good evening everyone I'd like to call this meeting to order uh this meeting of the Denville Township Board of Education is being held in accordance with the public open public meetings act notice of this meeting was provided to the Daily Record Andor The Star Ledger of Morris County has been delivered to the Township Clerk and has been posted on the bulletin board of the board of education office and at each of the school buildings in the district roll call please Mr and Mr Anderson here Mrs sidellis here Dr Arun tassin here D deore here Mr Kim here Mr Cass here Mr Capello uh Mr Capello says he will be here um a few minutes late so um okay I believe there's no need for executive session so if everyone can rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please okay I do believe we have two special presentations tonight so um if we can go ahead with the first presentation Dr Forte hello everybody this this uh presentation we have to do twice a year it is the um Hib and student safety data systems report every year according to the New Jersey Department of Ed we have to report on the first half of the year in in January from the previous and the second half in July so our case our um ssds Hib report report for half the year we had zero cases of substance abuse we did have two cases of weapons that I spoke to you about in executive session those were the ones we discussed um we did have five confirmed cases of HIV seven seven investigations and three were done by pred predetermination zero inces of V vandalism zero inces of violence and there were three cases of student suspensions with disabilities actions taken the police were notified three times there were five in school suspensions and one out of school suspension in the first half of the year throughout the year we've done many different trainings and programs for example you even underwent a training on HIV from our attorney couple weeks uh couple months ago so uh we did 29 trainings 55 programs we embed HIV prevention actions in the teaching and learning we build student relationships we continue to work on safety parental support physical emotional environments and morale in the school Community you hear us speak a lot about something called seal which stands for social emotional learning and we do spend a lot of time on that and a lot of it has to do with um providing a a strong climate and uh that's the report for this first half of the year thank you Dr Forte um I'll open it up I'll open it up for questions from the board okay uh seeing that there are no questions thank you very much I'll open it I'll now let the Dr Cullis present her um presentation do you want me to give a little background first um I was going to ask the board first does everybody know about our comp group is everybody from familiar with it does anybody need a refresher on that or you feel pretty confident what it is really good okay um actually Dr Anderson brought up a good point maybe for the public uh we could uh spend a minute or two on that okay our comp group is something we've been doing for about 10 years it it represents all districts that fit these four criteria they have to be between Somerset and Bergen so it's like Central Jersey to North Jersey they have to be K8 they have to have between 1,000 and 3,000 students and they have to be what's known as DFG District Factor group I so that's a socioeconomic measure so these 12 districts that Dr culls is going to go over with you as how we compared with our testing performance is all related to this comp group and it's not like this comp group is just a select group of those 12 it's all of them sometimes some drop out because they might get smaller you know like or they get too big and then we refri it but this this 12 group has been this group of 12 districts has been the com group for a while now okay thanks so the presentation is going to be using the data from our 2223 njsla it's the same data that I presented in October but in October we don't have the benefit of anybody else's data so it's difficult to know exactly how we Faire compared to anyone else what we do get at that time is very useful for teachers because it's very granular we know exactly for each student which skills they know and which ones they need more work on but overall it's hard to compare how the district is doing in different areas because the The Benchmark actually changes every year because each the students take a different test each year and even what a a five or an exceeding expectations the the number changes so one year for a grade it could be seven 99 and the next year in that grade it's 8816 it really depends on how the students in that grade across the state perform so so this is a really important part that Dr Forte has put together coming up with a group for us to compare ourselves too and it gives us an idea you know how are how are we doing overall as a district so the first slide is the data just a quick data review of the actual achievement numbers comparing 21 to 22 so you have this presentation you can look in there and see what our achievement scores actually are now when we compare them and with those 12 districts and figure out their ranking you can see what our ranking was in ela for 2022 versus 23 and we had talked specifically about Ela uh and making sure that we even though we're putting a lot of emphasis on math right now that are we keeping up with Ela and you can see by our ranking that we are definitely keeping up in ela as well third grade we are second fourth grade we are second fifth grade we are first sixth grade we went from Seventh to Second seventh grade went from first to Fourth and e8th grade fourth to fifth now seventh and eth are the two groups that we are now moving writing and reading workshop into that's where we just moved them so they're brand new at that so hopefully we'll start seeing the that Improvement as well for math the two groups that we worked with very in tely we tried a different model where the coach worked every day with grades three and grades six so if you look at that that information our third grade went from 10th last year to Third and our sixth grade went from ninth to fourth so definitely this model I think is working and this year our coach is working the same methodology with fourth and seventh so we did everything by turn moving around the curriculum deciding which is the most important which should be taught first even not following necessarily the sequence of the book but putting it into a logical sequence for students attain the skills um necessary to be able to practice it before they actually take the test on it now here are the actual districts so you can see um we are the green and how we did in each of them and that's the mean so some of these districts are higher and obviously some are lower but that's the mean achievement score for that grade level and our highest was in fifth grade and I mentioned when I presented in October I was particularly pleased with our fifth grade because that was also our grade level that needed the most um assistance extra assistance outside of the general classroom um they probably got hit the hardest had the biggest impact from covid and yet they came out with a 782 as their mean so we're very very proud of all of them again that the ELA test scores are at the bottom for math so the you can see that in third we already mentioned this but third was third grade was third fourth grade was 12th fifth grade was fifth sixth was fourth seventh and eth were 11th uh those are the grades that we certainly are working on it's only a few percentage off but those are the grades that we you know you can see the mean might be only a few eighth grade more um one difficulty with this is that not everybody only five of the districts have a geometry program so that the kids that we have in Geometry were com the their highest level is algebra so our geometry kids would be compared to algebra so I didn't include that it's totally different kids that would be taking that assessment so when this eighth grade number is just eighth graders who are not in any advanced coursework so they're taking a core eth grade program and same with seventh so we pulled out um all of those algebra geometry students for that and I want to talk a little bit more about this particular one because if you recall we had this specific discussion about sixth grade we always seem to have a decline from fifth to sixth the same skill set is uh relevant from third to 5ifth and then the next grouping is six to eight so it is a little bit of a different testing format and we always seem to drop from fifth it's like we work our way up to fifth then it's a new testing uh format it's a little bit harder and we kind of go to the bottom and work our way again we did see still a decline from fifth grade that Core group or that cohort 88% they went to 78% but that was 10% less than we normally would drop so it is a less of a a drop there and with that we also saw that that group went from from 7th to 2nd you know we we talked about Ela and what we wanted to watch that measure this is that measure so I just wanted to make sure that we are seeing that that group really even though this the actual percentages went down and we'll continue to work on that as far as comparison to other District it actually went up quite a bit with that so any questions thank you uh Dr Cullis I'll go ahead and open up U for any question from the board Mr Kim I have a question goad all right go ahead doctor just a refresher for myself the uh math where we had that uh third grade and uh sixth grade right and you mentioned that we're going to uh uh have the same thing in fourth and seventh grade but this is in addition to the incoming third and sixth grade right that's yes so third and sixth are continuing with the program that we worked on last year so they're still working using that same program and then so they're just kind of you know going with that they're meeting with the coach on an infrequent B basis because right now the intensity is with fourth and seventh but she still does meet them at with their at their collaborative time you know and going over and of course any questions that they had so hopefully we'll see the same dramatic increase for fourth and seventh this next year and then then she'll work with Fifth and eth the next next year Mr Anderson uh thank you Dr CIS appreciate the uh information it's always I always appreciate the way you analyze the data um going back to can you go back to slide three for a second yes so when we're looking at this when you say grade three that's not the same cohort for 22 23 in other words that cohort in grade three then goes to grade four in 23 is that correct that is correct I mean so you could look that they were fourth and third grade and as fourth graders they were second I you could look it that way and and then the fourth grade in 22 they were third place as fourth graders and first place as fifth graders you could look at it that way yes mostly we use this data for a district perspective to see how is our prog working more than we look at it for the cohort I mean it is interesting to see because certainly it a few students can make a difference certainly a big difference but we try to see like how is our program like a third grade if they're consistently like fifth grade is the second time they were first so that tells us something about that fifth grade math program seems to be meeting student needs whereas seventh and eth consistently 11th even though those are different cohorts not not where we want to be got it okay and then so obviously the the math in seventh and eth grade that really concerns me particularly those students are going to be going up to the high school and that the program doesn't slow down because they're not up to speed so what is our plan to try to and it's a very short period of time we have a big gap to close in what it looks like agreed uh if you recall two in 22 we only had 14% passing which is very alarming last year we went up to like 25% I think it was um or 24 increasing but not C certainly not where we need to be what we we doing two different things the first thing is we implemented something called Math 180 which is a um a program that focuses on the main skills needed to be successful in algebra so it cuts a lot of the supplemental units out and it really focuses on what are the key things they have to do because when you're talking about gaps years and years of gaps we've got to figure out how are they going to be ready for n9th grade every student takes algebra one there's no pre-algebra everyone's in algebra one so we need to have them ready so that's one and it's called Math 180 not all students use that program select students use that program we also right now are looking at another program uh that is new uh that is similar it's a focus for algebra how do we put in some additional units to help or additional lessons before each unit that really help students understand that concept before tackling that concept and I think that's going to be useful we're piloting right now in the Middle School a few classes are trying it and we're also piloting a new math book this year and we're hoping to purchase it for next year so that's those those are the things that we're doing right now we also have some students doing the online tutoring and we also have spots open at Mathnasium for any of those students who want to participate we're not getting a lot of takers for that but we have a small group and it's students that need to take it so I'm glad that they are participating and taking that opportunity um certainly is a high focus for us thank you Dr CS appreciate it so I just quick followup to uh what Mike just brought up uh do we have some short-term metrics and early warning on all these new things that we're doing to see if the kids are actually making progress and making adjustments as as we move along we have we have our benchmarks so we do our benchmarks three times a year and then we also have common assessments so all of the students are taking the same math Assessments in the grade so those are the really what we're using to identify students and where their where their needs are um some of these students are taking basic skills math in the middle schools or are getting attention there or they might be in a small group setting maybe in a resource center as well is two times a year enough three The Benchmark is three times um it I mean they do all their regular chapter tests and quizzes and things like that but in addition a more standardized assessment where it covers all the con CTS to see are they you know are they gaining on concepts for sure now the Math 180 also had that's the those or for that program is for the students that are really behind it has a com a electronic component that does measure often they have to go on the computer every day and they're catching trying to catch up on some of those skills so that is an everyday monitoring thank you uh thank you Dr CIS um I guess uh the one final question that I would have is um uh we rolled out the math of the the math program to two grades last year and then we're doing it again for this year two more grades um could there be discussions or plans to roll it out to the rest of the grades so that the um other grades can benefit from um the the advanced teaching or however you want to describe it so that uh um hopefully we can bridge that Gap sooner well the plan is that the last grouping would be next year so this year's four and seven next year would be five and eight uh kada 2 she works with but it's very different in kada 2 it certainly is not preparing at this level of skill so by the end of 24 25 they all will have gone through it I me we we only have one math coach so she works with them every day I mean I suppose if we were to go we need a second math coach if we were going to do it faster but I think that the plan right now should work by then I mean it's not like we're not doing the things right now but that's they're not doing the Intensive she's not in their classroom every single day okay she still works with them every week thank you and then I guess the final thing is um I I'm encouraged by the percentages for the ELA I I don't want to sort of push Ela to the side or I don't want it to drop either as well so I'm sure that we're going to continue to keep focusing on Ela as well while bringing up math at the same time right definitely that's why I really wanted to bring that slide out just to give you some reassurance that that has not slipped we continue to get better and better um as our teachers get stronger in Workshop as U our new teachers come on and we train them you know we continue to get stronger and really this is incredible data because our numbers as far as students with additional needs students coming in with um without English proficiency students coming in with a variety of different needs are lowincome numbers have gone up are students that need free and reduced lunch have gone up all of those things have gone up which usually as a on a on a matrix those are indicators of student of uh lower performance and yet our performance continues to get better so I feel like we're taking on those challenges and we're meeting those challenges and yes there's still areas to work but we are addressing that and still getting kids to move even if they come to us with challenges that's an interesting comment I wonder if you have those statistics um is that something that could be shared um in a future meeting I guess sure I mean I could put together what our test scores were and what our numbers were in those areas and then what our test scores are now and what our numbers are now sure great thank you um are there any other questions from the board all right thank you Dr CIS um the amount of detail and the work that you do is amazing so thanks again uh continuing on with the agenda uh we'll go ahead with the superintending comments please Dr Forte so I want to I want to review our goals for the year to start off Dr Cole is going to do her two and I'm going to go over my two so our first goal was um to continue develop the tiered systems of support I'm sorry that was that's Dr C the first one is continue investigate plan and communicate options for expansion of current buildings to accommodate possible increases in student population this included creating an ad hoc committee to investigate and report to the board and it also include reviewing demographics and the facilities and the all the different town um projects that are happening throughout the town and uh this presentation from the ad hoc committee was presented to the board on um December 11th and the second goal number four was to develop a plan for consistent and streamlined communication we have put together a committee chaired by our communications consultant Miss Marinello she has uh she will be starting the um process with some meetings she's already had one meeting she's going to have a couple meetings with the committee and she's also going to put out the survey to the public this week the survey is on your agenda for approval tonight we went through it in the I committee so um we expect that the the survey will be out and we will be reporting back with the progress of the committee we're looking at right now May 20th so by May 20th we should be uh finalizing that's the process of the two goals I'm going to go through the rest of mine if you don't mind Dr Carlson then you can come back um on Friday I put out to the public in the Friday folder what goes into making a decision about snow days and um I also embedded that link right here into our um agenda if anybody's interested in that but as you can see it's a pretty long process and I use a lot of different sources from information including the local superintendent DPW police weather two different weather experts that we have that we get uh pinpointed uh weather reports and all those different things go into it and then decisions are made the um 2425 budget process preliminary budget tentatively will be presented on March 11th and the final budget will be presented on April 22nd we're going to put an article I'm gonna have um Miss Marinella work with James and myself to put out an article on um the purchase of 40 six Nicole drive and the Riverview Annex lease renewal which is on the agenda for tonight as well I think it's important to get you like we said in the in the um strategic plan making sure that everybody gets all the information so people who are reading the citizen they'll be some kind of an article in the hard copy citizen about the purchase of the land on at 46 Nicole and the the Riverview Annex lease which starts five years again in um on July 1 for those of you that might be interested in going to the lead graduation at Riverview it will be held on February 16th at 11:00 a.m. in the Riverview annx gym so it's Riverview lead graduation 11:00 am February 16th in the anx gym anybody wants to go you're welcome to go that's myh comments oh sorry one other thing the wrestling team did well this weekend we had our first County champ in a while um let's see I just got this I wanted to share it with you we had uh we finished fifth out of 14 overall and we have our first County champion in a few years named Adam zulva became the county champ at 149 pounds Caleb Fricks was a runner up at 97 pounds Grady Jackson and Shawn Mars plays fourth and uh we had um three we were we were third in the number of pins throughout the uh throughout the tournament so it was a pretty good showing for our County tournament for our wrestlers this year that's it for my report thank you so much and moving on to assistant superintendent comments please Dr CIS first report cards are opening in Genesis on February 2nd so please check Genesis and see how your students are doing as far as our goals I'll go back to goal one and two so much of this I've already covered in the last presentation but what the first goal was to increase student achieve specifically in math and then um some of the area other areas as well so I already went through many of those items but if you look we we're trying to get that Grant we received the grant our tutors are in the vetting process we're very close I do believe one will be able to start next week because we did get back all of their information and we're just waiting on the last two of our in-house tutors that will be with us 20 plus hours per week in our classrooms air tutors air tutors has already been going so our students are working in that um and everything else is moving along with our tutoring program with science and social studies we wrote new curriculum we purchased new science texts and we wrote um the elementary social studies curriculum train did training already and now we're working on looking at science 4 k25 connected to our other goals when we're working on the tiered system of supports that's really the piece of intervention that addresses all the questions that you had like how are we monitoring students on a regular basis so many of those students who are struggling or in many areas or are pretty far behind in one are in our Intervention Program so we have a team of teachers and support faculty that work with those students and parents they monitor every four weeks H they have meetings they go through an actual goal plan um they have to meet their goals and then they either decide does the student continue on in the program or do they need to exit the program are they ready to exit so they are being closely monitored um for for that we also wanted to this goool also had the staff and mental health needs so I just mentioned some of the recent um training that we are doing the other program I said that we're looking at for algebra sides Math 180 is the transition to algebra so we've did training on that reviewing that product we did a training on speak up at school um for all three schools working on how to address situations when students make comments that Express bias or maybe they're repeating things of bias that they've heard from others and then we've also had executive functioning uh PD for parents and for staff our parents with educational connections offered another session last week we had 60 parents attend virtually which is great so that's our second parent one of the year in that area and we're about to schedule a third one with our Elementary uh company that we use so that's called brain tracks and the teachers completed their training in brain tracks so a lot of great things going on this concludes the assistant superintendence report thank you Dr CIS and business administrator comments Miss Kowski the annual this is not working all right let's try it again can you hear me all right all right the a pen and a link to to complete it if you do have any questions please email me sometimes you do have to put na on the first line if it's not applicable uh if it's left blank sometime might be returned back to you but again I'm I'm taking the time to review each one before it get submitted to the uh ethic commissions first comes to me and then I'll will resubmit it on your behalf to the ethic commissions uh the district is going through several audits this year the first one is coming up uh this coming Friday on pest integrated on integrated Pest Management they'll be visiting each School making sure that we are in compliance with all our uh IPM plans and certifications and logging all the information when The Pest Management come into the districts we are also going through another audit in early February with the eser three grants um they're just coming around now after a few years and we were selected and uh it's all good things uh the other comment is I I'm looking to apply for a rebate for electric buses we are working with the application currently the deadline is at the end of this month January and um we'll submit an application and hope for the best so right now we are submitting for two buses conclude my report thank you Mrs gasi all right and now let's uh open it up for uh public discussion uh agenda items only uh this portion of the meeting is to open is open to any individuals for the purpose of addressing res resolutions on this agenda or matters that they find is important to the board of education and is governed by policy board policy 0167 prior to making a comment the members of the public are required to State their names addresses and the subject matter of the comment comments are limited to three minutes per person no participant may speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard comments made by the members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board or District administration any response that is provided will be made at the end of the public comment period after all comments have been heard the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey therefore comments regarding specific students and employees will not be responded to by the board the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be a aware that they are legally responsible and liable for those for their comments All com all statements questions or inquiries shall be directed to the board president I'll open up uh public discussion at 8:03 PM uh one second M um Mr DTE do we need a microphone ah thank you thank you so quick question when did you have to what started that whole paragraph that you had to read for the public portion like what prompted that when I was on the board it was open to public I mean is that you have to do that for every single time sure Dr Forte if You' like during um during the pandemic the there there were some public what's the word I I would have I'm going to say inappropriate behavior by our public by our people coming here not questioning us but the way they the way they the way they berated some staff members in public meetings and some of the things that they would say so due to that we went and checked on our policy we asked our attorney to give us stronger language in that in that area there really basically saying is that to remind everybody that no matter what say we don't necessarily respond number one and number two that you're totally responsible for whatever you do say meaning if you bring up something that could be liess or slander or in any way it's your responsibility so basically that's where this whole thing came from and um at the time I 100% felt it was necessary I feel now we might be able to you know look at it again we did did um we do typically say uh you can read this especially if there's no public so we don't really spend the time to uh read through the whole thing all the time but when there is public sometimes we do and uh that's basically in a nutshell how it came about thank you for the question thank you for stopping by um seeing that there's no one online and um I believe that was the last question uh I will close open public comments and discussion at 805m moving on to uh with the agenda old business um Miss Mrs zelis if you could go ahead go ahead and put take us through that please the following resolutions have been recommended by the superintendent of schools of the board of education for approval um I move that we certify that as of January 2024 after review of the secretary's monthly financial report and upon consultation with the appropriate District officials to the best of our knowledge no major account or fund has been overexpanded oh did I skip no oh sorry sorry um in violation of New Jersey administrative code and that sufficient funds are available to meet the district's Financial Obligations for the remainder of the fiscal year so I moved that we uh as a board uh approve the following reports from December 2023 the treasurer of school money report at the board secretary report the education reports report of student enrollment for December 2023 report of Health office December 2023 Hib cases lv23 2403 Hib case VV 232 2406 report of the 2023 2024 midyear Hib uh report and then and the minutes for the December 11th 2023 meeting and the special session meeting December 15 2023 I'll second thank you Mrs zelis thank you Mr Cass roll uh any questions or comments roll call please Mr Anderson yes Mrs idelis yes Dr Aruna jassen yes Dr Moore yes Mr Kim yes Mr Cass yes Mr Capello uh yes but I'm going to be abstaining on uh education reports uh item number four all right thank you very much um before we continue uh Mrs uh gorowski the order of the Roll Call is different on the uh agenda on at least the agenda that we have in front of us so um Mr Kim if I yeah typ typically the president can set that you you can yeah um the copy I have has Dr Moore first and myself last so is that is that what you see in your copy as well that's what I see okay great thanks so we'll give Mr groski a second yeah right I have it I do have an old copy yeah no worries no worries um do you need another minute or we're good oh thank you very much okay so moving on with the agenda we'll go on with new business uh a Personnel Dr Aruna jessan if you could take us through that please you um new hires and uh there is uh resignations retirements in uh up to a through M and uh there are leaves of absence from item number 2 three 4 five and there is a separation agreement in item number six and uh there's a revised job description item number seven and a RBT registered Behavior technician uh uh job description in item number eight and uh substitute um higher uh in item number nine a second thank you Dr jisan and um Mr Anderson uh questions uh Dr Forte I actually had a question regarding number seven staff member in charge uh I'm assuming this is not a new position uh is this something that's currently being um filled in all three schools and are they part of the DEA or um you know how how was that job sort of uh laid out that job was created when we got the annex so that we could have somebody that's in charge in that building when the administrator administrators are on the other side so it's only for that one District I me one school in the district and it uh there's minor changes to it based on um just you know overall reviewing it once in a while there's one line stried out and that's it thank you I wasn't sure if it was for all the schools or just the one so thank you seeing that there is no other questions or comments roll call please Dr Moore yes Mrs sidellis yes Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes okay moving on to the uh next agenda item before we proceed with this um the resolutions there uh if you Dr Moore do you want to give us any highlights from the um meeting minutes and if not uh please proceed with the resolutions on the agenda uh let's see I mean we went over the uh the revised job description um for the staff member in charge uh the um communication survey which uh Dr Forte referenced came out of the uh um the communications committee and that's uh going to go out uh in as many uh different uh forums as possible to get as much information from the uh the public regarding their experience of communications with the school just to try and help to um uh continue to to look at and assess um where we're at with that um and then there's the uh the supervisor of uh student Support Services job description there's no Active search but it's sort of a a first step um uh based on U multiple uh people indicating that uh that would be a helpful position where they would oversee um all the different supports including mental health that don't fall under special education I think that's about the only highlights I I see to to bring to anyone's attention great thank you so if you want to go ahead and uh take us through the agenda then as well sure I'd like to uh move the following uh resolutions under instruction and program uh we have uh um a workshop for uh addressing problem behavior in schools um there's um B the nja HPD annual convention um the New Jersey teachers of English to speakers of other excuse me other languages uh for c and d uh item number two is to approve the attached uh field trips item number three is a a student from the County College of mors to observe uh item four is a student from uh William Patterson University to observe five is a student from mors NES High School to observe uh and item six is a student from the uh Mars County academy for performing arts to complete an internship item number seven is uh to approve Brook Arthur as executive coach for Cindy castanza uh item number eight is what I I had previously mentioned it's the attached Community communication survey uh item number nine is a mentor mentee fee item number 10 is a student from William Patterson University to observe and item number 11 is a student from uh William Patterson University uh to complete an internship I'll second thank you Dr Moore thank you uh M Mr Capello any questions or comments seeing that there are none roll call please Dr Moore yes Mrs Adelis Dr Aruna tassen yes Dr Mr Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes uh policy re revisions uh Mr capella could you take us through that please I would be happy to uh if there are no objections I would like to move uh under policy revisions policy 2340 field trips for second reading and adoption and policy 5120 assignment of students also for second reading and adoption I'll second thank you Mr capella thank you Mr Cass questions or comments roll call please D deore yes Mrs aelis Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes um def Finance Mr Anderson do you have any highlights from the committee that you'd like to share and if not take us through the resolutions please sure so uh we recently had a committee meeting uh we discussed the budget to actual uh December and November Financial reports which everything looked uh appropriate and and in order as to what was expected um and then uh we did discuss the uh draft budget for 2425 which we we know will be another difficult budget year Dr Forte mentioned earlier the preliminary budget presentation on March 11th um I would say there's a a decent amount of work that needs to be done between now and then to uh make sure that we're meeting the obligations and needs of the students but also uh financially being able to meet within our budget a couple of Big Ticket items driving additional cost just from a quick highlight perspective um obviously salary increases in accordance with the uh our employment contracts uh out of out of District tuition uh increases this year um we uh there are several new positions staff positions which have been uh recommended or at least uh put preliminarily in for requests um our substitute cost as we've spoken about uh multitude of times has uh continued to increase um new textbooks and then the increases on the Riverview Annex lease um so all of these are kind of um I guess less controlled or at least Big Ticket items most of them are uh kind of um uh mandatory things that we have to fit in um and then we obviously reviewed some initial um projects that we would look to from reserves uh but like I said uh more information as we kind of move forward I would say uh decent amount of work to be done but appreciate the administration on kind of um the work they're about to put in in the next uh month or two here so and then is that good yeah thank you um and then uh as far as the agenda I'd like to move if there are no objections i' like to move under Finance uh item d one through five that includes uh the checklist as well as uh Cooperative pricing agreement um the board accept a donation of $6,500 from the Denville Education Foundation to fund the don't press send program for all students in grades 4 through eight including an evening progr program for the community uh that the board accept a donation of $1,000 from the lake AAC on Elks for the special services program to be received at the leap in the lake for special children event on uh March 2nd um and that the board approved the submission of the amendment of The individuals with disabilities uh Education Act application for fiscal year 2024 I'll second thank you Mr Anderson Mr Cabell thank you any questions or comments so I just want to point out one thing um Mr Cass is going to be getting looks like some relief very soon on the milk fund uh working its way through Congress is a bill to allow whole milk back into schools I believe it's in the Senate right now so um they are taking on the pressing tasks of the day uh so it looks like we'll have Hall milk back I guess that's good to hear and also the options for chocolate milk and strawberry milk I don't I don't think the I didn't see that in the uh but I think you should write write your Congressman right now that was there at one time so so now the students can order either skim milk 2% or whole milk yeah this this bill is this Bill is saying that whole milk has to be an option brought back in so I it hasn't it hasn't completed yet the GU to go to the Senate but well once it uh once it's uh approved approved signed off on I'd be glad to start voting yes on that it's it's an option as long as they can deliver it you know sometimes it's an option and they they don't get it until then no milk for any students according to Don I want to thank uh I want to continue to thank uh the Denville Education Foundation for their generous donation of $6,500 uh for that uh program and also want to thank Lake kacong alks for the $ thousand a generous donation so um it's always amazing to see the organization support of school systems if there are no other questions or comments roll call please Dore yes Mrs sellis yes Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass I'll abstain on the milk fund this time instead of a hard no pending the additional information yes on everything else Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes uh moving on with the agenda operations uh Mr Cass if you wanted to uh maybe share some highlights from the meeting minutes and if not uh please proceed with the uh resolutions I'd be glad to the most important thing I mean they're all important but there real the real uh thing we got to wrestle with here is the flooding of the garage and U the administration gave us some some good statistics if you had a chance to read the report if not um the garage has flooded three times in 12 years um and it's very very expensive here uh we have uh a $ 23,48119 and um our business administrator has looked into uh FEMA for Aid um we found out that FEMA's intervention is done on a county bycount basis and Morris County's Benchmark to get Aid is 17 million um I would guess they'd be able to uh exceed that that number uh we did discuss uh flood insurance as as an option and the annual premium es for flood insurance is $80,000 so it's really uh cost prohibitive and if I recall it's a High deductible too right $10,000 D deductible that goes along with that so um good news on the flooding is that the River View lowering Park on lot garage which used to have a lot of problems in the past the pumps are working and they hand were able to handle minor flooding thank you Mr Cass um if you want to proceed with the yeah I'll go on to the operations uh motions here uh Transportation there there's nothing to uh vote on tonight bit on buildings and grounds we have item 2.1 I'm going to ask the board to approve the attached the denim to the original lease dated December 1st 2019 the St Mary schools property now known as the river Annex for rental of the property from July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2029 and item 2.2 is that the board approve Eagle Scout projects for donations to Lake View School you have reference fc1 and fc3 um night n pandada completed one in December 2023 and uh Arian sharm's project is in progress and number 2.3 is to approve the attached quote for remediation work at the bus garage due to the flood December 18th 2023 so on our agenda to is um to drill down on the options for the bus garage we have h two two issues there which are we've been talking about one for a long time is the uh getting bus drivers uh that's been a ongoing problem and we need to see if we can really come up with some real viable solutions to address that and also as I just mentioned the uh the flooding of the garage and um you know we do have some mitigation in place with moving the buses when the forecast is bad and all of that but it's um it's very costly and um eventually could have a worse flood where you know all the tools and the whole building's completely damaged and uh lot of times you see these houses that are flooded in my neighborhood and everything they're inhabitable so we certainly don't want to wait to get to that point with the bus garage all of a sudden it's unusable and unbuildable um thank you Mr Cass I just want to clarify we don't have a second on the resolutions if I'll second thank you Mr Anderson so thank you do Mr Cass thank you Mr Anderson um just to be clear uh for the board that's voting I think we just voting on 2.3 um those comments I think that were made were not part of the resolution so I just want to be clear that when we do vote um thank you for sharing Mr Cass but those comments I think are not going to be voted on right now right so can I ask just a quick question is that okay Mr Kim sure please um for the uh for the quote uh for the um remediation work at the bus garage um I believe this is the second flooding that we've had in a very recent past within a few months correct so the $23,000 23485 is that for the first round of work done or how much was the first round of work done that was what that was for the first round of work the second round is very minimum I I do not have a quote yet okay because we were in the process of like getting some of that remediation was done and then it flooded again correct if you could just kind of clarify where we were at with that that is correct uh December 18 we had that uh a lot of rain and it flood a lot and this quote for $23,000 is for the remediation of the inside of the bus garage the floor the walls the Electrical uh the heating unit um it was there was a lot of damage uh then on January 10th I want to say that we had more rain and we did had some water but very minimum that so the impact of the second flood it was not Material very material we will have a little cost but it's not as substantial then do we expect I I think if I recall correctly from the committee meeting we were going to try to submit this to our Standard Insurance and we have a $10,000 deductible so we expect hopefully to get some of this reimbursed is that correct that is correct each building has a $10,000 deductible and we'll be submitting it through our General uh Insurance liability thank you can I just ask a clarify on that our general insurance covers water like water damage we do not have flood insurance but our broker assure me that we can submit it through the general insurance policy for for contents inside the garage okay the outside floods with buses we right uh we probably would not be covered but the cont yes okay I'm really I'm really interested to see the the uh dets the details on that for sure uh refrigerator walls heating even though it was water even though it was Rising water okay I was surprised myself too I I'm really I'm really intrigued by that I really definitely want to find out like the the end result there okay thanks let's head on to that so he's feels that we're going to be reimbursed because it's a concurrent cause situation where the water was wind driven as supposed to pure pure flood on the contents I'm not I'm not sure honestly he did say that it will be contents of up to $10,000 deductible that'd be great if we we can get that if there are no other questions or comments uh roll call please Dr Moore yes Mrs sellis yes Dr arunas yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes all right um for the good of the cause um we uh already went through committee reports so any kind of uh discussion items or correspondence that the board has uh please Mr Kim yeah please Mr um yeah I was going to ask this during uh operations but I figured it better save it for good of the cause um so the bus garage I mean the continuing of the flooding um I think we've had discussions in the past about we're basically keeping buses you know in a marsh in a wet environment I'm sure it's it's cutting back on the lifespan um there's probably lots of issues with that bus garage um can we should we really think about relocating that bus garage should that be really the the the better long-term solution or is that something we can we should even talk about you know um Dr Forte came to me saying that he'd really like to create a task force for transportation and uh I was under the impression that that was one of the items that he wanted to sort of address Dr Forte did you want to talk about the transportation task force I do I wanted to um take this take a minute to see what people's schedules are right we could pick a time to have this meeting um maybe if everybody's okay with it could we also do we have the first meeting on the 8th of of February because we have Finance at 4:30 then we could do the tri the task force at 5 at 5:30 and Dr culls could do hers at 6:30 so this uh meeting that you're asking is for the U that sub the task force ad hoc committee right yes and that's uh James that's Mr Kim that's um Mr Cass and Mr Anderson so we have committees on the 8th at 4:30 and 6:30 could we fit one in the middle at 5:30 with the transportation task force I'm good with that I actually have a 6 PM meeting okay um I could do earlier in the afternoon I don't can everybody do earlier like 3:30 good with me the three of you okay so three I'll send you an invite for 3:30 on the 8th probably Mrs greenh and might get there at like 4 because she's finishing up the end of the day so this first meeting that we're going to have is going to be similar where we're going to create a mission statement and then sort of high level goals or something like that right yep um we in this one you'll have you'll have miss galski and miss greenh and really spearheading it from the from the administrations they're gonna put together some have some information that you can already have right when we start talk about the mission statement talk about the goals and hopefully you know come up with a couple uh suggestions like we did the last time great thank you if there are any other board members uh who wish to um have some other comments or um concerns addressed during this meeting feel free to send uh any one of the board members part of the committee an email or Dr Forte or myself um if you want to make a comment tonight as well like do know uh like Mr capella made feel free any other questions or comments for the good of the cause I do have a sort of a laundry list but uh I'll let other board members um so uh one of the statistics that I wanted to provide during this time uh was um as a followup to the uh special uh space considerations meeting so looking at the December enrollments we were at 1705 uh 1,7 five students and just as a reminder Dr grip's projections ranged between 1675 and 1735 so we're like right smack in the middle it looks like um and I'll I'll I'll do that every month uh with regard to the statistics um I will address the liaison assignments I sort of did the Committees first because I felt that was more important uh but uh so any any requests for um liaison assignment like uh PTA or others please send me emails uh as a followup to what Miss Kowski said the school ethics commission disclosure statement um yeah please make sure that if you answer no uh any of those open boxes below it just put in na because they will there will be a glitch uh and you'll have done all that work and you'll have to redo all that work so um uh Dr Forte had provided uh a link for the hour of code so wanted to thank all the all the uh teachers um and administrators who were involved with the hour code i' I'm strongly a proponent for coding and I think that's really the future so um I'm sorry I missed it but I think that that was a great program uh that there was a week a week of coding I think that the students were able to benefit from so yeah it used to be called hour of code but now it's computer science week people still call hour of code we've been doing it for a long long time but the kids are still excited about it we get some dignitaries from around to come in and do some coding with the kids and uh really great great program for the kids yeah I sat through it um maybe last year or two years ago and I was really impressed by the their ability to code at that at that age and so it's so impressive so um really um really happy that we're continuing to do that year after year uh the Morris County School boards Association is going to have a a breakfast with the President and Vice President and it's going to be held at Copeland Middle School in Rockaway um I had the date um but if there's anyone interested I didn't put the date on my Note so I apologize and um uh just send me an email and I could forward that information to you and finally I wanted to take this time to go through the board goals the goals that we had set aside uh during the summer uh there were two board goals and so since it's the midyear Mark just like Dr Forte and Dr CIS had shared their goals uh the we had created two board goals one the first goal was to assist and support the investigation and planning of options for expansion of the current buildings to accommodate possible student population increases uh so thanks to um U Mr Capello and his leadership uh we pretty much uh uh solved that in December or accomplished that in December um and the second goal was to represent the needs of the district through advocacy of on matters of concern concern at the local state and or national level so um to me I feel like that's an ongoing thing um and if there are board members that feel that we should uh be discussing other topics other matters of concern uh I do hope that um you bring it up during good of the cause because or send me emails um one one example is like uh an email I received from Mr Capello with regards to uh school bus safety camera ticket appar apparently there's a class action lawsuit going on where um um communities are are suing school districts for the camera tickets um fortunately um and Dr Forte I don't know if you want to talk about this but your summary was that uh since it's not automated we would be safe but did you want to share there there's a another when we those of your board members that were here we made decision we were going to pay for the cameras there was another program you could do where you could have a third party pays for the cameras and they write automated tickets like a stop right like a a red light camera that's not what we have ours is a camera that gets reviewed by our internal people and then the police and the police determine whether or not it's a ticket there is no third party involved so the lawsuit that they're talking about is a lawsuit against that third- party system that we that you've seen before probably there I don't know if we have it in Jersey but you definitely have them in New York because I've got a couple already and not red lights anything they just send you a ticket in the mail so yeah um that's the difference a little different and and and just to add to that the the the problem we had at the time with that was basically this company makes its money by issuing tickets so obviously they have a you know they have a vested interest in making sure everybody R you know uh you know is guilty so yeah so that obviously was not something we were interested in at the time we were really not interested in like any it wasn't a money-making thing we were really we let's face it there was an epidemic of people driving past the buses if you guys remember back when we were doing this and we needed to do something to try to help this because it was really out of control 120 130 bus passings a year we're trying to get that number down now and it's getting better my opinion is if there's a which it sounds like we're covered on this lawsuit but if somebody wants to sue us for it bring it on that's crazy right I mean like we can't be risk averse to everything here guys this is for the kids safety and like I said it sounds like it's not applicable but if it ever does become applicable go ahead please please sue us so um that sort of summarizes the board goals and uh I guess an anticipation of our new board goals that we' be uh creating in during the summertime if if board members want to start thinking about it that'd be great hey James which one one quick thing if it's okay um I think we discussed it in our committee and I I I apologize that I didn't mention it during the report um but also there was some uh another email I think I had forwarded to Mrs grasi and Dr Forte um we're in the process of potentially applying for you know the uh Federal uh student lunch program and in addition the state I believe also is looking at uh expanding the eligibility for that um I think it was like 200 some OD percent of the um Federal um yeah Federal property level correct so anyway it's just another piece of information that came across that I think was interesting and it's kind of coinciding with timing that may be interesting for us so um I didn't see was that looking like the state was going to fund that or were they just going to expand it and put it on somebody else's tab it looks like they're gonna fund it uh this time if they going to increase the amount of income that will qualify the family to receive free or reduced lunch right now is really low so they're looking to increase that level of income so other people can qualify yeah when I looked at it I looked at it very quickly just taking a taking a family of four as an example I think that number was just under like $70,000 a year so it could really expand the amount of like lunches that we would have to provide significantly if you think about that number so I mean it was it I was surprised to see that I mean it's great if that's what the need is I understand why and if they're going to fund it that's okay with me as long as they're can continue to fund it for I think it was only a year they were talking about initially right just a pilot it's a pilot program they this is the first time that they're going to try it to see how it goes uh during the pandemic they open it for the entire population and it was a need there was a need and they see that there the need is still there so they're going to open up this pilot program to see how it goes and the following year they probably will re-evaluate and either continue or drop it yeah thank you Mr Anderson for um sharing I did I read that uh email or that article as well so um it uh it does look like that that uh freed lunch program might be bigger than uh we uh are sort of estimating if we factor in the state poverty level uh numbers as well so uh but yeah please keep us posted on uh the status of oh and that's contingent on whether the district uh is uh eligible for the national or federal um free launch program correct we are in the process of applying the application is not uh is not ready yet um we'll be applying mid February and going through the trainings and then they will come and audit us the first three months to see if the district is in compliance with the program and if everything goes well yes they will approve it yeah if I remember correctly uh the cost was going to be like six figures for the district so yeah I'm uh I'm eagerly waiting for that application status any other uh for the good of the cause or um board meeting highlights then Dr for I have uh Riverview Annex lease communication survey two donations and Dr CO's presentation that seems fine by me yep okay if there's nothing else then we'll proceed with the U or continue on with the agenda and open up comments uh to the public at 8:42 p.m. there currently no one in the chambers and I believe there's no one online as well correct no one's online so I'll close open public comments at 8:43 p.m. is there a need for executive session Dr forting yes there is uh Mr Capel could you take us through executive session please I would be happy to um I move to conven Executive session in accordance with Section 8 of the open public meetings act the purpose of this closed session will be to discuss negotiations legal security and Personnel issues minutes of the session Will Made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists all in favor forgive me yep Mrs Adel is seconds thank you very much um thank you Mr Capell all in favor I all opposed abstentions okay we are in executive at 843 p.m.