##VIDEO ID:H4DqwgXfctg## ship board of education is being held in accordance with the open public meetings act notice of this meeting was provided to the Daily Record Andor The Star Ledger of mors 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 Dr Moore here Mrs idelis here Dr Aruna datass here Mr Cass here Mr Anderson here Mr Capello here Mr Kim here okay there was no need for an executive session uh we will be doing the pledge of allegiance but after immediately after the Pledge of Allegiance we'll hold a moment of silence for the one-year anniversary of the attacks in the Middle East so please rise okay thank you so today there are no special presentations however we will be having two presentations next week on October I'm sorry during the next board meeting of October 28th the school audit presentation by our accountants and the October 28th Dr CIS njsla test results presentation moving on with the agend uh agenda superintendent comments Dr Forte just a qack update again our uh we have on the next agenda on the October 28th board meeting we have the uh sorry about that we have the um DPR approval and our site visit we just received word again as a reminder that it will be on January 15 2025 and um we have our districtwide professional development day on Monday the 14th and a little Athletics update we have um all the seasons are moving along County tournaments are coming soon believe it or not next homeone meets if you're interested meets or games we have um we have um cross country on October 11th boys soccer on October 8th and 10th and girls soccer on October 11th all right we'll move on with the agenda Dr CIS the assistant superintendent comments please yes our sixth graders have now completed 10 of the 14-day study skills program and Mr Corman will be sending home a summary of the first two weeks of lessons uh to all the sixth grade families via messenger so you should be getting that in the next day or so nsla student reports are available under Genesis so if you have not downloaded them yet you would go on under documents and take a look at your child's uh individual student report our kindergarten parents should have received via messenger a sigs which is the survey for identifying gifted students and it's the home report so please complete those and return to your child's teacher npe a national assessment for educational progress is taking place for Denville on October 16th 50 students were selected that are 13 years old and those parents have been notified but that will be taking place very shortly this month we have a lot of celebrations between September and October uh our buildings have been celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month indigenous people's day and month uh Italian-American heritage month and Polish American heritage month so a lot of uh short videos books informational sessions have been provided under these particular categories so commemoration of these important months thank you this concludes the assistant superintendent's report thank you Dr GIS uh Dr Forte did we want to come back and revisit anything else that you might want to share no that was all I had it got lucky their call came in I was dealing with something right before this meeting where the students I was trying to take care of it real quick that's why I had to take it sorry about that oh no a uh no need to apologize and moving on business administrated comments Miss Kowski any comments our 2324 School audit has been uh is completed uh the Auditors are working with the report they'll be here next board meeting to present to the board prior to that we will be presenting uh a highlight in summary to the finance committee and we are up to now division a penion audit so we were selected to be audited this year so we are gathering information to uh to uh reply with that that sounded like it was a privilege uh okay all right thank you Miss Kowski at this time we'll go ahead and open up to the public for any questions or comments regarding the agenda uh seeing no one in the chambers and no one online we'll go ahead and close public comments at 7:36 p.m old business no action to be taken Miss Adelis could you walk us through that please sure okay uh the next meeting myself or someone else we'll move through the the following resolutions um a resolve the board approve the following reports for September of 2024 treasur of school monies and board secretary reports education reports for September enrollment Health office reports um the district performance review and approve some Hib uh minutes for the September 9th and September 23rd meetings thank you any questions or comments I had the privilege of sitting in on uh two qack meetings up to this point and always amazed at how organized and how efficient everybody is everyone seems to know what they're doing the communication is awesome so thank you Dr Forte and thank you for the rest of Staff who are part of that team the next section new business action to be taken Dr Runa jasen can you take us through Personnel please absolutely if there's no objection I'd like to move the following items item number one regards new hires resignations retirements leaves extra pay salary adjustments there are items a b c in the main uh one and then D in the addendum and um then the second one is um the endm to uh for the superintendent um Employment contract for Dr Steve Forte and uh that uh Amendment I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions here that goes from July 2024 until now June 30th 2028 um and then the third item is um approve uh the following hire uh just one item um a teacher Jaclyn obey thank you any oh do we have a second D you mentioned the addendum already right Dr yes thank you I just need a second second thank you questions or comments Mr Kim can I make a quick comment so um with regard to um item number two which is Dr Forte's uh addendum to his contract I just wanted to make a quick comment that uh I think Dr Forte has done a phenomenal job hence the um renewal of his contract uh year or time after time uh since I've been on the board due to um being involved in the previous negotiations uh I will be abstaining from that vote I just wanted to kind of make a public comment that it's not related to uh any performance it's just related to previous uh involvement in the negotiation understood thank you yeah Mr K if I could make um yeah I feel um like Mr Anderson does I was also involved um intimately in those negotiations uh for the last contract um so for that reason um also I you know I maybe feel slightly differently um we you know we negotiated that contract a year ago um I'm not sure there have been really significant changes that would necessarily warrant a change to the contract terms um so I agree with Mr Anderson and I think with everybody on the board Dr Forte has been doing a tremendous job we've renewed his contract year after year but because of my involvement with those negotiations I'm going to be voting now understood thank you okay roll call please D deore yes Mrs sellis yes Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes on items one and two obstain on item number two Mr Capello um yes on items one and three uh no on number two Mr Kim uh yes Mrs gry I apologize I think I misspoke yes on items one and three abstain on two got it great thank you very much we'll move on with the agenda uh instruction and program Dr Moore if you can please sure uh I'd like to move the uh following uh under resolutions under instruction and program under number one workshops and expenses we have a tesol trainers English Learners Institute 2 under item number two is the attached list of field trips and item number three is to approve mad science of Northeast New Jersey to provide instructional programming for the Rockaway burrow elll program I'll second thank you questions or comments just note that both 1 a and three are because we are the host of the title 3 elll Consortium so you will see these coming through that money is allocated to those other districts however we are the hosts so all the money will be um circulating through our district thank you for that clarification seeing no questions or comments roll call please sorry Dr Moore yes Mrs Adelis yes Dr Arun jassen yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes okay C Finance Mr Anderson it looks like there's something on the agendum if you can walk us through that please that's correct uh I'd like to move under C Finance item number one is that the board approved the donation of $10,000 from the Denville Township Social Services to help defay the cost of providing free lunch to students in Need for the 20124 2025 school year I'll second thank you questions or comments I think the obvious comment is a huge thank you to the township I think they continue to support uh the students that in need in our district I think um Dr Forte and the team have done a phenomenal job ensuring that uh there's not a financial burden for students as best as humanly possible and the township has just been a phenomenal partner in that uh with their social services so tremendous thank you to the uh Social Services for that donation yeah I'd like to add to that too um Miss Kowski thank you and your team for um implementing this new program especially in Lake View and uh thank you for anyone uh from Lake View who's been supporting you so um seems like it has been a smooth transition or a launch I guess so far it's working really well uh Rebecca here has been an instrumental part to uh making sure that the program is running smoothly and in compliance with the Statue next week one of the representative from the national school lunch program will be coming in to observe the lunches and also to verify that we have all the requirements documents in place awesome yeah please keep us posted on that just a quick question Mr Kim if you don't mind Mrs Kowski the donation will be used for riverv viw and Valley View schools this year right because the lunches at Lake View with the uh Federal lunch program are subsidized from the federal department is that correct the l view launches should be able to subsidi all the EX expenses uh for that specific school and these donations will be to um go will be going towards the Valley View and the Riverview lunches free lunches so then theoretically if we decide to expand the program or if there's a need to expand the program then it would also reduce the uh need for donations like this from the township social services that would that be a correct statement theoretically want to reduce the donation of course yes but it will be uh yes if we extend the program to the to all the schools we should be able to at least break even not uh make a profit but profit but at least Break Even yes got it thank you very much thank you and thanks Mike for uh pointing that out so appreciate that okay roll call please D Mo yes Mrs Adelis yes Dr Aruna jassan yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes Mr Cass could you walk us through operations be glad to I'm asking the board to approve the following field trips request from Little learner Academy at the rate of $70 per hour on 10 2324 Morristown little learner Academy to Whitman's farms and the denma little learner Academy 10222 24 to Whitman's Farm second thank you questions or comments roll call please Jack deore yes Mrs aelis yes Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes all right the next part of the agenda is new business no action to be taken Dr R Jas can you take us through Personnel please absolutely um in the next uh session either myself or one of my colleagues here will move for the following items again um new hires assignations retirements and then item number two uh family leave acts and family medical leave acts and item number three any new HS substitutes I'll second no no second needed there all right questions or comments Dr Moore uh instruction and program please uh yes under instruction and program either myself or someone else will move for approval the following resolutions under instruction and program under item number one there are uh workshops a through D and in item number two is is to will be to approve Dr Howard boow orthodontist in Denville to provide information about orthodontic health for students in Riverview and Lake View for the national orthodontic health month questions or comments all right uh policy revisions Mr Capello can you walk us through uh policy please uh I would be happy to um under policy revisions um we have uh for first reading um policy 1240 evaluation of superintendent policy 12456 ons safe school choice policy 2610 educational program evaluation policy 8506 school lunch program biocurity plan which is new policy 9713 recruitment by special interest groups uh also New policy 5305 Health Services Personnel policy 0164 conduct of a board meeting policy 155 board committees and finally policy 0151 organization meeting questions or comments um I had a question about the board committee policy um it looks like we are striking the technology committee completely is that yeah just just a name but all the duties are re uh what's the word I'm just giving them a different commit reallocated like yeah reallocated so anything in the operations realm for technology goes under operations anything in the curricular realm goes under curriculum so I mean basically what we've been doing basically that's been the practice Yeah that's what Mr Kim asked me to make the Pol we we had a long talk in the governance committee asked if we could put together a policy that more accurately represents what we actually are doing right now great thanks I'm I'm all for that of course thank you Dr Forte yeah thank you for the question the technology committee yeah security was often discussed in operations and any software uh for students was often discussed in imp so we figured we'd just reorganize some of the duties on the Comm on the um policy itself uh I wanted to also call the board's attention to the organization uh meeting that one is simply rewarding uh what there was a little a little confusion about originally was worded during the first week uh the or reorg meeting had to be held during the first week of the of January and it Accord you know there was some confusion that to me the first week was whether it started on Sunday or whether it started on a Friday we had to squeeze that meeting in during that first week so uh there was new language in current step statute that says January 1st to January 7th inclusive so it got rid of the first week wording and it actually explicitly says the 1 January 1st to January 7th um and then finally the um the agenda itself uh which was conduct of the board no oh yes conduct of the board uh currently uh the Committees are uh finance and operation however in the policy had a committee like a a separate section in the agenda for operations a separate section for transportation a separate section for buildings and grounds when we do it all under uh operations in the agenda so we were just updating that as well uh the final thing on that uh is the governance I wanted to change in the agenda uh anything under anything that had related to do with policy I wanted to change that section as governance and um a subheading one as policy revisions uh the importance of that is that if there's anything else under governance that we as a board wanted to discuss and have on the agenda we can include that under there without having to try to look for a place so um broaden that section in the agenda and put policy revisions as a subsection under governance so any other questions or comments okay moving on finance Mr Anderson if you can walk us through that sure myself or uh somebody else at the next meeting will uh put up for vote under Finance um number one would be our enclosed checklist which will be filled out prior to the next meeting and then uh item number two will be the board to approve the 2023 2024 annual comprehensive financial report accepting the audit report which had no recommendations and auditor management report on administrative fightings for the year ending June 30th 2024 questions comments okay operations uh Mr Cass please can I just chime in for a second oh sure go ahead um just because this is an odd month where our board meeting was so early we hadn't had a chance to go over this in executive committee in uh in committees Mr Cass so this this is just us renewing the um the green sustainability new sustainable Jersey thing that we we have to do it every few years um so that's what that long wording is I just wanted to kind of explain it to you I always been told I'm a man of a few words so I'm going to edit it a little bit at the next meeting under buildings and grounds I'm going to ask the board to approve the following resolution for participation and the sustainable Jersey for school certification program so I will read the first paragraph I'm asking the board to participate in sustainable Jersey for schools to focus attention and efforts on matters of sustainability and pursue initiatives that will lead to sustainable Jersey for schools certification so some of the highlights when I look this over is um one of my favorite groups in the district is the green team they do a great job and um always tell people about the president presentation they did and the great job they're doing with the kids and keeping the environment clean and working on sustainability so that's item number six and also um on the next page you'll find out Dr Forte is leason on this initiative so it's great to see us moving this forward again any other questions or comments All right so let's move oh sorry I've got one um Steve any particular reason you're the leaz on it was the way that was the way they had it last time it's um I think it's the superintendent but you know I have people that do it for us underneath I think when it comes to actually working with the with the group like legally it goes through me but then it typically goes through the rest okay um I didn't want to change the wording because it's they want this specific thing sent to them um but typically there's always uh or design okay I didn't remember this from before I thought like when we had Lydia Styles I thought she was the coordinator for it but you've always been kind of the coordinator on paper yeah on paper I have like all the grants and things come through me okay and uh a good thing is we're uh very close to a th000 pounds of plastic being recycled I drove it down to um Stop and Shop with a few of the people we took my truck filled and two other cars filled with stuff and you can imagine how much thousand pounds of PL plastic bags is it's a lot of plastic bags so I like the fact that we're doing this and getting you know doing a small part right taking a thousand pounds of garbage out of out of the landfills and hopefully being used to make a Tre bench all right let's move on to good of the cause committee reports correspondence discussion item it another uh Germain to the district I will make a comment first of all I'd like uh to acknowledge and thank James for having the moment of silence before we started the uh the meeting and uh I'm I'm a product of world war post World War II life um my father-in-law mother-in-law my uncles and my father all served in World War II and some of them fought in World War II and um uh one of them was in the Infantry with the lightning Division and if I recall the stories that filtered through the family he liberated one of the concentration camps so this was an unprovoked attack a year ago from today on the country of Israel by a terrorist organization and if you uh watch news every now and then you'll see the FBI director Ray talk about never before has he seen so many threats against our country so uh I know we've done a to do a lot to beef up the security of our schools so uh just want to highlight that we live in different times now regarding security for all of us uh Mr Kim thank you Mr Cass one additional quick comment um I've been taking a look over uh the demographic data we have as I'm sure all of us are um one of the things I thought may help us um because we've done kind of you know addendums to Dr grip study where we've had them had them add-on you know we have new uh developments that maybe are approved through the uh planning board or whatnot um or zoning board I should say so one of the things that I I think may be helpful to us is we clearly know that his uh projections are extremely accurate at this point within a couple of students we don't know is is one of those projections within that substudy differently in other words are we dropping off an existing de uh housing and the new developments are really high or where exactly that differential is number one number two would be interest so I guess basically how accurate are we with the new developments is really my question right because I think that would answer that question um the other thing I think I found a little bit difficult even being on the board and sitting through all these presentations is they're in different formats every time I find them so if we did like an annual update and it was the same format every year it may be really helpful for me and the public to be able to go back and say hey here was the 2023 update here was the 2024 update it's probably going to cost us a little bit of money I acknowledge that right because we're going to be asking for kind of annual updates but I think it's so important to the board right now as we are seeing these development changes and the the potential for students coming out of them to really kind of make sure we're understanding everything that's happening with them um I think the last time we had him just add on two developments so it was just like an addendum that said the two developments but it didn't go into the same format and there was no presentation to go along with it so once again I know it would cost money just a suggestion that maybe we put it through committee to have a discussion on if we did kind of the same month every year like it was an update in January or something like that that way we've got all the new uh data from the you know current school year where we update it and we have Dr grip present whether we need a presentation or not we can talk about that but at least the same format so we can look at here's a 2023 update here's a 2024 the 2025 and so on it just may help at least my mind serly look at them in that order instead of kind of trying to find here's the addendum let me piece Pace that together with the current study and things like that so just just a suggestion that we may want to think about looking at uh just to clarify Mike are you um are you saying that you would like Dr grip uh update on the study and that and that it it's presented or delivered in the same format yeah like I would take his current study and just update it right like each year hopefully it's a lot less than doing the whole study over again because he's just doing an update and saying hey this is what I had as the projection for the 2024 beginning of the school year here's where we actually are and this is what I project for the next year right because every year we get in we get another year we normally don't do it for probably three to five years is typically when we update but I'm almost saying do we need to do it on annual basis and update have to certainly understand the cost behind it because that may be a kind of a long poll in the tent as far as being able to do it but I would like to see us potentially look at something like that you're bringing it up and I think what we did was we got him we got a price from him but we didn't do it like the stuff that we've that we did we did ourselves using kind of extrapolating his theory his uh you know his methodology and applying it um if you want though if if you feel like it's important I mean it can't hurt just to email them and ask them how much to update this with the new developments you know stuff like that especially now that pretty much all of them are going to happen like the only one I haven't heard anything about is the one by Zeke field everything else is g to happen you know like even the engineer on the one by the Denville train station not the other train the Denville train has reached out to us so they're pretty much all gonna happen wait Steve didn't we have him do uh an update with the two more developments that uh came by because those numbers were from from uh Dr grip the two de two digal developments yeah we did but that was really just very specific for those it was almost like an add-on to the two developments when Mike was telling me about this to my mind it was like what we do with the budget it's kind of a mark to Market basically like okay this is the budget this is where we actually are um and I think Mike's Point is really good and I'm not totally sure it came out totally clearly is that there may be different things masking right so that the new developments may be higher than what he projected but there may be a loss of students due to the existing people moving out of town like we don't know that until we look at it so I think it would be really good it would be helpful um to kind of get that analysis to understand what you know what the actual numbers are doing um you know Mike doesn't propose to spend money easily so you know I think he thinks it's important and I kind of agree um because I think that we we need to be more granular than maybe three to five years I think an annual an annual review or maybe a biannual review you know if it's expensive be something we should consider yeah you I think you're right I think we did just ask him like he I said to him can you just give us the information on these two I think that was about it and he didn't charge us for it and and I'll take full responsibility I think I was the one who said hey can we avoid not doing a full one over again but I think now we're at a point where we really should be that may be our way to keep a really close eye on this we could ask Dr grip all sorts of questions when he presents right we asked a lot of really good questions so this may allow us to kind of peel back that onion he he was I I can't speak highly enough of his presentation a few years ago I think it really opened my eyes and help helped me understand some of the data we felt like we knew either we confirmed it or we were like eye openening to certain pieces of it so it just may be really helpful for us to do on an annual basis because when I tried to go through the website and be like hey let me see where we were I was like I was trying to piece together this pie and I was like H I think I told Dr Forte not to spend the extra money on it but I think it's just easier to look at it if it's an annual update so just an idea to look at and certainly you know maybe put it through committee to to kind of get an idea if it's something we want to do and obviously we would need to get a quote to understand what kind of cost we'd be talking about but we we've got to keep a really close eye on this to make sure you know we know how long it takes or we think we know how long it takes to potentially put an addition on a building or build a new building that takes so long that we have to have that first indicator and and I do want to say I really want the other piece of this is I would like to send back through imp our um capacity School CL classroom capacity policy to make sure that that's what we all feel comfortable with because I will tell you when I went back and looked at in the last couple weeks I I was reminded of the fact that our policy allows for 29 students in the Middle School which I'm not sure if we're comfortable with and we had some really good feedback from the community at our last strategic planning meeting that we want to really take into consideration so I think we need to kind of open that and Dr or Mr Kim you did a phenomenal job when you presented the space consideration committee report talking about the fact that that was that piece of data you looked at right so if that changes that may change what our needs are or what we want to do as a board sure yeah everything I've heard so far definitely makes sense uh any other questions or comments that um board members want to add on to Mike's comments um uh Steve remind me again when um we when Dr grip did that study was a fiveyear study right and is are we in into our third year of that study or are we into our fourth year now so I was thinking about that the report was delivered on January in January 2022 so it's going to be it's already three years old but it was based on data from Fall 2021 so it's already three years old and in the town of Denville in that's three years a lot of things happened at the time those were just um thoughts or like they weren't really solid so didn't do a lot because there wasn't a lot of information from the town now he could probably do a lot more with those with the with the new developments and then I guess there's another set of new developments coming eventually too right so we're almost um at the time where we need to start uh looking at a new demographic study anyway so I mean because technically third year I think we're would be into our fourth year because by the time we get a quote and everything else four years might have been passed so uh and Dr CIS in terms of our student enrollments I know that October is our sort of official month how do the class sizes look Elementary School and and middle school well the only larger classes in the Middle School are those that are Advanced programming where we only run one section of like a geometry or an algebra or Spanish 2 something like that those are our larger sizes the advanced classes our core classes are all between 16 and 18 Su are smaller uh Elementary School uh where you can be around 22 to 23 in the 3 to fives all of our kindergarten and below are the largest is 21 and most of them are 20 18 to 20 excellent thank you and Dr Forte the second floor at Riverview Annex I know that was a a topic of discussion during the presentation or the ad hoc presentation so um are we still looking at the um architect and studies uh did we get a quote for building that out so it's it's really not a thing where we need an architect for it's mostly sprucing up it's not there's not major work that needs to be done up there um you know flooring even the flooring is okay painting some um maybe a little bit of electrical work but not a lot of not too much to do up there um but believe it or not it'll still cost you know 50 to $100,000 but it's not it's not like major construction we're going to have to put it out the bid and have an architect and all that we'll we'll hire some of the stuff will be done inside and um as of right so really this is a little premature on the 15th of October that's when we do our October 15th count that's what every that's what matters for everything at the next Board of Education meeting you'll be approving the typical uh student report that you do every year the school report from that information we can look at the class sizes and have a better idea um I if you're if you're if you're really forcing me for an answer right now I would say we don't really have a need for that second floor even for next year at this point with the information I have now I'd say no got it thank you um M Kowski can you actually um put um for in the agenda old business uh education reports number two Could you actually um write out or type out include the the student count in there as well great yeah I think that uh Steve your your points are definitely um heard and I from from the presentation we have all these sort of steps and and things um hopefully we we'll hear the warning signs way before and I think one of the ways is to have a new new uh demographic study and let's have that sort of uh tell us a story once we get that uh new study out so any other questions or comments uh I did want to add a few things um just as a reminder tomorrow will be the debate for the uh new board members um also in the uh New Jersey school boards um I'm drawing a blank why am I drawing a blank uh that October meeting annual conference convention uh our very own uh unsung hero Nicole Kellum will be awarded uh and honored so I wanted to um you know publicize that here unfortunately I won't be able to make it something had come up so I had to uh uh cancel my reservation for that so I'm really proud of her and um finally I just wanted to bring attention the governance calendar um that uh we also discussed that during our committee uh I also heard that there was interest of pizza so definitely wanted to maybe have two meetings uh board meetings um that would have a um sponsored meal as well so um Pizza could definitely be we we could have a taste testing then possibly for the board members so uh any other um good of the cause comments just one quick thing I know brought it came up in the governance committee meeting that uh the board would like more information about what's going on in the schools dates calendars uh Cindy's looking into it it looks like an easy way was we could share the district calendar with your Gmail account correct and then you would have that in the district calendar anything on the district calendar would push to your Gmail account does that sound like something you want to do I think she already did it with Mike right as a test did you do it with Mike oh so they're gonna Cindy and her team is gonna get back to me with the next couple weeks and I'll shoot an email to you guys on the plan it might be something simple just like sharing the calendar and you guys can have those in there so that would show up on our Gmail or uh Google Calendar then yeah like on your Denville Gmail calendar I have it like where you could select the boxes of which one you want to see thank you okay we'll open it up for public comments at 811 anything that the public would like to share with the board okay seeing no one in the chambers and no one online I will close public comments at 8:12 and is there a need for an executive session I'm sorry Mr Kim do we have any [Music] highlights board highlights it's at the donation right for sure contract Steve did you have uh specific highlights that you wanted to share as well I have the donation of 10,000 is anybody else H we'll do the green thing for next time and maybe the unsung hero for next time as well after she's presented it in uh Atlantic City okay great uh so open uh public Comics were open and closed and we'll go into uh Steve executive yes okay so miss miss Adelis can you run us through executive session please sure I move to conven to Executive session in accordance with Section Eight of the open public meetings act the purpose of this closed session will be to discuss negotiations legal security and Personnel issues minutes of this session will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists I'll second thank you all in favor I I any n exensions we are an executive at uh 8:13 p.m. for the public we will not be voting on anything else so we will be adjourning immediately afterwards so thank you