e e e e e e e e good evening and welcome to the West Orange Board of Education public board meeting on Monday July 22nd 2024 I would like to thank all of you here in person and those watching from home for joining us tonight I would also like to welcome my fellow board members as well as Mr Moore and Miss Flowers Miss Flowers would you please take the roll call good evening everyone roll call please Dr Bryant here Mr ifer here Mr Stevenson here vice president Vera here president Rock here thank you notice of meeting the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests are discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the ACT a written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board on May 9th 2024 that set notice was sent by regular mail to the West Orange Township Clerk and the editors of the West Orange CL chronical and by email to The Star Ledger that said notice was posted in the lobby of the administration building of the Board of Education and posted on the district website please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and may be broadcasted on local TV and the district's website at a future date please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for stands one nation God indivisible andice for all thank you Miss flowers next in consideration of the closed and public meeting minutes of June 17th 2024 do I have a motion to accept the minutes so move thank you Mr Stevenson is there a second second thank you Dr rer any comments hearing none Miss flowers please take the roll call Dr Bryant yes Mr ifer yes Mr Steven Stevenson yes vice president Vera yes president Rock yes thank you all right next Mr Moore it is time for your report would you please share your superintendent's Report with us thank you president Rock sorry about that tonight I can report our summer programs have been operating smoothly and successfully our extended school year program esy which is conducted by our special service department has been going very well and we had our summer enrichment program which had an increase in enrollment which was very successful this year in the upcoming weeks our athletic camps begin on campus and our academic camps begin for our engineering and Tech students the district operates during the summer not quite as fully as it it does during the school year but the summertime is very very busy I'd like to extend in a a I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you for the combined efforts of our staff and administration to make this a successful summer thus far ladies and gentlemen I would also like to take a moment to mention Dr Pond Jonathan Pon I'd like to take a moment to mention the passing of a colleague the superintendent of Mont CLE Public Schools Dr Jonathan Pon who died suddenly I was able to attend Friday's tribute to Dr ponds and extend our Collective sympathy here at West Orange our West Orange sends sincere condolences to the Monclair Board of Ed the Monclair Community the Monclair Administration their faculty staff and students and of course to the family of Dr Pon this is a tremendous loss for our neighbors in Monclair and we are here to support them in their sorrow thank you ladies and gentlemen I appreciate that and now for a bullying report since June Board of since June's Board of Board of Ed meeting we've had four HIV investigation we've reviewed and sum and summarized all investigations and all four incidents have been determined unfounded thank you thank you president Rock and that concludes my report thank you superintendent Moore um next up we have committee reports or comments from the board uh Mr rer just briefly I wanted to mention principal Guerrera uh Board of Education president Mr Rock and of course superintendent Hayden Moore and uh commend you on just another wonderful graduation high school graduation was I mean it was spiritual it was fun it was brief it was every everything you want in a uh in a ceremony and it was really a tribute to the community and to the uh graduates and their their parents and teachers so just want to say Well done thank you thank you anything Mr Stevenson no report vice president ver good afternoon everyone um on last week or it's going to be a week ago I had the opportunity to be invited to the cere our ceremony for the financial literacy program um it was two minutes it was two minutes but I feel really you know it was amazing the program that I was listening and in researching it was a really good program and I feel really happy and proud to be there to represent uh myself as a teacher and a board member thank you for the invitation and you know I think is a a a really good experience for me to be there anything Dr Brian okay thank you all right and I'll move on to my board's uh board president's report and this evening we're going to have a short present from Marissa Brown who's in the audience she is the founding president and chairperson of the circle of rainbow sisters seeking spiritual and Wellness Connection an organization that offers a financial literacy program to students uh throughout the area including some of our students here in West Orange she is here to share some more information about her service to our community so you can take the podium good evening Mike oh so that was me see I always think that my voice carries so once again good evening my name is Marissa Brown and I actually brought two parents with me and one student so I'm actually grateful so I stand here in Grace and grateful to actually believe it or not we started this program and I'm not going to read through the package the deck is intended to give you a highlight and I will present the elevator Spiel on what you have in front of you that reasonable I have 10 minutes okay so we started this program back in 2017 and at that time superintendent Moore was the principal of West Orange High School and then superintendent rutsky we presented the program to him and the first thing he did was pass the Baton to principal Moore at the time now superintendent and principal Moore superintendent assigned the delegation to Nancy Mullins we honored her that year but the passion behind this program is about equipping our students for the future just a trivia question for the board what do you think the percent of our population living to paycheck living paycheck to paycheck is anyone take a guess 90 living paycheck to paycheck oh my goodness 30% no it's almost approximately 50% sometimes depending on the economics it waivers so our goal so statistics recorded income 50% our goal goal is to ensure that our students like Sheree Musa here when she exits College one we're contributing to her debt reduction and she will not be part of that population she's learned she's been in our program since 2017 and she just graduated she was amongst one of our scholarship winners so was Olivia's Olivia Raymond her mom is here as well and let's not ignore Shere M's mom and the reason I reached out to some of the parents most of whom were working so they couldn't attend so the success of our program is twofold it's the engagement of the schools and the parents most of our students I'd say 80% of our students that have succeeded through the program rest on the shoulders of the parents now what you have in front of you is turn of highlights of our program and as you can see to date we've awarded over $227,000 so those Awards is allocated across the early program which is early disciplines for the students first graders through High School seniors the second program is our scholarship program on Inception we restricted the applicants for the senior and Junior scholarships we had an external student students apply and why because we started with sixth graders and fifth graders so we didn't have any High School juniors and seniors but we wanted to test the methodology and the model so now that Sheree was in her junior year last year we restricted all applicants for our scholarship to our students that went through the early development program the financial discipline award program our strategic vision is to continue to partner with the school districts so that the schools are nominating the students and what's included in the deck is our disciplines and the characteristics that we look for in the students that are nominated to represent the municipality I have to mention uh Roosevelt Middle School where actually Sheree was nominated to represent Roosevelt Middle School by Mr hush Mr hush has been an impeccable advocate for the program there's been a video the school was interviewed by NBC I don't know um superintendent Moore if you saw that but they were interviewed and the school the organization that was named and the program that we've partnered with them was this organization uh the challenges are engaging and expanding the connection with those in the community those the education leaders to nominate those students that they believe fit our discipline and our characteristics for the students because it paves the road for success for our students Sheree Musa graduated this year and she's one of our frosta winners how much did you win and last year so in total 2500 is reserved it's been escrowed and when she's ready for the funds to be mailed to her school we will distribute it to her schools come on up here please parent both parents so we were fortunate to have presented to Roosevelt Middle School back in 2016 in December and Shel Raymond was one of the parents at the PTA meeting and we presented to that group and she immediately engaged and I'm still here so Shel has two kids who registered and participated in the program from day one she hardly ever missed any of the workshops so much so that I've engaged her to help us at the workshops but the great news is both her students both of the students Kai Raymond and Olivia Raymond applied for our scholarships and Kai is now in his sophomore year it he's a rising Junior and he applied for our frosta scholarship and he won first place now let's fast forward he won Junior scholarship and then he won first place as a senior his total takeaway was how much 5,000 yes but that includes what he earned from the early development program which is our Workshop where we teach students how to trade on the stock market what what are needs and wants um how to do budgeting Insurance the different types of insurance of different types of taxes so our elementary middle and high school students should you pass them and you know them and you ask them if they attended this program ask them any of those questions Rule of 72 anyone on the panel knows what that is Rule of 72 to do with the uh interest and how many years it takes for your funds to double based on the rate that you're earning our students know that I expect them to may be disappointed because we each have memory Labs right okay so anyway um what I wanted to impress and continue to get support from our superintendent is how do we engage our our school leaders and I call those principles and you know Miss Vera you've made it real clear that our counselors to nominate students to represent West Orange because historically I've done those visits to the school to the churches and that's how we've engaged students but past two years we've restricted it to the municipality nominating the students to represent you to represent this school to repres this municipality our mayor has been engaged from the Inception um prior board president sandre morai I have five minutes left for all of us but you have you have something we need you to speak to from hence hence the mom because it's critical you were okay fine so now you're distracting from the time so anyway I am here to just make sure that I influence the engagement superintendent more so that we can meet maybe quarterly to see how the other principles are progressing because Joel Castillo and Lionel hush has set the foundation they are great models and so I'm hoping that we could enhance this process to move it forward now leverage this organization to do a few things which Miss Shel Raymond will speak to so she's anxious even though both her kids are out of the system she really wants to influence more communication on academic Awards okay so I'm going to give you two minutes um but any questions at all hold it till the end please and just let us know how best we can further engage West Orange okay hi well you know I was out of the school and then last week my two-year-old nephew moved into the St Cloud neighborhood because they love the school system so much so why you'll see me some sometimes still um so basically what I want to talk about is you know Olivia and Kai I was very intentional especially with Olivia because she was such a well-rounded and advanced whatever student that I knew she would qualify for a lot of scholarships right but what are the what scholarships so we went on a hunt for those scholarships and then the biggest batch of money aside from I mean she did get $5,000 this year as the winner um but as you know West Orange scholarship fund is just a huge allotment of money the problem for me and her and I think other kids and parents is that it's a general application which is great and easy however you don't have the qualifications that are needed for all of the different scholarships available so if you read through and you say hey I am a special ed student that takes Auto courses right and there's a scholarship just for me I'm going to write my essay right towards that so I might be a better candidate or I mean there's so many of them and I think that if they had all of those requirements for those scholarships ahead of time and they could kind of build towards that and know what they're going to apply for and try to get I think we would see a few less disappointed kids at that ceremony who only come and get pieces of paper in the beginning right they think they're still up for a scholarship and they get nothing at least they would have seen all the requirements and hopefully like I would tell my kid I'm like there's no way you're going to get that right so at least they're clear um so that's one recommendation the other thing that we were struggling with is how you guys come up with the top 10 of the graduating class right I wrote to you um I was dealing with top 5% top 10% that's how I knew kids were being measured I was really surprised when I saw that um post that it was oh no these top 10 kids and even at the graduation these are the top 10 kids in the class well how do you get to be that top 10 right is it the difference between deciding to take one more AP class your junior year could that could that have been the difference to get to the top 10 and that relates to money right it relates to what these kids are able to get out in the larger world and it matters so what we are asking for and what we are prepared to partner with as well is mar program it goes through with these kids from first to graduation I mean we will cover these things with the parents with the kids because it's Financial as well it's not just academic it directly impacts my pocket I have enough checks there to pay for one payment of her college right because we were targeted could we have done better if we knew some more information for sure she might have lost her um what you call that study break but yeah I think that's what we're looking for a list more transparency into how to become one of those top 10 how to become the top five% top 10 percent right when are the points accumulated so you know do you have to try really really hard sophomore year what what matters right so if we could get something like that that we can share with our parents and I think really it should be transparent to everybody it should be something that you can look up and make a plan with your kid for their High School career because that's what people are doing now I mean it's a lot of money to go to school and the more money we can get and plan for the better it's going to be so that's it right so now one of the options that we have considered is in addition to sh in addition to sharing the information delegate someone to come and present we meet every third Saturday of the month beginning in December we have orientation this year beginning September and October so we're seeking to provide the transparen the transparency straight through so that any student is aware of how we can better help them for the future and how we can converge as a group thank you Miss Raymond thank you did the board have any questions before they go or right I appreciate you coming to to share about this um I think M Mr Moore will uh you know take this back and the other thing I wanted to mention in my board president's report is just a shout out to Mr Felix planta and the West Orange Hispanic Foundation was at the Latin night that we hosted or they hosted out on the football field um last Saturday the 13th maybe it was a hot during the day I showed up in the evening when the sun was going down Mr Moore was there sweating all day I think um but it was it was a great event looked like everybody had a lot of fun we had a lot of fun when we got there so again just shout out to Mr Felix Plata and his team for for organizing that oh and I'd also like to just acknowledge and give a shout out to Mr Moore for completing his first full year as superintendent officially thank you I appreciate you guys I feel like I've been acknowledged all year though but I thank you well when you when you got a good thing let them know every day and we got four more years to let you know and hopefully a few more after that all right so with that we will move on to our business for the evening actually sorry before that uh we'll have questions from the public on agenda items only any Community member who would like to make comments or ask questions please come to the podium at this time please state your name and home address for the record then begin your comments please limit your comments to 3 minutes do we have any members of the public here in the audience tonight who wish to make public comments seeing none now we'll move on to our business agenda and our resolutions first may I have a motion to approve the Personnel items A1 through A7 so move thank you Mr Stevenson is there a second second thank you Mr ifer um I want to congratulate the following retirees Kevin Alvine supervisor of fizzed and health at West norch High School for his 35 years of service and Gerard Narcissa a night Shi night shift custodian at West orang High School for his 31 years of service thank you both for your service to the Western orange students and our school community and welcome to the club where every day is Saturday is there any discussion of personnel no seeing none Miss Flowers would you please take the roll call Dr Bryant yes Mr ifer yes Mr Stevenson yes vice president Vera yes president Rock yes thank you next may I have a motion to approve the curriculum and instruction items B1 through B3 so move thank you Mr Stevenson is there a second second thank you Mr ifer uh any discussion hearing none Miss flowers please take the roll call Dr Bryant yes Mr ifer yes Mr Stevenson yes vice president Vera yes president Rock yes thank you and next may I have a motion to approve the finance items C special services item a 1 through3 and business office items B 1-5 so move thank you Mr Stevenson is there a second second thank you Mr ifer is there any discussion seeing none flowers please take the roll call Dr Bryant yes Mr ifer yes Mr Stevenson yes vice president Vera yes president Rock yes thank you all right finally may I have a motion to approve reports items D1 through D3 so move thank you Mr Stevenson is there a second second thank you Mr ier is there any discussion seeing none Miss flowers please take the roll call Dr Bryant yes Mr ifer yes Mr Stevenson yes vice president Bara yes president Bach yes thank you all right thank you to my board colleagues for that next up we will have petitions and hearings of citizens for any agenda or non-agenda item that you wish to discuss you'll have 3 minutes to speak please approach the podium at this time and state your name and address for the record all right seeing none that will close public comments uh thank you very much our next board meeting will be held at 6:30 pm on August 26th 2024 meeting will be held in the West Orange High School library media center we will not be going into executive session after the close of this meeting there will be no further business discussed and no additional action will be taken may I have a motion to adjourn thank you Mr Stevenson is there a second second thank you everyone uh in favor hi hi thank you for joining us tonight our meeting is now adjourned we wish you a good night e e e