brings us to the superintendence report okay now I think we'll be quick um first uh there are zero HIV investigations and zero suspensions this month so that's wonderful um I did have a uh conversation with Mrs sharfstein over the last couple weeks she attended a uh a governance for course uh where there was some discussion on how HIV should uh and best practices in reporting out to the board of Education uh I've done a little bit of homework uh I've collaborated with our regional Partners um read some some policy and some law regarding HIV um which I'll I'll probably get into great detail when we meet next for committees uh but there are a couple changes I guess coming uh to the way that we report out to the Board of Education uh at our board meetings um so I'll have more details on that soon um I want to congratulate the five very deserving serving eighth grade students who were nominated for superintendent Roundtable award um you know all five of the students I noticed as I was sitting there and talking to them are nine-year students at Valley Road school if not more from preschool uh which was which was really nice to see and I and I it's a coincidence right in that nobody was nominating them based on that but I don't think it's a coincidence in that the way that our our school and our teachers are are raising these kids and help not raising them but helping them mature academically and socially uh here in school um I couldn't have picked five five uh more wonderful candidates myself um and they wrote very wonderful essays uh it was a very tight uh vote um but I wanted to congratulate Donovan vergano uh who is this year's superintendent Round Table Award winner um and the awards reception which is a a lunch in at perona farms will be held on April 9th 19th uh and he and he and his family will be invited to attend um we had a dine to donate event last Wednesday at Sal's Pizzeria uh they were able to raise $400 for the Valley Road school's uh 100th day inservice project our service project uh and that's to support connect for Community uh they're um collecting and using this money to provide uh hygiene daily hygiene items for families who are in need um and if you look at the board uh coming into school walking into the school Mrs Henry is keeping a tally of all of the items that we are currently in need of she's trying to get a hundred of hand lotions uh shampoos deodorants bar soaps um so for those of you who are listening in uh if this is something that you would like to participate in take a look at at the board um and we'd be uh very grateful for those donations so that we can support these people in need um I I I again want to thank sa at s's Pizza uh typically when you do these D to donates you get 10% of of the of the money or the revenue generated and he gives us 15% and then usually rounds it off uh at the end of the night um $400 is an incredible amount of money for a Small Town Pizzeria so just wanted to thank him um that leads into the 100th day challenge I I kind of addressed all that that was item number four for me uh number five is our USAC uh monitoring visit which initially was scheduled April 2nd is now scheduled February 22nd um a little nerve-racking at first to have it moved up almost six weeks but we're feeling very confident that we're ready to go um we are one of two districts in the county who hasn't already failed and I don't mean that as in their failures I mean that based on the way that test scores and and and the points awarded are calculated in QC um most districts in our state especially our County uh are not able to pass instruction and programming so you need to pass with a score of 80% UH 60 of those 100 points are based on test scores and data that's outside of of our hands at this point um and if you get under 40 you you're not able to pass uh that's something that njasa and some other districts in our Southern counties are trying to address uh with legislature um and I would be happy to support that as most of the other susus County superintendents are as well uh it just a lot of the calculations don't make sense and I won't get into the minutia of it now but we do have an opportunity to pass I feel really good about it um we are ready to go with our uh curriculum revisions to go on our website uh for our community my goal is to get that up and running before spring break I'm going to work with Mr Lama to to make sure that these links can go live um and everything's already already been given to the county office and they're already reviewing uh remotely um so uh Jen and yakub um are on our qac committee Gil are you also on that committee yes yes right sorry uh and we also have a few teachers um Mrs Frank and our health office obviously our business uh business office and Mrs dealo um it'll be a long day uh but I'm hoping we get positive results um we are are apparently through what we learned through the qac monitoring program that we're supposed to be reporting out monthly on our Safety and Security drills uh whereas we report out at the end of of each school year um so what I can report to you is we had our monthly fire drill on Tuesday January 30th and we had a shelter in place on January 18th it is required that each School conduct one fire drill every month one emergency drill every month which can be a shelter in place it can be uh an active shooter drill it can be uh an evacuation drill um and two times a year school districts need to do a bus evacuation drill uh whether you have buses or not whether you transport students still required with the idea being students are going to take field trips they're going to be on buses they're going to be on Vans they need to know how to exit safely um you should all have received an email uh from Debbie about the financial disclosure statements uh these are due April 30th um my request is that we get them done as soon as we can just so that we can check that one thing off of our list uh if you do need help or support please let us know if you uh cannot find that email let us know um I also shared uh with the board I believe uh survey results from students and parents who've been participating in the zero period program I've called it zero period I don't know if everybody's calling it that uh but it's ultimately the eighth grade students who are participating in lenp Valley's first period class uh which is prior to the start of our regular school day we've had all almost all very very positive feedback uh students seem to enjoy the courses parents are very appreciative of the courses obviously there's been a couple issues with personnel uh in at least one of the courses um but that's honestly outside of of their control um we did request uh for next year to have some additional course options at this time it doesn't look like that's a possibility but it's not something that they won't continue to look at and consider uh down the road it it honestly comes down to Staffing um you know we talked about stem we talked about art they only have X number of staff and those classes fill up immediately you know so now you're bring talking about bringing in additional Personnel um for next year probably not in the cards but it's something that I think as we continue to have success the sing districts will be happy to have that conversation to see how how we could possibly help out with that um I think that's all that I had other than uh welcoming back Carissa as I guess we're calling her the substitute board secretary for now right um you know bringing in uh Mr Dan Borgo as our interim business administrator secretary uh we're trying to be fiscally responsible with the the hours that he puts in um and what we're paying towards those hours uh but also with his time uh so there's going to be there will be board meetings where he will be here and serving as the board secretary specifically when we have to report out on budget information um but for this meeting um I ask Carissa if she'd be willing to fill in she I don't know about happily but she she agreed she's happy she likes you um so uh welcome it's uh C's as many of you I'm sure remember served in this role as the board secretary for a number of years uh early on when I got here to St hope so thank you you do a wonderful job and we're very happy to have you here okay oh just one quick question on the bus evacuations do obviously we have to bring buses in it's lenp is wonderful they loan us a bus they have driver come down we we spend the morning we have all our kids come in and out remember those Hannah yeah fun right no um we have all the kids come in and out uh and we've gotten pretty efficient we do it the whole school in a matter of a couple hours thanks one more quick question on the Zero period for next year I know currently this year kids that go up for a foreign language still have to come here and take Spanish so that's something that we are definitely so initial responses they will not be required to take a language here how we will address that I'm not sure whether it be an additional study hall if there's additional coursework um again we we've brought up over the last two or three meetings the idea of of the possibility of bringing in Rosetta Stone to address our Middle School World Language curriculum um which would allow Mrs Connelly to work spend more time working with our students who are learning English as the second language if we do that it would also provide opportunities for students maybe taking language up at the high school to either take the same same language through Rosetta Stone as an additional support right additional uh coaching or possibly learn a second language um I believe they also offer sign language uh which could be a possibility for students who are interested um but those are things those are some details that we got to get worked out however there will there will not be most most likely as long as we can get everything in the budget which I feel confident about there won't be direct Spanish instruction to our 67th and eighth grade students next year thank you any other questions no moves us to our curriculum update y just again reiterating that um our curriculum has now been taken from Rubicon um updated reformatted we're very excited that it is ready to go um online to share out with the public uh I will share with the board before we do that the the direct link that brings you to all of the curriculum that we've worked on and approved um again within the next month I hope to have that all all wrapped up and done it's just a matter of how we're going to how we're going to link it to the website what it's going to look like and and just kind of getting that information out to to parents and community members questions on curriculum no all right Jen Personnel curriculum School climate and culture committee very big name um it was a pretty quick committee meeting we have two substitute positions that resigned but on this on the agenda for tonight are the approval of two more coming on there's an approval um for vote on tonight's agenda for Maggie Melly for a stien appointment for the family literacy literacy night that's to work I'm assuming with Miss Dio uh yes I think that they're working together to plan a program a family engagement program here at the school okay there's also for approval tonight District calendars for next year so 2425 and then 2526 and that was pretty much pretty much everything um oh Mr Hegman is still and I know it's been challenging for you and them trying to meet to follow up with the eighth grade um board Representatives on their findings from their survey to try to figure out next steps but they've been out I was going to speak to that a little in Old business um I don't have a whole lot to report out because we're getting bit by some bugs um and to be quite honest with you I'm overwhelmed there there have been a couple days where both of them have been at my door wanting to meet with me and they can see the look on my face and they're like all right we'll come back another time um but yeah I'll address that a little bit in Old business and I'm hoping I don't know if this week's in the cards cuz all Schools is tomorrow and we're closed on Friday um but hopefully next week I'll be able to sit down with them when they're healthy and able to return excellent and that was all I have good you business services facilities technology yes um couple items that we have up our uh items on the agenda tonight one of them was a supervisor in buildings and grounds to job description uh we're looking to create a uh supervisor of buildings and grounds and on the agenda tonight is the description job description for that position uh we discussed the ethics disclosure forms coming out and the importance of it getting back in a timely manner to the board uh to the ba um that is a check off box end points on qac so if there's late or there's problems with it it hurts us not this year but the following year if you ever get cacked again um a facility's walkth through was done from the uh uh pre walk pre qac walkthrough of facilities was done um uh between the qac personnel and Steve they felt they're in pretty we're in pretty good shape there are a couple minor issues here and there they made a punch list for that and as we speak those that punch list is being addressed um science lab Renovations uh after looking over the timing of it and the work being put in into the um the building this summer um there it was discussed to possibly move that back a year I don't know if that decision's been finalized but the discussion was to move that back a year so um I don't know if it's necessarily been finalized but that's likely going to be my recommendation um there were a couple concerns that we had with the timing of the project um lining up with our hbac project uh and um a couple issues with the bid that we received uh so I would say most likely I would expect that to be put back one additional year and then it would be completed in the summer of 25 thanks um next was the uh they had the HVAC kickoff meeting um along with the installation of the new boiler the same company is doing both projects so that's a great win-win for us um also like like things are beginning to come together the the idea of doing the boilers this summer and not next summer was the fact that gas will be available to us hopefully at the end of April I think was the target date they had so by having gas available to us at this facility at the door allow them to move forward with the boiler project and um um that project will start and should be completed before cold weather of next year um because we the because we're going to be able to put the we knew the gas would be at the door the specs for the boilers are for gas fired boilers they're not going to try and retrofit put in oil burn oil fired boilers and then when gas came retrofit the burner heads to gas this allows us to put in a gas design boiler ahead of time which has a much much better uh efficiency rating with it and I think there's two boilers going in and combined it's 1.5 million is it uh one boiler will be 1.5 million btu the main will be 2 million and the reason that that's important is because if we can maintain uh under 4 million BTUs then we will not need a custodial or or somebody with a black seal on premises when the boilers are uh firing um that is a game Cher for us in terms of scheduling and hiring um because you know it's it's harder and harder these days to find people who have these black seals and to schedule them I mean technically nobody's supposed to be in the building if the boilers are on and you don't have somebody with a black seal we're very fortunate that we have that right now but whereas in the past everyone had a black seal now you're only looking at two two and a half of our facility staff and the last item was a comment we had uh Steve made a comment on the transition with the business administrator which we had just heard a few minutes ago that that transition is going extremely smooth and uh everybody's happy with what's going anybody with questions just a final comment is that the committee recommends that the business agenda be approved as written Communications Tom so we had a brief meeting and discussed some of the matters uh that were shared in the other committees as it may pertain to policy down the road but at this point there are no actionable policy items or recommendations back to you Gil negotiations uh negotiations is is is moving on uh I know there's been a little bit going back and forth and some additional information on scattergrams then some additional information after that and then there's always a problem when you you have different groups being represented and each group wants representation of their subgroups on there so you end up with a lot of people trying to organize a common calendar to meet and I don't know we have two weeks trying to get trying to get a date maybe three weeks just trying to get a date but we do have a date and that's March 6th is our first meeting date they call that a meet and greet uh at which time we will all be there including the representation for the teachers I believe they're using an njaa person and our attorney will be there and the nice part about that is once we do our meet and greet we'll be able to with everybody sitting at the table put up the next two or three calendar dates for the negotiations meeting so once we have our first meeting we should be able to move on with that um want me to go right in anybody with questions on negotiations uh next is um uh Sussex ed services um things are moving along fine there um I I had the um called the board um summation from the superintendent I had it with me but I got here a little late then had a chance to run it off but um everything's going well uh fully staffed um our enrollment is the best it's been in years um our new principal starts uh February 22nd so that's a big a big day for us to get uh additional administrative help there um budget passed uh we just had our audit uh go through there were no uh comments or recommendations and our budget is underway um I mentioned last time that we are moving very quickly into getting getting a program set up and Personnel hired for districts who need to uh get help if they get a preschool Grant okay and they need help for personnel there we'll have Personnel available anyone with questions for Sussex ed services thank you all right so that would bring us to my report um Steve and I did meet back on February 5th briefly um almost everything we discussed is what we've talked about here on the agenda already um the two things I want to bring up separate that is we are getting into the evaluation timeline so the first steps actually belong to Steve though um to prepare his materials he's got about 30 so days to do that um once everything is ready and then I will publish out a timeline for everybody else for when we need to do our part of the evaluation um we talked about negotiations budget um the other piece was Hib which he spoke about briefly earlier and possibly some changes to the way we handle HIV so more information to come on that and that was it everything else has been reflected through committee meetings that we talked about all right any questions any other discussion all right that would bring us to our first public session anybody from the public like to speak no longer lunch periods okay hearing none that brings us to minutes for approval agenda items one and two can I have a motion please motion second thank you okay uh meeting minutes and executive session minutes attachments one and two this is a voice vote all in favor say yes yes yes NOS anybody abstain okay next we're moving on to administrative action items agenda items one and two motion please motion second thank you okay any discussion questions hearing none go ahead call Mrs Harold yes Mr Valley yes Mr muscatello yes Mrs sharpstein yes motion car thank you educational action items agenda items one through three motion please motion thank you second second thank you okay we have uh three items here school trips school year calendars for 2425 and 2526 any discussion questions no go ahead roll call Mrs Harold yes Mr Valley yes Mr muscatello yes M Shar yes motion's carried thank you Personnel action items 1 through four motion please motion second thank you okay uh we discussed these during uh Jen's report a few minutes ago anybody have questions or any further discussion Hear n roll call Mrs Herold yes Mr Valley yes Mr muscatello yes Mrs sharpstein yes motions Carry business services items 1 through 11 a motion please motion second please second all right any discussion on items 1 through 11 um the upgrade because of Dan being a an experience the upgrade to the bid threshold um de was also a qpa we're just continuing that because we need to have it recognized in order to have that established for our purchasing so so Debbie was certified at the same numbers yes okay yes anyone else with questions okay roll call please Mrs Harold yes Mr Valley yes Mr muscatello yes Mrs sharpstein yes motions carry that brings us to new business anybody with new business for the board right I'll just bring up very quickly our next Sussex County meeting will be um our unsung heroes presentation I'll pull out the date for us shortly um but every school district in the county nominates a student um for this presentation so there will be everything from sixth graders to 12th grad depending on what the School District covers so I believe we have an eighth grade nominee I think if you don't mind me jumping in saying um proud to nominate and and have received this recognition Emily Bosch who is an eighth grader uh in in part of her her program because of just her her outstanding ability to work with with young children and children with special needs uh she is been nominated because of the help she provides to preschool every single morning she works in there and helps them through their morning meeting and the kids love her uh and she also works uh for part of the day one period a day uh in Miss Mason's ASD program uh with some of our students with with needs and she does a tremendous job um working with those kids uh we're very proud of her and uh I'm excited um I actually think I can attend that program so I'm excited to see that say I can pull out the date here in a minute um while I look for that anybody with old business okay question on Old business have we heard any updates on the preschool grant for for we have not I reached out to Dr Carrick just today hoping she can give me something and crickets nothing which is unfortunate because that's a major part it's a major question for our budget process so we're kind of at a stand still right now can can the budget be developed with without that a budget will be developed without it however it'll be with significantly less Revenue so what happens if you if you if you develop it that way and then you get the grant are you allowed to edit your budget I would hope that we know whether or not we got the grant by the time the board has to approve the budget um if not I would assume that we'll be able to make revisions maybe not to the budget but um based on that Revenue I would do everything I can to potentially bring back positions that we may have have have had to riff because of the budget situation you're talking honestly about $200,000 so hopefully we'll hear soon it would be March 4 yeah I pulled it up the unsung heroes is March 4th 6:30 to 8:30 at High Point High School and uh I had another question about that budget um the timing of that with do you have a date for does there a date out for state aid um I know the governor is making his address on February 27th we usually get numbers about a week after that so it be early March that's what we're hoping okay but don't hold me to it no I that was more needed for negotiations purposes to know what what the budget looks like maybe we'll get really lucky and the one will offset the other not going to hold my breath for them but that would be [Music] great okay any other old business before the board I just wanted to bring up as as I mentioned earlier it's been a struggle trying to meet with our student Advocates um because of how busy I've been with the the change over from with facilities and business uh We've also had some illness and some other Student Activities that have interfered um I have all the Hope in the world that next week although it's a three-day week I'll be able to meet with them um there are three main topics uh that I've pulled from their presentation if you're you remember was the data that they collected from the Middle School survey um some are are more serious than others others on the Lesser serious side uh I got a lot of feedback from students about music streaming services and how they're kind of restricted to YouTube and you know as adults I think many of us will work best when we have some appropriate music in the background um so we're exploring some other services that we can provide to students uh that they can use during the day you know with their headphones uh in class um the other two topics are are more I guess of a serious nature uh I want to discuss with them and get some more information uh regarding student Comfort level uh changing for physical education in the locker rooms uh and then the other was um student feedback on bullying uh there was a um there was a narrative throughout that survey where students felt as though uh that there is bullying that's happening within the building um a significant amount uh but that's clearly not translating into investigations right and founded cases of HIV um so I think for us and I want to work with these two students to figure out what what do our students see as bullying what is actually happening right um if not bullying still not okay how can we address it from from a separate lens if is bull if it is bullying how can we increase the likelihood that students will make adults staff Administration counselors aware of the situations and the issues that are going on in the school so uh I plan to do I'm hoping to do a lot of work with them um you know now that I think of it next Thursday is our qack meeting so that might even prove challenging um but I will make sure that those two students be you know probably before the third quarter but definitely before they leave here will leave their Mark and and you know help us contribute to just a better School climate and culture for our our students across the board thank you thank you questions comments that brings us to public session number two anybody from the public wishing to speak no all right that brings us to adjournment can I have a motion for adjournment please motion second all right Voice vote all in favor I I anybody no abstain we are closed thank you very much