##VIDEO ID:FhyxOUsCeWM## Rel e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e do I have like press anything to make a start or is already a live evening everyone Welcome to our October 16th board meeting would you all rise for the flag salute this meeting has been posted and announced in accordance with chapter 231 1975 followa would you please the role thank you madam president brings me a little to say this one trusty Barrera truste der here trust here trusty M here trusty P here uh vice president dtis here president Ben here the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to advanced notice of and to attend meetings of this board except where specifically Exempted by law at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having same advertised in double times also notice of this meeting has been mailed to the members of the Board of Education the borrow of clerk all elementary schools the middle school the high school hor blower Early Childhood Center and posted on the district website also this meeting is being televised VI the district YouTube andb thank you we have a motion to approve our minutes both open and close session from September 16th 2024 some second second Mr just all in favor Mr bar please obain I I I thank you all right we'll move on to some uh let see items to be presented and we have candy D with us tonight she's our high school representative welcome candy we'd love to hear what you have going on good evening everyone my name is Candy dong and I'm your student board representative first I would like to offer our congratulations to all the student of the month in O news the homecoming dance hosted by the BHS student government organization was a great success bring all RS together 300 pre-sell tickets were sold with more sold at the door the 2024 buba High School homecoming court is as follows freshman Prince Mohamed freshman princess EVA Air sophomore Prince James Williams sophomore princess Nina Torres Junior Prince sha Walsh Junior Princess Laura Adel senior King Eric Castillo Le on September 29th the district hosted a Childhood Cancer Awareness walk the bille community raised a awareness and supports the Childhood Cancer Awareness with proceeds going towards the memorial SLO catering and the American Cancer Society the S visited James pwell high school for an ex county S Summit students advisors and principles from all over the county had the opportunity to talk and meet about students and school events in new news the Beville Law Academy a m Tri team will host the Beville Board of Education candidate Forum on Tuesday October 29th at 6: p.m. it will be held in the py Francis theater if you're looking for a place to do your homework or receive extra help from the National Honor Society KAS here for all students through grades 7 through 12 the location is at 522 522 courland Street in B New Jersey Monday through Thursday from 5: to 8:00 p.m. the bille sgo will be hosting a pumpkin carving painting contest students will bring painted or carved pumpkins for a chance to win an Amazon gift card all pumpkins will be displayed in the Pavilion on Friday October 25th bille high school will be hosting an open house on Thursday October 24th from 6:30 to 8:30 for current 8th grade students who will be joining the BHS for the 2025 school year students and their parents or Guardians are invited to tour VHS and see all that is offered thank you great thank you very much for your update and a superintendence report thank you madam president I just like to let the board be aware that uh tomorrow the middle school is having a Hispanic Heritage Month concert 7eventh and 8th grade so you're more than welcome to attend if you have the opportunity I think it be a great time to show us off some of our students and doing this Hispanic month uh our curriculum department has been will be hosting a k to2 family literacy night Tuesday November 12th from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the high school so you have time you great they work very hard called the curricul department put something together for family literacy night uh also we want to recognize some students in the month uh for September for their achiev and contributions to the community so are there any students here that have been recognized the student of the month of September okay have everybody at once no okay well that was on the agenda for to be was informed uh tonight we have our presentation for njsla and dlm results uh before that goes on though I'd like to call upon uh Miss shacklin director of curric for K the 6 to talk about digital citizenship and Internet safety uh she go hi everyone um so digal citizenship and Internet safety um it's not something new it's something that's very relevant though and very important and so I just want to highlight um how our district is um putting this at the Forefront in our classrooms so I promise this video is very short but it does a really good job of encapsulating um the importance of this I can't imagine what the world would be like without internet today it be kind of a cha I tried preparing for the real world when I work in 24/7 so came protecting all the time kids are inherently curious and on the internet there's so much knowledge and information that I need to make sure that as an educator that I'm teaching them the skills that they need to start to look out for themselves the be internet awesome program is designed to teach students in a fun way how to be safe online you're on a web page and you see a button that says click here and you could win a million dollar what do you think would happen yeah man get scammed maybe you get scammed Ethan whatever you're aun to get a virus what do you do if someone you don't know tries to follow you I block them because I have a private account excellent we about to journey into a place that's called interland to learn how to be internet awesome 100 points good job all right you got it what they do online now is something that's going to follow them for the rest of their lives the lessons we're doing and the activities that we're doing in the classroom are making an impact they are developing the skills that they need in order to be able to keep themselves safe online looks like they being real it's F cuz looking our internet is spoon then I would have got fish with now is the internet is the way people see you anybody can post anything on the internet and sometimes those things will B most are not okay be respectful to others if somebody gets hurt try to help them if you come across something that's either inappropriate or like bullying or just anything that makes you feel uncomfortable you should tell somebody be in the so um that is one of that's a a Google sponsored um uh program that is free um and they also have a lot of valuable resources for parents so I did want to showcase that um we are not just pulling from that but that is one of our resources that we are using just to quickly make sure that we're all on the same page I just kind of wanted to give a very um brief overview of what it means to be a digital Citizen and students recognize the rights responsibilities and opportunities of living learning and working in an interconnected digital world and they act and model in ways that are safe legal and ethical so essentially it's being a good person but digitally why is this important um by the way this is going to be available on the website afterwards so if you can't see anything or I'm going too quickly you will be able to look at it more closely later but for students 8 and under the average time they are interacting with a screen is about two and a half hours and for some students we probably know or children we know that that's more than that um so this is really critical and it keeps increasing um over time exponentially so this week is actually a perfect week for me to present on this because it is digital citizenship week October 14th to the 18th it's always the third week of October and this is one resource um that was shared with teachers um it's quick little like 10 15 minute um activities that can can be incorporated it is not supposed to take all day every day um in fact I'll I'll go over how we are incorporating it um but it is supposed to be embedded within what teachers are already teaching within the content and curriculum this is an example for K2 but they have it for older grades as well so we decided to um although it was already embedded into our curriculum we decided this year to highlight it a bit more so we have themes for each trimester you'll notice that these themes do mimic what you just saw in that video before um but we are incorporating other resources as well so trimester one is be internet smart essentially what Footprints are you leaving online a lot of times they're called digital Footprints there are examples I'm not going to go through them right now but once again you will have access to this later trimester 2 themes be internet strong and be internet alert essentially how do you stay safe online and trimester three the internet kind what are ways you can be kind online and how do we balance our time with technology so how will these themes be supported it's uh these themes are already embedded within the library media specialist curriculum however we also are working with the police department um classroom teachers and I also um have added um resources for parents and and eventually Parent Academy nights so there are these are the main resources that we that we um have provided our teachers the internet awesome Common Sense education and our um we do have the platform near pod they provide free and paid for resources we do have the paid version and other resources as well that our teachers have access to and lastly home support um I list did a lot of resources that you will be able to click on and use at home some tips some tricks um from the resources that we shared as well as from the NJ doe and uh we are excited to also have um additional resources for parents and the community as well so thank you thank you m at this time I call upon M feri Mr Leo present the njsla and DL results matter good evening Mr parado board members and our B Community tonight I will be presenting the 2024 New Jersey student learning assessment and dynamic learning math results the New Jersey student learning assessment was given in the spring of 2024 and its primary primary focus is to recog the strength in our curriculum and identify areas with growth potential it is designed to measure students proficiency and grade level expectations assessing our students in grades 3 through n in ela language arts mathematics grades 3 through 8 Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry and Science grades 5 8 and 11 it provides a snapshot of our students academic Mastery it does not me group from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year it's it's in regards to Mastery it's also important for us to review our spring results alongside our star assessment to gauge student growth and shifting demographic data so we'll be doing both tonight there are five performance levels level one did not meet expectation level two partially expect level three approached expectations level four met expectations and level five exceeded expectations on our first report card you can see our Ela grad through five just to have an understanding of the slide along on the right you'll see the grade levels three four and five and along the top our valid scores the students that the number of students that assessed and also uh levels one through three level and five and then meeting expectations are a combination of levels four and five we can see the state and bevel in comparison to each other on this slide we can notice that um we see a slight a slight increase here in that particular area and then here's another way that we can view the same data grade three side by side comparison State and Bel grade four and grade five as we move along to our next snapshot we see in English language arts grades 6 through 8 you will notice an increase of 3% in grade six and 4% in grade eight again we can look at a side by side comparison grade six grade seven and grade eight our next snapshot is our English language arts grade nine here we can see that our Ela increased by 9.5% and here's our side by side presentation now we take a look at our subgroups for English language arts this is a combination of all of our grade levels and we can see here there are many areas of growth that are noted in different subps this is 2023 2024 comp as I mentioned earlier looking and comparing our Master scores of the LA to our gr I would like to present to you the early literacy analytics which is encompassing our students of kind of Martin through second grade our njsla assessment is grad and S through 789 and obviously um but I wanted to present to you the early literacy section because I wanted to note um that we are noticing an increase of growth in our students from 2023 to 2024 25 school year and there has been a in the typical growth area we have noticed a 6.4% increase which means our area has decreased and this is our comparison with our grades 3 through 12 across the board of our star Renaissance reading analytics and here we can notice a slight increase in our typical growth section as well going on to our next snapshot back to our n njsla data we can here that for mathematics grades 3 through 5 we have an increase of 3.7% in grade three again I can show you a side by-side snapshot of grade three grade four and grade five in grades 6 through noted that there's a slight increase in grade seven and eight and once again a a side by side snapshot in our graph form now we can look at our next report card of Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry in this area we can notice that there was an increase in algebra one again presenting the data through graph form and our subps if we look at our growth through star Renaissance and our mathematics analytics we're looking at grades um sorry across the board um from K through 12 and here we can see that we are using this data to help us target areas of growth from one year to the next and it helps us plan for our plan accordingly from one year to the next to support our students for our science performance there are five levels level one being below proficient level two near proficiency level three proficient and level five Advanced proficiency science has historically been low across the state for a few years now and we can see a slight increase in grade 11 for Belo again presenting this data in graph form for each level grade five grade eight and grade 11 there's a repr representation of our subgroups and at this point in time I would like to ask um Miss Shanklin our director of Elementary education and Mr Leo our director of secondary education to come up and our interventions and strategies for 2425 school year I'm back um so uh Mr Lio and I are going to take terms um obviously you can read all the interventions that are up there but what we're going to do is just highlight a few of them that um we are especially proud of so I'm going to focus on Ela and in K to2 we are using a program called foundations we are in year three of that program it is based on the science of reading it is heavily focused on explicit instruction in the area of print concepts bonic awareness phonics and word study vocabulary automaticity and fluency and comprehension why is this important well we are in year three of that which means the current second graders are the first cohort of students who have been through that entire program P to to which means those students haven't tested yet so in fact they're not even testing this year they're testing next year so I think that is really important to highlight when we are looking at these scores obviously we need to focus on the students who are currently in those grade levels which we will talk about as well but I did want to highlight that point um and that also goes to that slide about the star Renaissance data um Heather McIntyre our supervisor of Elementary education she is Orton Gillingham trained as our are Ela interventionists this is really important because they are focused on the foundational literacy skills that will be um intergal to the rest of our students and those interventionists are working with tier three students um who maybe need additional support in those uh foundational literacy skills Beyond even just greates k 2 Diana kouo our supervisor of RTI um is also uh very much a integral part of this um as she directly oversees those interventionists we are also using curriculum based measure cbms in grades K to6 Ela uh prior to this year we were using it with a select group of students but now we are using it with all students um we are moving away from Dr which gives you those um leveled numbers although um they they do kind of provide you a gauge of what are the just right fit books the cbms really hone in on those deficits um in reading that we need to Target to get our kids to be where they need to be um our entire scop and sequence K to2 Ela was revised over the summer um even though we're in year two of a new program uh the njsls ELA and math standards were revised so we did go we did look at our current curriculum we looked at we what we had and we Revis it to reflect the new standards that are to be implemented this school year in 7 through 12 we have a writing map that um Builds on skills sequentially and eventually lead students to the research paper um and so every year we are building upon those skills that they obviously start with in kindergarten and move through until 12th grade um and then last but not least and and we're doing more than this but I I've already uh spoke a lot about some of the things that we're doing but um we are our teaching staff they have Monday PLC meetings um and or team meetings in some of the buildings um and we use this time to analyze our data that could be njsla data that could be star Renaissance data and we are really putting a um um an eye and a pulse on what we're doing and what's working and what we need to reflect upon and change for the future thanks Nicole so I'm going to talk a little bit about the math scores and and the math strategies um one of the things that we did last year as Department was that we created a common uh language K to 12 in the math series um so what we did was we brought in The Envision series now to go from kindergarten um through 11th grade um I think that that's kind of important because one of the things that we find if you've ever gone through math in Middle School uh or with your middle schooler is that there is um a math frustration that really starts to build somewhere around sixth and seventh grade and one of the things that we're trying to do is break down that barrier so that the frustration level comes down so they can understand the math and if we have a Common Language um in the math series then then some of the stuff isn't as foreign all right if if you're helping like I was just helping my daughter the other night do in slope intercept form her frustration level is through the roof but once we start using the language from the series that she has there's a connection that we can start bringing down some of that frustration and start building into it right uh one of the other things that we're doing um in in math and we're working backwards on this with with the help of M Mar and Mr imate is is we're implementing a curriculum plan where we talk about doing and I want to get it right cuz I always get it wrong um must do should do and could do um the students must be able to do these standards and we know what the standards are that they need to do because we've we've we've looked at the last three or four years of njsla and saw what standards were covered and where they fell on the difficulty chart through the evidence St tables the Kos are the ones that that they they really could do they're beyond what is what is being tested um and and and the should dos are the ones that that are still Beyond being tested what they're going to need to to move on and forward um the last thing I want to talk about in math that also applies to ELA is that we have a program called exact path where we use the student star Renaissance data to place them on a path based on where they're at in their math or their Ela journey and the idea is is that we're using this program to help bridge the gap in the in the skills that they're efficient as a tier 2 intervention along with what is being taught in the classroom as classroom support okay I'm going to hand it over to M oh I'll do science um so one of the things that we did in science was that we moved to an inquiry based science program with the help of Mr mediate um right now that we can say that grades K through nine um are on an inquiry based science approach we just made that move starting in September um and hopefully for next September we will have uh chemistry physics um an anatomy moving towards an inquiry based um class at the high school okay so a few other highlights that we want to bring to your attention is a support period um in 7eventh and eighth grade it was added last year so they're in year two and for K to 6 we are in year 1 um the focus of the support period is for teachers to make instructional decisions based on data to provide a additional support to their students and this can be accomplished uh a couple of different ways so um it could be in student Le groups it can be in teacher leged small groups based on specific skills that they're working on um it could also be um accomplished through independent work um this could include targeted practice but it could also include enrichment for students who actually may be meeing or exceeding um expectations um we also have high impact tutoring um which uh takes place during the support period um we are looking to uh start it up again soon um but specifically in the support period um and that is additional support for targeted students in um K through a the last one on our our list I'm going to work backwards since um Candy dong started with this and this is going to be my last thing um Kasa is now open um for grade 7 through 12 Monday through Thursday night um for homework he uh it's also a place if your student needs to go and and have a place to go and do homework National Honor Society is there from 5: to 8 to help um we also have a teacher down there to assist um if students need help with the second thing and that is pair tutoring um we pay for a program where it is one-on-one online tutoring your child um will log in um through class link into par tutoring they will pick if they need a tutor in English or Spanish and in what subject they need help in um and Par tutoring will then put put them up with a live tutor um where they can then ask the the questions that they have one of the things that that I heard a couple years ago from some of our ml parents was that when they're sitting down to help their students at homework at night they don't understand and and now what we do is we have the ability for for you at home or for you at Kasa to log in through pair tutoring to get oneon-one help 24 hours a day 7 days a week um also part of that pair tutoring lab where if you're writing a paper or you're writing a college essay and you want someone to go over and improve and give comments there's a writing component to pair assessment okay uh before all of that please don't forget that there is tutoring after school from the classroom teachers in each building so if you have the ability to sign up in your school for after school tutoring or before school tutoring based on your school that's available as well so just to recap we have tutoring in the school before after school we have tutoring through pair tutoring 24/7 and we have Casa available right now for 7 to 12 Monday through Thursday night and 3 to 6 is coming TR um I say thank you Mr Le that's going to be put on the website as well yes sir okay and it was also emailed out to all the parents already okay okay oh and it is on Facebook Okay um I want to I want to thank all of you for for listening from on behalf of Nicole and I um we really do have a great team between uh Mr mate Miss maretto on the secondary team um between M McIntyre as the supervisor for elementary M CUO for Arts TI um I know that you're going to hear briefly from um M danov the DOR director of MLS and um Miss Diaz the the supervisor ofls we do have a really solid team um trying to make sure that the scores go up and that we do what is in the best interest of every student here in b um we thank you thank you very much Miss Shanklin Mr Leo and to continue on we're just going to briefly talk about our demographic shift um we mention this along with uh looking at we are steadily increasing this is our Snapshot from October 15th of last year to October 15th of this current year and we can see the demographic shift um with the numbers of our multi-lingual Learners um continues to increase as we compare these from over the past year this information is important to help us as we just said to conser to service our students um all of our students in our curriculum and in other programs we also can speak about student transiency and just understanding how important it is um for students you know they have a disruption in learning that there's gaps in instruction and with curriculum that's covered over a period of time and we also want to talk about high levels of student transiency has been linked to lower academic um achievement and that can also be measured during our standardized assessments as well as assessments that we have within our our schools at this point in time as Mr Leo mentioned I am going to invite up um Miss Lucy demov our director of curriculum for special programs and she's going to speak about our programs for multilingual learners hello everyone and good evening so I am here tonight to talk to you a little bit about our supports interventions strategies that are not only specific to multilingual learners but they really do benefit all of our Learners isable regardless of your identification classification walk of life or what have you so the first support um I don't know if I really want to like call her intervention she's she's really a a terrific addition to our administrative team she's new to our administrative team but not new at all to the multi linguistic learner world and that's Mrs Sylvia Diaz who is in the back she is now our supervisor this year for for ESL ml ell we seem to be evolving in the terminology so I I may switch off during my my brief presentation but she is now managing and working with me and working with our entire administrative team in the capacity of 7 through 12 so I am very grateful that we have Mrs Sylvia Diaz on board now since she's been supervisor she's been researching NL programs and initiatives doing check-ins with our students our parents our teachers helping to identify ml students who are new to our district attending workshops we've already gone to a workshop together excuse me and like I said communicating with families and offering her support okay so now I will get into like sort of the nitty-gritty of intervention strategies that we impart every day so like the common course standards weda standards and like what is weda it's an acronym for world class inter instructional design and assessment so like our common cor standards the weda standards are also integrated within all content areas of our curriculum at the elementary level an addition an additional staff member was h HED this year for the capacity of pushing we currently have a pull out model where a small group of students go with our ESL teacher every day for a period of time to gain ESL instruction we now have a pushing model what that means is that ESL teacher pushes into the Jed classroom works collaboratively with that teacher helps our students become proficient in language acquisition through a co- teing model small group instruction modifying lessons vocabulary and the list goes on so that's new a new support this year we have which is not new but it needs to be mentioned a k through 12 teacher coach who has an extensive ESL background she is a solid resource who is always available to assist our teachers within all content areas if and when it's teacher feels they do need that type of assistance she's a great resource to tap into especially when our students are struggling academically like Miss Shanklin said and I will not talk a lot about it because she did a great job of explaining it our ml students also have exposure to our Foundation phics program during their Ela period our elementary Summer Bridge Academy which has been very successful since we started it a few years ago also has an ESL teacher on staff that is always there to support our MLS as well as all of the students all of our tutoring programs are also open to our multil linguistic Learners our supplemental resources at the elementary level include a program called National Geographic this is a supplemental program it does not take place or supplant or curriculum however its focus is listening reading skills working on pronunciation communication vocabulary comprehension and writing this is done through videos articles charts graphs what have you selfcheck quizzes and working with a partner or a small group students also have exposure to software programs as you can see on the slide Freckle Lilo exact path these programs challenge our students appropriately at their level we have an ESL I I I tend to say ESL slml because we kind of fluctuate between both um acronyms like I said before we have parent advisory committee meetings at the elementary middle school and high school levels and and they are facilitated throughout the year our ESL families are invited to learn ask questions we talk about the curriculum our teachers come they talk about exactly what's going on in the classroom and like I said our families have the opportunity to ask any questions they would like about the program all new teachers that are hired in the district each year are required to complete 15 hours of sheltered instruction training so what is that like what is sheltered instruction it's professional development it imparts strategies for teachers to specifically support ml students with understanding academic content modifying the content and modifying their delivery of instruction okay so now I'm going to kind of like go down to our our our our preschool level so the the doe as you know is is always evolving and and creating new mandates and and regulations and rules that we need to follow so for preschool students we have to now identify them whether they are ml or not ml so our teachers who are ESL at the elementary level are charging that task there is a criteria that they have to follow that's dictated by the New Jersey Department of Education there is an outline criteria the students have to be screened parents have to be contacted sometimes there's contact with the student to actually see do they have a command of a language do they speak English do they speak another language what is their native language and we take all of those factors into consideration when we are making determination and as you know we all know early identification is so important for for for all students in terms of language acquisition and proficiency so now I'm going to go back up to the middle and high school levels so we are imparting up the bar and that's a teacher Institute and personalized teacher coaching type of program it's a voluntary program for teachers it's not mandatory that's for middle school and high school level jened teachers basically it cultivates an inclusive and responsive District culture wherein Administration and teachers become equipped to meet the diverse cultural academic and linguistic needs of all students with focus on our multi-linguistic population we are also imparting a program called off to class and I have to give Mrs Diaz credit for both of these up the bar and off to class because as soon as she transitioned into this role this is what she brought to my attention and it kind of took off from there so off the off to class the goals are to increase ml students writing and speaking skills which is a requirement when they participate in what I mentioned before the weda for L's 2.0 assessment Every Spring our ml students participate in this assessment and this program called off the class off to class is basically done through homework assignments that are modified lessons that are modified different types of assessments and a lot of program support and teacher training and this is all done online all teachers have access to the platform when I say all teachers I say K through 12 and it's a hub kind of platform if I may say which is called elevation elevation has the ability to house students test results there are things called can do descriptors student students goals can be posted on elevation their demographic information and student monitoring because when a student does exit the ESL program there is a 2-year monitoring process that's mandatory to see how the student is doing and fairing so I think I covered just about everything that's on our two slides so in closing I just would like to thank the Board of Education Mr parado all the District administration our teacher support staff parents Community for your continuous support of our multilingual Learners as well as all our students in Beville because kids are kids and we educate kids so thank you for listening and have a great rest of the evening okay thank you Miss OV greatly appreciate you coming up and speaking with us about the interventions and strategies for our multilingual Learners um at this time I would like to um speak about our Dynamic learning maps and this is an assessment that is provided to our students um in grades it's for students evolving learning process it's academic achievements with significant cognitive disabilities and it aligns with our state standards ensuring that our students are expected to know and what they're able to do there's a variety of multiple choice interactive tasks and real world scenarios for them to determine and demonstrate certain skills it assesses students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 and there's also a science component for grades 5 8 and 11 students are um the dlm reports in four performance levels Advanced at Target approaching the Target and emerging this is a snapshot of our percentages at each level and if we take a look here we can um understand that these results help us during our IEP meetings which is when we are planning for our students with their learning goals um any objectives that we need to modify for them as well as uh working on their trials and breaking down larger goals into sub goals for our students and it's also an area for us to identify um where we can provide more professional developments for our teachers is this something that's tested multiple times throughout the year like middle of the year the Year it's tested in the spring and here we do have three resources that are provided to our parents um of our assessments so the uh English language arts and math and science from our um njsla they are mailed home in October so everybody should to receed them if you haven't received them they will be coming but they are definitely um being mailed so please take a look out for your students individual student reports as well as if your child took the assessment of the dlm that those results were also mailed to you and then on our website and also it was uh through a an email blast we have our assessment schedule for this coming school year and I just want to thank everyone for participating and U Mr carado for your support for this presentation tonight as well as including um Miss Shanklin Mr Leo and behind the scen and M demov and behind the scenes we had Miss McIntyre Miss CUO um Mr immediate and Miss marietto who supported us um with putting this presentation together so thank you very very much this will also be on our avable website um for anybody to review um as needed thank you so much thank you we want to thank the entire ccul department for all the hard work that you put into this presentation this evening to show what we are planning to do and we're not finished yet I know we've had multiple meetings and we will continue our meetings to get to the bottom of where the issues apply so that we can get more of the academics to through this that that they need so again thank you was a great presentation thanks to everyone that's here to get a good handle on what you people really do it's a lot of work and it shows you thank you you have anything else Mr palino do you have a report first uh Mr Ean was here he was present during the private session meet with the board on a number of different topics um apologize he couldn't be here during the public session but he has some personal matters to attend to uh certifies the district has sufficient funds uh as per the district's Treasures report I think it was for month ending August that's on the agenda tonight and also certifies that there are no accounts that are in the red uh which uh matches with the statute um at the end of August um with that said from my uh I didn't get a chance to meet with the board and committee uh this past month but I wanted to update them on the co-op uh been working uh a lot on it we have a website that's up and running now uh with the Advent of the website we have a couple of school districts that have reached out that are interested in joining um so we're working on increasing our membership we have a couple of uh uh rfps and rfps that are currently out on the street uh that we are looking to award at the November uh meeting if everything goes well uh one of them is for Supply installation synthetic tur field another one is for a home residency verification service consultant and another one is for hvacr services uh all these rfps and rfps are requested by the members of the co-op uh which is what the statute says when you have a co-op each of the member districts has to reach out uh to the lead agency which is us and then inform the lead agency administrator which is M uh what services and what they would like to be put out on the street so there's those that are out there and then uh one that I just finished uh a district had requested for electrician Services uh which will send to the papers probably in the next couple of days and then look toward that either at the no probably the November or the December uh just want to give everybody update on Etna I got a couple more weeks to go until the November 1st roll over uh is sitting out there we've been working together over the past uh few weeks trying to make it as seamless of a transition for the staff as possible we've been working together we've been working with our health benefit Brokers Allen Associates and uh with Etna um so if anybody out there uh on the staff has a concern that they haven't brought to either Mike's attention or my attention or anybody in the Union's attention please feel free to reach out to me personally uh you can reach me via email or uh to Mike and like I said we'll work together uh to make everybody's concerns go away so that this is uh as easy a transition as possible and I think Mike would Echo those statements as well that's all I got thank you Mr pal okay we're going to move on and start our um suggested olutions so could we have a motion for sorry citizen remarks okay we have a motion to open motion second and all those in favor and just a reminder we have three minutes and we'll call your name please come up to the podium and state your name and address so could we hear from EST Leon okay we'll move on to Mr Michael Sheldon good evening everyone Michael Sheldon 47 flid Street um I'll address the njsla material during the second session but uh for this first session I would just like I have all my questions are out of section 12 of the agenda uh in Rapid succession uh 12.4 I'm just curious exactly what textbooks and uh workbooks are being sold it's not indicated in this agenda item the nature of the books uh 1219 you are uh replacing a piece of C in in the guidance area of the high school for almost $24,000 that seems quite exorbitant could you please tell me uh how large an area this is and what type of carpeting is going down 1226 um you're approving a quote to put in a frameless glass barrier for the Middle School balcony for nearly $50,000 uh does this mean that the the balcony itself is nearly completely renovated at this point and is this glass Shield just a safety concern and will it interfere at all with any of the Acoustics in that room uh 1242 uh you are um approving $850 to install carbon monoxide detectors at 333 Ralph Street that's the proposed outdoor school bus depot for the district so I just would like some clarification what the uh need is for carbon monoxide detectors and how they're going to work if they're Outdoors uh 1247 approve a proposal for Solutions architecture The Firm that designed the Middle School Garage which seems to be stalled but here they're going to give you egress plans and updates what cost and what buildings 1250 oh U I know another Resident wants to ask about 1250 so I won't say anything there um and 1254 in addendum it's to approve U $4,500 for a machine rental to install old trees coming in tonight it looks like you did a lot of landscaping recently here I see lots of new trees already planted so is this to reimburse for the use of that equipment or are you planning to do additional tree plantings and if so uh could you please explain to the community where those trees are going and how many of them you are planning to install and so I got 30 seconds left so um yeah I'll just save my my comment I just wanted to uh make a a recommendation here um for public comments it might be helpful for more Community participation to open up a phone line like the town hall does they do allow certain residents who can't attend the meeting to call in here this is very strict if you're not here by 7 o'cl and put your name on the signature you're deprived of any opportunity to address the board so I think it would be a good idea to uh encourage more Community participation to be a little more lenient and have a phone line and let some people call in if they can't physically be here for your meetings thank you thank you Mr shsw Sure 124 uh the textbooks that we sold outd were old science textbooks uh 129 uh the carpeting in the guidance area downstairs uh that's the entire floor downstairs uh we've been working with the Safety Committee of Bea uh that's Miss and Dr Aro trying to address some uh air quality issues that have Arisen down there uh we've done a lot of testing uh there's no air quality concerns or mle concerns um but some of the recommendations that our uh environmental Consultants have made number one is to in there uh we're going to put down a floating floor tile uh we're also going to change a number of the uh ceiling tiles down there and then we're going to make sure that all the rooms and most of the areas have um humidifiers the smaller ones that we get gotten during co uh 12 1226 if you remember a couple of months ago we had awarded um aass for the balcony upstairs at the Middle School uh we had done testing the floor the the balcony floor is all safe to use um we got a couple of quotes the original thickness on the glass that we had gotten wasn't thick enough for safety concerns so we had to get uh new quotes um so this should be the proper thickness uh for the glass upstairs uh it address any safety concerns uh once we have the glass installed we'll be able to open the balcony uh for parents and for the community to have upst seating uh we'll do pretty much everything if you're looking up at the balcony everything going back uh the wings kind of drip down so we're not going to put any seating up there as a plan we'll take those chairs and fill in any empty spaces uh throughout the rest of the balcony so that it's uh it's almost semi brand new it'll be nice to actually get that open fin be able to use it 1242 This Is Shel uh 1242 um some of the recommendations from uh the town from the building department uh so that's what those carbon monoxide detectors are uh not sure if they're inside or outside but I think they're inside so that's that 12 12:47 uh we're updating all of the egress plans for all the classrooms throughout the entire District we don't have updated ones uh with a lot of new classrooms uh being added over the past couple of years uh with some improvements with some updates so on and so forth that we've done over the past number of years uh Mr T Mr Wendling had come to me and had wanted to update all the erress plans so that they were up to date um they had also gotten a recommendation at one of their uh Round Table meetings so out the Architects and that's what they're going to do for us so that's that one and then last one 1254 uh we received a trees for SS Grant uh with the assistance of somebody two seats over to my left uh so a number of trees will be planted throughout the district uh as you previously stated a number of those trees have already been planted you can side in front of the high school uh that machine is through the grant um to assist our staff with the planting of all the brand new trees I believe there were a number of trees that were removed as well as some new ones being installed um Madam president could better tell you where the all be printed but it will be throughout the entire District yeah I mean we could cover these things in our comments just so everyone knows I mean we have our committee meetings and a lot of these things um the folks up here know about we've discussed them like the middle school and the balcony so please don't think that we are just um ignoring the fact that e e e e not interfering with our children our kids going down there during the day and use the the semi soccer field to use the bat cages uh to use the small track that are in there they don't interfere with the um the open gym but they're a source of revenue for the district after hours when nobody's really using a facility uh there is a personal trainer that will be there early in the morning when there's nobody in the facility but he runs an early program um that's a good source of revenue for the district that also as he gets up and running he can start offering to our kids to our St whoever needs a personal trainer um so there's there's the banners that we were doing down there the sponsorship banners so we're trying to do the best that we can to generate as much revenue as we can um plain simple justify the facility because that was directed from the board and that's what Dro and I have done over the past years to be able to open the facility um so the Dolf simulator when it's not an open you know gym concept and it's free um you know it is there to be used but their fees are associated with it um we're looking at doing birthday parties for younger kids uh there's a quote in here for small carpet area to be replaced so that when you're having a birthday party in there for you know kids that are three four five 6 years old whatever it is you have an area where you set up some tables order pizza order cake um bring in food with the carpeting it's a little tough um so there's just some of the ideas that we're trying to do to generate more Revenue to come out of the facility as we go along are we going to get it all right no but we're going to trust in different things to do the best that we can under the direction the board get as much revenue ad as we can that was the point of it is to have it for the kids have it for the community to give these kids what other talents have but also to generate the thank you thank you for the explanation okay and we're ready so moving on do we have a motion to approve suggestions on Personnel items 9.1 to 9.58 we close what's that can we V toose I'm sorry you know we have a motion to close public participation motion and now moving on to Personnel items um 9.1 to 9.58 so move second is there any discussion yes I'd like to just ask a question because I think these are addendum items I didn't have a chance to ask them on 9.56 and 9.57 are these Replacements coming into positions that exist already are these new positions being created for I think a secretary and administrator assistant filling position sorry filling positions secretary you talk about 950 956 957 I guess it was there was somebody in that position before okay thank you all if I can um just one of the thoughts that we have over I know in prate session in in a little bit into what Mr darl was saying now whenever we we V a position or replace a position is it possible to share like an update with the community that you know this position was we created this this is a new position new title new salary so I would they understand that this is a whole new role in its entirety or something where if it's U um if we're moving one of our staff members into a new role um then it's not a new creative position which then eliminates the old on that way kind of shows that um that it's not a new salary position it's it's maybe just an internal shift so that way it helps to decipher a little bit of what these positions are cuz it it just looks like I know often times I get the question that it looks like we're just hiring hiring hiring but we never get to emphasize some of the positions that we um have either eliminated and changed it change title things like that I'm sure that can be done I'm sure on resolutions I don't have the official yeah some resolution would say replacing at the end public know so and so retire maybe on it say on resolution right on it it can you position or absolutely through the chair if I can normally we would do that through the Personnel committee unfortunately this month with the of course of course no but I'm just saying not not more you know I on our side Bel I mean more for like the public to like recommend hey you like it put if it'll have like a like like a a line in the side say new position or or or um existing position replacement something like that that they'll know whether it's a new title or or something that's you know you know what I mean anyone else yes I would just like to ask on 9.10 the transfer of a teacher math from the Middle School to the high school is that going to leave the middle school without a math teacher because I know several years ago when my son was in the Middle School same thing happened and he spent four months with a substitute teacher because they did not have a replacement for him uh in the mid and he was in actually he was in school 5 when they sent his teacher to the high school and they did not have a replacement for that teacher and he spent 4 months with substitute so is there a replacement for that teacher in the middle school that's being transferred to the high school any my 9.1 9.10 I'm sure pleas like a check almost posi P it so I to fill in I can double check thank you I just still want to see those a substitute for months and months like my son didn't he was he went to the same thing okay anybody else Mr valard you want call the RO sure trusty barera I'm upstanding as I just came on board the in trustee so I'm not totly familiar therefore I'm uh truste darl yes trust yes to all except 9.51 I will abstain on that uh trusty M yes trusty P yes vice president D yes president benen yes right and we have nothing on curriculum and instruction so we're going to move on to the board policy items 11.1 to 11.22 do we have a motion so move second is there any discussion I would just to bring ask the question for Mr B I think he explained it in our executive session but uh for some of those that are out there they see the policies and regulations and things changing I guess we wanted to just address that up here as to what the reason some of behind some of those policy changes and regulation changes and we know it's uh kind of to line to the state how they have their uh things written so Mr Mr what they do is they update the policies every so often what they do is they feel when it's no longer necessary or someone's covered over maing now in the new regulations you just delete most of those line items we don't delete them they they come to us delet them already so most of those items that you see that are lies to them means that the state no longer feels you're required to have them in there so therefore we just add the additional language to the spaces provided and that's what they're required to do anybody else all right Mr Paladino you want to call the rooll sure trusty barer I have trusty Z yes uh trusty M yes uh trusty mun yes trusty yes vice president DAV yes president V yes and moving on to purchasing items 12.1 to item 12.63 do we have a motion so moov and second second okay and is there any discussion on any of these items hearing none mrad I apologize who the second I no second trusty barer up trusty Z yes yes trust yes president truste M excuse me H trusty M me yes yes uh trusty P yes uh vice president D yes president V yes and on finance items 13.1 to items 13.13 motion second is that Mr Barrera again yes it is Mr Barrera is there any discussion okay Mr saladino trusty Barrera uh trusty Dara yes trusty misi yes trusty M yes uh trusty yes vice president D yes president venine yes okay we'll do our final remarks by citizens when we call your name you can please come to the podium and state your name um we have eston Leon we have a motion to open public participation so move I'll second that all right and all in favor all right yeah very toight good evening everybody I I just want to start up by con congratulating Mr Barrera on his appointment tonight congratulations glad to see you up there uh I just also want to Second what Mr Sheldon said I do think that having phone calls coming in and not holding people to that 7:00 deadline to sign in to be able to speak I think it does open up the Forum to have more parents and more participation just for myself personally I had to leave my daughter my three-year daughter to be home I get here at 7:00 and you know wait till this part it would be I think it would be beneficial for the residen just to be able to to talk and make the phone call and whatnot uh but now on a more U alarming and disheartening thing and and I'm going to read this from my phone cuz I just wanted to make sure I had all my my thoughts together and I didn't leave anything out uh and some of you should be aware of this CU I did send two previous emails uh in regards to what I'm about to speak on on April 5th 2024 Dr msia posted a comment on Mr shon's Facebook page stating this even in the Boe election I was told better bille had an alleged wife Peter as a candidate fortunately he did not win as I was the only married male candidate associated with better bille who lost in last year's election any reasonable person would conclude that Dr massagi was refering to me this falsehood was further perpetuated just last month by a former Board of Education trustee Dr massaga as an educated and sitting board member you know that I would not have I would not be holding my teaching like of 14 years if these allegations were true I would have never passed a background check or continued teaching if I was a white theater I've already informed the majority of you here tonight of the screenshot of Dr ms's comment and the ceas and the CIS letter as she was served in August which requested that she either provide proof of her allegation or remove the post and issue a public apology it is now October 16th and neither proof nor an apology has been provided by Dr msaga given this this I would like to know where the board stands on a sitting board member spreading harmful lies about a town resident lies that can ruin lives and families will this board condemn bak's comments and her unprofessional behavior as an elected official I would prefer not to pursue taking legal action that would burden Dr Mass's family or the bable taxpayer I'm that's not what I'm in this for all that I am here for is to clear my name and so my wife and can finally move past this pain we have both endured thank you thank you Mr Michel sheld good evening again Michael Sheldon 47 Floyd Street uh just a few miscellaneous thoughts um I already shared with the board through email uh I had listened to an NPR show last week uh regarding uh ever escalating health care costs and what some large companies are doing to to try to mitigate those costs apparently a lot of companies have created a chief Wellness officer to uh try to get their respective workforces as healthy as possible to reduce that company's insurance cost some some large companies have seen multi-million dollar reductions in their health care costs so I I just wanted to run that idea past the board I to the best of my knowledge when I was sitting on the board and since the time I don't think we have anything like that in our district the healthcare Wellness a chief Wellness officer um it might be something for you to explore since you're leaving the state health benefits program and going to to a private Ur starting next year to encourage uh more staff Wellness to uh keep those premiums uh better under control uh earlier today uh Mr Paladino provided me with the response uh to uh my latest op request regarding the enrollment count for the district um according to the uh numbers he provided to me uh the most recent count we had 5,089 students here uh with uh 505 of them in the prek program which means that u in grades K through 12 uh we have 5,000 4,000 sorry 4,584 students uh what I'd like to know is um do you know of hand Mr Paladino or other members of the board uh what impact the re-registration has had and reducing the overall enrollment do you happen to know how many students you were expecting to return in September but didn't uh the last last time the district had a major reregistration was back in 2016 it was actually the first reregistration that Dr TOMCO facilitated and that resulted in over 200 students disappearing from our our district who were illegally here so I think it would be helpful uh for the board and the administration to let us know how many students uh just didn't return as of this September uh the um I would like to know if there's been any movement on the parking garage situation uh that seems to be stalled now I'd like to know if anything is happening if there's going to be a third round of bids if the plans have been revised once again where do we stand with that and uh at last I'd like to say a few words about the njsla uh test data that was presented earlier this evening uh I know that the report will be posted to the district's website hopefully sometime tomorrow but um what is has always been a particular concern to me because of my educational background I taught physics at Stevens Institute of Technology for many years um I'm a product of the bille school system and so since mathematics is of particular interest to me one of my deep academic loves uh when I see our district struggling mightily in just basic mathematics it's heartbreaking to me me uh the slide wasn't up very long but uh according to what I saw our students are still uh only less than 10% of our our students are meeting expectations or exceeding them and algebra one basic algebra there's no excuse for this every year it's the same story we we are struggling to to teach the most basic Math course which is critical if any of our students are going to go on to pursue careers in technology or the Sciences I I I just don't understand it we we're throwing tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars after this cause we've hired new staff we have all these new administrators but yet there's really no no signs of improvement I mean I I I have to ask if if more than handful of our students upon graduation could solve something as Elementary as a quadratic equation I'm not expecting them to be able to derive the quadratic formula that would be great if they could do it but I mean the the these these results are unacceptable you guys have to start asking some really hard serious questions about what's really going on in our classrooms I you know every year we get these reports they're incredibly disappointing and I see my time is almost up but you know we we get rolled over all these acronyms if we tested our kids on all of these educational acronyms they probably would all be 100% proficient but the fact of the matter is they can't do basic math and so when when are you guys whoever's on this board when are you going to start asking some really serious questions about what's really going on in our classrooms do we have the right people teaching these courses I mean you don't need all this this this rhetoric all this rubric about dlm and RTI and what have you to teach basic algebra we're failing our kids and you're responsible for taking corrective action if necessary so you know I have more to say about this probably online but you can't let these results stand and just look the other way and say well we'll hope for next year Dr comco when he first addressed our board in 2015 probably none of you were there maybe Mr Barrera might have been been there but you our former superintendent made these basic promises that in the near future he was going to see to it that at least 50% of our graduates were proficient in trigonometry thank you Mr CH I remember you were there right I don't think I had met you at that that time but uh you know we are so far away from achieving that goal it I don't want to say it's laughable but I wonder how many students in our our our graduating classes actually know any trigonometry at all it's just you got to do something about this our district is failing you come back no you're going to skip uh Jenny Gillis hi good evening um just like I and many in town have heard some troubling things in the news involving safety of a child as a mom my concern is the well-being of SEC uh being and security of children like my son so as an educator I know parents instill their trust in me to keep their children safe so although not all the facts are out I believe we need to make it clear as possible that there are measures in place to protect our children while they are in school so I hope there's an opportunity where parents and I can sit down and review current school safety issues and policies so that was all and thank you for your time thank you um just going to comment I cannot comment on any public um in public on any pending litigation um but I want um the community to know that the board takes all matters involving students uh safety and wellbeing very seriously um thank you and Mr val did you want to answer some of the questions by Mr sh yeah sure um parking garage we've yet to a little bit of a stall these past few months um since our last bid was rejected back in May I believe it was uh we've met with the town trying to work together uh on how we can tackle uh making this come uh to tradition um it's going to take a little bit of work because the what we would like to do there uh is very expensive um but the town is on board with working with us to figure out how we can mutually fund it and get to a point where the project does become a reality it's going to take a little bit of time um maybe a little bit more than everybody hopes and wishes um but we are still dedicated as long as I'm here uh to seeing that it does become a reality uh if it does get finished it is a real uh major positive for Washington AV and for the Middle School um that be huge benefit to everybody involved whether it's the board whether it's the town whether it's the kids the staff whoever it's it's a major plus so we're still working on it but it's going to take a little bit of time to get more on together does that mean you're going back to the original design plan the original the original original design plan I I I think um uh is a major Christmas president I I with the way the pricing is right now I don't know I don't think we're going to get there uh we have looked at some scale down versions that are attainable um but again it's us working with the town to see what we can do together to get the best possible plan uh there for everybody involved uh as as we have more meetings and as we get to some kind of known items I can give you some more information but at the moment that's the best I got unfortunately um so but we're working on it and again I said as long as I'm here it's definitely something I would love to see become a reality because like I said it's it's a major Plus for Washington Ed for the middle school for the town for the staff for the board for all the that have been involved with this dream for the past year two years whatever it's been now um and we just don't want it to die uh we want it to become a reality thank you we have a motion to close public participation so move second all those in favor okay going to move on to committee reports and we will begin with trustee Dr Liz Mia have any committee meetings this month so there's not much to say you have any comments just like to welcome Mr Perera back to the days nice to have you with us thank you very much and I'm very glad to to serve with you uh to my colleagues who will be attending the school board's convention next week I I hope you have a wonderful time sa trip I'm sorry I won't be there with you but I have other commitments and I to hearing all your great stories when you get back progress thank you all right truste Michael darl uh I do want to thank all those that come out today who are watching us online uh we congratulate all those that were recognized as students of the month for the month of September I would like to also welcome Mr Nelson Barrera uh that will sit in the inter trustee position I know that I currently serve with Mr barera on the library board so I look forward to uh being with him on the school board um look forward to listening to what he has to say and any contributions that he'll definitely make while he's here with us we did not have any committee meetings this month did the revised Boe schedule I recently attended the quarterly Essex County chapter meeting of the School Board Association had the opportunity to meet other trustees in our County uh from other districts it was a great time to get together and work from one another I also participated this last month in meetings with our school 3 and school four home and school associations I do encourage any of you parents that are out there who not involved with the home in school to get involved because they do many great things for our kids uh they have a lot of online uh Facebook forums Instagram forums things like that but definitely get involved with them they do they do some great things uh especially in the younger grades uh for the students um for my initial observation today for the first time seeing the njsla and DM resorts results I am concerned that we I see we've gone up in some study areas we'll be also trended downward stay the same in other areas at least compared to the state of New Jersey and what's out there uh it will take me more time just like Mr sh to fully digest some of the information you given to us tonight uh before I can really draw any formative conclusions there are definitely serious areas of intervention that are needed in this District I can only hope that everyone on staff and I believe we heard some of the intervention that they're uh undertaking now are concentrating on finding the appropriate Solutions so that we can start the trend in the other in the other direction and as soon as possible for that to happen um just want to say with the upcoming November elections no matter where you stand on National issues or who you prefer as a candidate in the general election please make sure to get out there and vote is it's a right and a privilege that we have living here in the US I want to thank you all tonight for coming now good night thank you truste darl trustee Brenda PCO no comments okay truste Lewis munes good evening everyone uh just want to thank everybody for uh all the work they did uh in the presentations today in uh allowing us to have this meeting it's not just the work that we do here but we also you know we've been here since like 5:30 uh on our private sessions deal with topic so I want to thank everybody for uh sending this up downstairs as well welcome U Nelson it's a pleasure to have you if you're you're just stopping by for a little while um I I just wanted to kind of jump back into the whole thing with the Middle School um because that is a very big uh that's a legacy play for our district and um one of it's been a passion for one of the one of us I've been I've had the pleasure of sitting on the operations committee several times during my time here and keep pushing for this and I know it's going to beautify our town it's going to make Washington look better it's going to do going to provide better parking for our teachers and keep emphasizing parking de parking de um but the biggest goal here um is that our middle school students don't have an opportunity to step out of building and have some recreational time get some fresh air like all of our other students do in every other building that we have um so uh one of my biggest uh motivators is to be able to you know they just drive by and hear the kids playing and hear the kids enjoying their time Outdoors because if you know when it comes to the middle school has always been known to be one of our biggest areas where we have uh behavioral issues and we have kids kind of like discovering themselves and and and and you know it's it's it's hard to expect these kids to be stuck inside of the building all day long with all that energy and and not have any of these um other things kind of develop so I really do hope that we are able to pull this off we are definitely working very hard to do it I hope that we continue working with the town um and being pull being able to pull these things off um and we will definitely continue to keep everybody day um and you know a couple days away from trick or-treating and all our kids being in streets and um so just you know be careful when you're driving be careful you know as the kids are out and uh that's it for me thank you have great thank you trusty and uh welcoming truste Nelson Barrera in the house good evening everyone well needless to say it's a pleasure to be a and honor yes I'm passing through but I always care I'm always trying to stay involved in the progress of our school district and our town and anything that we can do to make things better especially for the young lives that will at some point be the future of our country with that being said let's be patient that we are in our own homes I think we will accomplish the middle school project I'm actually looking forward to that and something that I always used to say during my campaign was unity in the community let's work together with the town let's make this happen because it's a benefit for Belo most importantly for Belo students thank you everyone I look for to working with the team and giving my best that I can to our students and to B good night thank you truste perrera vice president Nikki dtis hello everyone first I want to welcome Mr Barrera thank you for jumping in and helping us out I would like to thank the district for letting the bille soccer association use the high school for a car was fundraiser both my girls play for that organization and I'm also a parent volunteer for them I love that we have these facilities available for different groups to be able to utilize Our Brands we are still waiting for the technology audit it is a little bit troubling how long I've been waiting for this as the months go by and just keep buying more and more of all these licenses for different types of Technology I'm also wondering if we could Loop the Bea in all this and get teachers involved for their input on what is successful versus what isn't because who best to ask for the input on all these different apps than the teachers who are actually in the classrooms using the apps I want to mention the SRO officers the safety resource officers I am a huge advocate of safety in our schools that is an area that is not negotiable for me we have recently added SRO officers in the middle school and the high school these are B police officers the benefits that have come from having a school resource officer reinstated at the schools are that it creates a safe environment for both school students and staff we have enhanced Safety and Security a school resource officer serves as a visible presence on the school grounds which has deterred potential threats and helps the prompt response to any emergencies which ensures the safety and students the safety of students and staff at all times the SRO also builds positive relationships with students staff and parents fostering trust and open communication within the school Community they also act as mentors supporting the students with emotional and social wellbeing also in the unfortunate event of a crisis situation school resource officers can respond effectively and quickly minimizing potential harm and possibly saving lives I just wanted to highlight the importance of these officers something on the agenda that is close to my heart is the digital and Internet safety presentation from tonight this is a vision I had last year I floated this idea and I have to say Nicole sh did a great job with it huge thank you to her for being patient with me over the last couple months I done kind of annoyed her a little bit she never said it but I'm sure I did she developed a curriculum peace catering to Internet safety and making my vision come to a reality and I look forward to working with you in the upcoming months to really expand on this thank you everyone have a great night and everyone have a safe Halloween great thank you vice president Mi D and thank you all for coming out tonight uh thank you this evening for our presentations they were both informative and giv us a lot to think about uh we definitely appreciate all of the work uh as school opened up in September and now we're in the middle of October I see uh everybody is uh it's like back to business um everybody's doing a great job everybody is working hard um even outside on our our grounds and our beautification so the trees for schools Grant was something that Victoria Bruno wrote and I uh offered her some of my comments on it and some information uh she was able to secure the grant it's from the Reggie program which is the regional greenhouse gas Initiative Program and they're funding now uh trees for urban areas so schools was was one of the areas that they targeted they figured it would be very uh easy to get money funnel to local schools in New Jersey whoever applied to the grant that wanted to could and B was one of the districts that applied and was aboard so we are ordering a total of 144 trees since you asked and the grounds keeping uh crew has been doing an excellent job the trees looked wonderful uh the township is also part of the program because some of the school properties include the municipal boundary properties adjacent to the sidewalk area so it's it's a collaboration and a combination of both Crews um that are really going to be out there getting these trees planted around our schools um so thank you very much to your your grounds committee and yes everything is is in the grant we were able to you know purchase equipment if we needed to to rent equipment if we needed to um we got a guarantee that the trees survive over the next two years and we've got to provide a monitoring plan for them so that will also occur uh in the future I went to easy rides recognition event on September 26 so Kudos again to our Police Department the Municipal Police Department collaborates with the school district um organizing the safe Ro to school program and they went from bronze bypass silver to gold certification so congratulations to all of our schools and the police department for securing the gold recognition and they also secured the gold recognition for the township um and with that a lot of things could come a lot of good things um we got the grant which you guys heard about at the beginning of the year the state brings to school Grant and as soon as the grant agreements um and all that paperwork is done we should be able to see some of our uh safe Roots um sidewalks and crosswalks and other parts of the project getting done so thank you again to everyone who worked on that and thank you to the police department and the school um science uh there are a couple of us who are um enthusiasts and uh feel that science is very important the climate change standards were new standards that were just added to the curriculum a couple years ago uh the the I think this was a Federal grant that was awarded but the state would so there I think there was a federal Grant awarded for climate change education and four New Jersey institutions were awarded the Grant I presented at ruers for their professional development Workshop this summer and I present at Rao and I understand that Mr Julia is working in Gro College because part of the grant that they were awarded they're securing locations throughout every County to have professional development for climate change and Science Education so I really hope that a lot of our local Educators do sign up for that program and they see that advertised coming out of our district um that's it for me this evening I appreciate all of you coming out um please do continue coming out I will comment on the callings Mr Sheldon because you did bring that up and I do attend the town meetings as well and they do have cols and nobody ever calls in which is very unfortunate but we will discuss that um since you brought it up here so thank you everyone have a good evening and we will see you for hour November meeting we have a motion to close our meeting so move than all those in favor all right have a good night