with the borrow of Emerson please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all this meeting has been called to order at 7:30 p.m. roll call please Mrs Mara here Mr Pasdar here Mr Smith here Professor tigan here Mrs prone here uh Mrs Rivers forget gotta do you um okay I can well welcome everyone this is uh I think one of our uh one of our large lest turnouts although uh I think maybe half our paid employees and some family members but that's great um we've got a uh a number of presentations to make today so let me uh I'm going to move over to the other uh Podium and sort of get started with that so is this on yep okay great um well since you're up you're going to [Laughter] be um as many of you know uh today is the last uh Board of Education meeting for uh two of our longtime members and uh we want to send them off appropriately and uh so uh we'll start with Miss prone um and this is really a sad day for me um I'm really going to miss working with you an has been one of the greatest board members to ever serve Emerson from the beginning an never had an agenda she only wished to serve to make our schools the best they can do while she kept her pulse on the community their concerns their wishes their rumors she always LED with a focus on what's best for the children of Emerson and served for 13 years with eight of those as board president during her tenure we built our turf facility passed a historic referendum led the district in Strate strategic planning twice negotiated the pandemic and many other accomplishments big and air chair and chaired the finance and negotiating committee bringing her corporate management skills to aise and guideance when the difficult decisions needed to be made and never wavered she would always ask the difficult questions make sure we considered all options and forced us to do our homework more importantly she always insisted we do the right thing for our students our staff and our community she worked to unify the board and stood tall during many tough times always supporting the administration she was a champion following the chain of command and truly understood the sacrifices that needed to be made to be a good board member and she made them without any regret Emerson has been so fortunate to have such a smart dedicated and honorable person serve our community personally I'm grateful to had the opportunity to work with an and get to know her over the past 13 years from the day from the day we sat together on my porch as she was deciding whether whether she wanted to put her name in for the board we have been great friends with a bond having shared values about education parenting leadership and family on behalf of the Board of Education in the entire Community we present you with this small token of appreciation for all you have accomplished for the children [Music] of um before you go I have a guest speaker sitting in the back uh who' like to say also a couple words Dr Gates nice time I was told I was speaking I thought I was speaking over there as a member of the public not here not wearing a tie the uh it's my honor to say a few time have the van I know and finishing their term on the board um I find it difficult to to to to add on top of what already share and all the times and all the work that we've done here in good times and abandon tough decisions and in somewhat easy decisions I always rest assured knowing that as a board member and the board president that and at all times and all places was going to act in the best interest of the community that she would be there to listen to make decisions not get pulled into to this that or the other thing but realize that what was good for Emerson was what was good for Emerson's children and it's been absolutely was my ab my honor my absolute honor to work alongside her um you know it's interesting when you when you when you spend that much time with somebody sometimes you find yourself in foxol with them and you're managing a a crisis or a pandemic or a challenging financial situation it's when the tips are down you really see what kind what people are like you know when things are going great everyone's happy and it thumbs up and here we go when it gets challenging um it really shows you a person's character and during those challenging times I saw that an prone was one of the finest people that I know it was my honor to work alongside for 10 years congratulations and thank [Music] you [Music] oh that's very [Music] sweet [Music] [Music] so um I'm hosting a coffee and tea with the superintendent this was a pre gate coffee and tea superintendent uh coffee and tea uh in the old Memorial School library if you remember that it's now the art room sitting on those little uh the little people chairs inl walks a stranger with a jacket High my immediate thought us some reporter looking for some great scoop to publish in the community life or pasat press or something I have no idea turns out he was just a new resident of Emerson wanting to learn more about the school system his daughter would be attending I have no idea what we talked about on that day or what pointed questions you asked but I Peg you write then in there as a potential board member Jeremy was appointed in August of 2013 and served the Emerson public schools for over 10 years bringing his academic skills as a professor in higher education his contributions to the chemistry of the board were immeasurable even for a measurement Fe like Professor tiger he's the founder and chair of the board's curriculum instruction and student achievement committee Jeremy also served for many years on the buildings and grounds committee his participation insight and knowledge was integral to our success in passing the referendum designing the project and managing the construction You' always count on jar to be the voice of logic and reason always focused from a mile high View and never got distracted with the minu Emerson has been blessed to have such a brilliant caring person as a trustee of our Public School assist the administration and staff are grateful for his unwavering support and Trust personally Jeremy has been and will continue to be a great friend of the years and I'm so thankful for the support he has given me on behalf of the entire community and the Board of Education we present you with this small token of appreciation for all that you have accomplished for the children of an [Music] all I'll say about this is the uh very often we'd have we' reach out to Professor tigan in regards to a decision or something and and he would he would make it very simple and he would say that he trust the administration to to administer the district operate the district um and one thing I I realized uh with the the two board members up here and the current board members that we now see it's good to see everybody um that they never stood in the way of the people how to operate the district to operate the district um eyes on hands off they work from a 30,000 foot View and I remember that time and time again um also thing I want to mention too and this also goes for and and for Jeremy is that we we always recognize Phil and I would talk a lot about this that their time as a board member comes at the expense of their family's time and we know they would very often that they would they would think about what was going on here and they would at home they would it would be in their head and being a board member is interested right because you really cannot discuss these issues with people are outside of the board and and and that comes at a at a personal price when it comes with the family price and so I want to thank the families for for for loaning us their parents and their spouses over these years um the benefit of the district um you know when you think about the breadth of the work that's happened over the course of their time being board members and all that we've had a chance to do here in erson speak so much about the kind of place it is and it only happen under their leadership um never once never once can I recall and Phil I encourage you to do this too never once can I recall the the mission of the district being dragged down by any s sense of petty personal politics I never I cannot recall that happening and and that's a model that that boards everywhere boards everywhere should keep in mind so so Jeremy and Ed thank you very much [Music] you guys my [Music] was so um really hate speaking after Dr gadon and Dr Miss and uh everything that they said really resonates with me hold through so I won't go through all of that I'm going to try to read out some of the things that were uh especially meaningful for me uh with with and with um so I guess you could say an era of board leadership is coming to a close um but I think you have both left a uh lasting Legacy one that I think you both should be proud of I know I am and I think the Emerson Community should be as well um together and when I say that I mean Mr salami Mr kesi Dr gon and all of us we've uh we worked through some challenges some as Dr niss off mentioned a referendum an unpreceded unprecedented pandemic where there was no Playbook there was no use case that we could refer to and I was always impressed with your leadership and how you uh were able to manage through uh the decision making um and I think we we managed pretty well so so um I also wanted to note that when I watched you and both of you operate it was always having the students in mind it was your primary goal uh whether it was their academic well-being their social well-being their physical well-being there was no agenda it was always what's best for the students and for the community so um with that I'll I'll I just want to thank you for your years of service to the Amison community on the board I'd like to personally thank you for welcoming me onto the board some six years ago and um affording me the advice to counsel the collaboration and so I thank you for that and um you'll be missed but you have a good group of people that is here to carry on the good work that you did so thank you okay so we have a few more presentations to give today let me start with let me ask is Avery here I didn't see her I just want to make sure she's not hiding okay next up is going to be Mr Shan [Applause] Mr shama has been uh awarded the njic Patriot division Coach of the Year award and I'll read the uh I'll read the uh motion that's on tonight's agenda whereas the accomplishment of being a coach of the year is testimony to his dedication tireless effort and commitment NE to Excellence and whereas the Emerson Board of Education Emerson New Jersey County of berg wishes to recognize this outstanding achievement now therefore be resolved that the Emerson Board of Education on this 18th day of December 2023 hereby congratulates Christopher shama on this achievement we go coach coach had a uh definitely a what do we call this a rebuilding Year yes it's a rebuilding year uh did a fantastic job it was great watching great watching your girls out there you have at least one number of the tennis teams here two come on out here come on up here [Applause] with coach farell coach coach Farrell is uh head coach of our boys and girls cross country team um the boys team continued improvement over the past four years resulting in a league championship solid performances at the county championships you correct me if I miss anything or get anything wrong qualified for the uh bergam meita champions for the first time since 2007 and the sectional championships qualified for the state groups three years in a row and finishing an impressive fifth place finish in the state group championship highest boys team finishes 2007 that's correct the girls improved from uh 2022 highlighted by their second place finish in the league championship race third place uh final league standings and in fourth place finish in the state sectional championships which qualify them for the state group championships first since 2021 got that right did I miss any anything Key but you're here today because you have been selected as the njic metal lands division Coach of the Year award for the Park Ridge Emerson boys cross country team and whereas the this accomplishment of being coach of the year is testimony to his dedication tireless effort and commitment to Excellence and whereas the Emerson Board of Education of Emerson New Jersey County of Bergen wishes to recognize this outstanding achievement now therefore be it resolved that the Emerson Board of Education on its 18th day of December 2023 hereby congratulates Michael Farrell on this agreement congratulations what's the chance we have any of our cross country kids here today zero they're out they're out running somewhere okay that's picture you want to say a word all right thank you the great people Emerson and uh we look forward to good future thank you thanks again Mike for all you do for both Emerson and park reg um okay next there we go we received um significant grant funding a couple years ago most of that funding came from the American Rescue plan uh covid funding if you will the funding needed to be used for professional development and we made some strategic decisions at that time Dr gon who's here right now was intimately involved with that as is Miss oerman and the admin team Miss Espinosa Miss gagana we looked at some of our needs and one of those needs was having teachers trained in certain uh certain certifications the first one is um the desire to have more teachers trained in English as a second second language the certification for English is a second language as a district we have 1150 students three schools we have one teacher for the entire District certified in ESL if we put an in in the paper and tried to hire someone there's there's probably nobody there to to to uh in the market for that so we use some of that funding to train two of our own uh and those two teachers are Javier Garcia uh from the uh at the high school and Liz mfy from volano school so we can bring you guys up or just you Happ um okay I'm I'm GNA I'm gonna say well it says Elizabeth so okay whereas Elizabeth Elizabeth mclf has received her ESL Certification whereas this 18 credit graduate program through Monclair State University which led to the New Jersey Department of Education teacher of English is a second language certification and whereas the Emerson board of education has invested in these programs using the sr2 and sr3 Grant funds and whereas this accomplishment of receiving the certification honor as testimony to the high standard she sets for her students dedicated classroom practice and being an essential member of the school Community whereas the Emerson Board of Education Emerson New Jersey County of Bergen wishes to recognize its outstanding accomplishment now therefore be resolved that the Emerson Board of Education on its 18th day of December 2023 hereby congratulates Elizabeth mfy on this achievement bring them up bring them up you guys didn't expect that did you [Applause] [Music] [Music] next for many years we were always looking for ways how can we help our students learn how can we help our students achieve and and read and the best way we can we felt that we can do that is work towards making all of our teachers if we could reading specialist um we had this opportunity with this grant funding to uh take a number of our teachers and uh through a program with Fairley Dickinson University a 12 credit certification program we funded uh a program for these teachers to be certified in uh Orton Gillingham reading instruction or the actual certification I believe is the international multisensor sensory structured language education council certification otherwise known as Orton Gillingham part of that program also included a practicum where they tutored Emerson students two hours per week in phonic all that tutoring took place here at our schools um at night and free for the students and uh it was a a great opportunity again we had uh we have a small handful of teachers two or three in the district that has this certification this uh specialized uh method of teaching reading and now we have a whole cohort and we're super excited about this and you know before I'm going to read um I'm going to read a little something uh sent sent to us recently by one of our teachers uh I known her a long time so she's not going to be embarrassed that I'm going to embarrass her but this is from April katun who's here tonight to be recognized so I'm going to read your read your letter and it's a letter to myself and the Board of Education ation I hope this finds you well a few years ago a student entered my fourth grade classroom with reading difficulties the child mispronounced certain vowel vowel terms letter Blends and suffix suffixes making some grade level text unaccessible I worked hard Gathering lessons to meet the child's specific needs then the Emerson Public School District presented me with a fabulous opportunity to to study the Orton Gillingham multisensory approach to Reading Writing spelling and comprehension I truly cannot thank you enough not only am I more knowledgeable about the history and structure of the English language itself I'm confident in the benefits of this individualized explicit instruction in the two years since I have been a student of Fairly Dickinson University's program I have seen my students blossom into readers writers spellers attached please we're not going to read the attachments again thank you for this amazing opportunity for both student and personal growth I'm incorporating the Orton Gillingham multisensory approach within my current classroom to the benefit of my Scholars and so that says it all that we accomplished what we set out to and we're so proud of all of the teachers who I'm going to call up we're going to do this all at once um one time with the teachers and then another time uh we'll bring our our family members up before I do that I'd like to bring uh Dr Edwards is she [Applause] here Dr Edwards I'd like to introduce Dr Edwards from Fairy Dickinson who coordinated the program for us and taught our teachers so we're thank you for coming tonight thank you uh superintendent I have to practice your name Miss close enough they call him Phil all the time so miss up and thank you board for supporting our teachers um what I'd like to do is just bring them all up at once and then I'm going to read an excerpt from the letter that's in each of the packets and I'd like Mrs Osa to also come up if possible sure uh how about how about I call the names we'll call them all Kristen vital Nicole Michi [Applause] Mano Ain Alvin and I'm going to I'm going to call up not currently part of our faculty but a former member of our staff who also went through the training and she's here tonight and so we're going to bring Christine Tori up to join okay thank you everyone okay I am pleased to present your fdu Orton Gillingham teacher certificate this certificate represents the gold standard in terms of both the depth and the breadth of skills in providing OG approach to struggling readers including children with dyslexia this certificate represents the completion of four graduate courses multicentury reading one 2 3 and four congratulations on this important achievement on the special occasion of your certification I would like to charge each of you to be committed to the act of teaching reading as well as attending to the curriculum the art of teaching children with dle IA comes from your heart you will always be one of the teachers best prepared to give hope as well as help and sometimes healing to children with dyslexia that hope and healing will come from your caring about them and their families more importantly it will come from your belief in them and their abilities you are teachers who can help children address the reading problems but also help showcase their talents to the rest of the educational community you are a teacher who knows this best I charge you to be this teacher who will always do this to the best of your ability knowing and caring about the difference this can make in the lives of children with dyslexia and their families congratulations again you have more than earned [Applause] it my [Music] Pap okay can we du sit up straight sit up straight get that chocolate chip off you okay and that's all we have for presentation [Music] oh boy [Music] 8:00 haven't played um before we we send everyone home and congrats sin cely to everyone we don't want to have you feel you have to stay through the the whole meeting cuz you know a lot of you need to get home and get some rest um I did want to just take a a moment just to say a little bit words of thanks um for for all of the kind words that have been uh shared with me this evening and through emails and phone calls over the last couple of weeks um success in education is a collective achievement and I've been fortunate to witness the power of unity throughout my tenure I've seen firsthand the TR that true success is only attainable when a board functions cohesively offering unwavering support to our superintendent administrative staff teachers students and parents together we've weathered challenges and celebrated triumphs knowing that our collaborative efforts have a lasting impact on our students as I step down I carry with me the pride of being part of a team that prioritize the well-being and growth of each and every student and our shared commitment to fostering and nurturing learning environment that undoubtedly contributed to the foundation of success that our educational Community stands upon today I'm also proud of the improvements that Dr nisenoff mentioned related to our turf field and our referendum um as it puts us officially in the 21st century and provides countless benef benefits to our students and staff for many years to come to my past and present board members thank you so much for your dedication passion and partnership to Bruce pazdar Jeremy tigan Dave kesi Ben salemi Craig steel Mary Reid Sanjay despande and John dairo I have learned so much from each of you over the years and will be forever proud and grateful for all that we have achieved together so Dr nisenoff it has been an absolute honor and privilege working alongside you these last 13 years first as our business administrator and now as our superintendent Emerson is so fortunate to have you these past many many years and I know that by leaving here with this District now I know that you're in great we're in great hands under your leadership with John mamora as your new amazing wingman and to our former superintendent Dr Gaton who I also have had the honor and privilege of working alongside for 9 and A2 years our partnership was one for the ages and I will never forget all that you have done for our district and I can't forget Dr Vincent Taro who was our superintendent when I first joined the board as it was him and as Dr nzo mentioned uh the two that inspired me to become a board member in the first place to the administrative staff and teachers thank you all so much for what you do for our students your tireless efforts Inspire us all to the students and parents your unwavering support is the heartbeat of our educational Endeavors and lastly I'd like to thank my friends and family for their unending support and especially to my husband Dario and my children Michael and Megan being a spouse and a parent of a board member is not easy and I can thank you enough for your unending love patience understanding and support though my time on the board may be ending my belief in the power of collaborative education remains steadfast I have full confidence in this remarkable community and will continue to that will continue to thrive and build upon the foundation the foundation that was laid before us thank you for the privilege of ser serving alongside you all and I look forward to witnessing the continued success of our educational Endeavors and as the saying goes once a Cavo always a Cavo thank you [Applause] Jeremy did you want to say anything okay so um as I mentioned uh a lot of you probably live far uh you're more than welcome to say we won't be offended if you uh if you leave now um and uh thank you again to uh to everyone for all that you do for our district it really means a lot [Applause] have to right okay Professor tigan can you please open the meeting to the public I move to open the meeting to the public for input and comments on agenda items only second second by Mrs marrow all in favor I oh this is for agenda items only sorry um Mr pastar can you please close the meeting to the public from put in comments I move to close the meeting to the public for input and comments I second second by professor tigan all in favor I I um the board has had the opportunity to review the agenda in advance of this meeting and with that um Mr pastar can you please adopt resolution C oh sorry B I move to adopt all items on the above consent agenda with the exception of items number 28 and request separate consideration for those items indicated I second second by m professor tyan roll call please Mrs Mara I Mr pazdar I Mr Smith I Professor tigan I Mrs pressimone I um Professor tigan can you please adopt resolution C I move to adopt the following item number 28 requested for separate consideration second second by Mrs Mara all um roll call please Mrs Mara hi Mr Pasdar I Mr Smith Professor tigan I Mrs prone I um on to committee reports facilities buildings and grounds okay uh few items the um as uh Mr marmore will speak to this a little bit more so I won't delve into it too much but uh the qac um was being performed and uh they did the walk through for the facilities at Memorial and the high school uh some good news there I won't steal Mr marmor's thunder so he'll speak more to that uh some HVAC repairs uh were performed in the various buildings um and uh so we're good on those for now uh also the boilers for all three buildings are reaching the end of their useful life all of those are more than 25 years old and so we are working on a replacement plan for those and the um High School electrical service upgrade is moving along uh we'll have more to share on that uh in future meetings and um that's it for buildings and grounds thank you um for Budget negotiations um I do not have anything to report um Mr Smith do you have anything you'd like to add uh no we've had two meetings so far and it's the first year we're doing this with so far so good I think we're a and and I on track from a timing perspective so we're good okay thank you curriculum instruction um we had uh my final uh curriculum uh committee meeting uh before our meeting here uh this evening and I want to um reciprocate uh with uh uh first bullet point that uh Mrs oerman had where she said thank you to Professor tigan for his work on this committee and I want to just volley that back to with the giant thank you uh for all that you've done over the years I've it's been so um uh intellectually stimulating and um uh I'm in particular going to miss working with with with you um uh and um I just you know I'm I'm going to keep my eye on on your future reports looking off Pig graphs um so our meeting today was um hit some of the absolute just um meat and potatoes of what we do in the committee um we looked we took the the three big bull pointer data uh the second is sort of curriculum and curricular changes and the third is PD and how fitting it was there to have um sort of a celebration of professional development where we you know can can actually give out uh certificates for um our teachers uh innovating their skills um and and uh improving their their teaching game uh to uh confront um uh challenges uh with with with our children uh in new and and better ways of of of teaching um the lots of details and I'm going to just kind of just stay 40 feet 40,000 fet in the sky here uh the the class of 2025 data for uh the PSAT um uh we we took a look at at at that um Aspire uh some uh innovative uh new ways to explore data uh curricularly uh Mrs oerman um as she always does um provides extremely detailed ways that she is um you know both providing the sort of compliance um side of it where uh we're demonstrating to um uh you know the the people that keep their eye on on us um to conform with with State Standards um at the same time that we're um uh innovating uh our own our own materials so uh we to uh discussed qac um uh some new uh math standards um social studies uh starting to look at some um new ways of looking at uh social studies in grades 4 through six um and then uh talked about some um new um report cards for pre students um and some uh pilot programs uh for uh um measuring uh and Reporting proficiency uh and then I'll I'll I'll just leave the the professional development since it went so well in our Public Presentation I'll leave it at that great thank you so much um board member reports Mrs Mar so first I want to open with congratulating our dedicated teaching staff members who've shown just how far they will take any new Endeavor to try and continue to improve their skills so they can bring it back to the classroom I'm um so thrilled that we were have we had the opportunity to have Dr Edwards here to also present them with their certificates this evening um I also like that think we can call them the OG cohort I think that's kind of cool um so congratulations to all of them again congratulations to our student athletes and our coaching staff that was recognize this evening another tremendous efforts on behalf of our school district um briefly I know Bruce will probably get into this a little bit further but I attended the Bergen County School boards association meeting um earlier this month congratulations to uh Mr Pasdar who was installed as the New Jersey School Board of Directors alternate for uh the 2023 to 2026 years so congratulations to you always so thrilled to see just how far you keep on climbing um in in the Bergen County and on a state level for our community thank you to Mrs oerman for our meeting earlier today um for the committee academic committee uh report and then I too just want to say a few brief words about um Miss pressimone and um Professor tigan so first I'll start with the man seated to my right and I hope I don't embarrass you by going down this route but I think you expected it um for those of you who don't know I know professor tyan as my own Professor um at Ramapo College I attended Ramapo College for 4 years and I was a political science major so if you connect all of those dots you will quickly realize that I had the opportunity and pleasure and I think like the determination to take every possible course that I could that he was instructing and for those of you who have worked alongside him whether on this board or in the community or the administration um perhaps no why is because he's a tremendous um educator he is a tremendous person he is a wealth of knowledge and so the irony could not be lost on me for the opportunity to be able to then seat a committee with you talking about academics and curriculum and be able to continue the conversations and to continue to learn from someone that I have held as uh just an esteemed professor in my life who made such an impact on my career and my choices so I just want to thank you um for modeling the way that that committee should be handled with care I want to thank you for continuing to instill wisdom in me um all of these years later I won't go into those details um and also modeling the thoughtfulness and the care that you take this position and um not just because of your ties to the community and having a student going through these these schools but also because you just truly care about Academia and about how impactful these years are on our students and on their future so thank you um and then Mrs prone I will never forget the first meeting that I met you and it was because you stood up from behind the deis and walked over to me and said welcome um because that was a fresh face and I was had a student that was just starting in Emerson public schools and you went out of your way to say wow there must be a new person at a board meeting I'm going to go say hello to her and that moment was so pivotal for me because it it showed the trajectory of the kind of person that you are and how well you have always treated me on this board um and again you have been so thoughtful and for those of you who don't have the privilege to serve in executive session with miss pressimone you will not be able to see just how Dynamic of a leader she is and how thoughtful she is with the questions that she asks and I know it on her face because she'll start looking up and do this thing where she's like I'm ready to ask a question and normally it's hard-hitting um and you too have just truly modeled the way that a leader um presents themselves on a board like this where we are confronted with really challenging decisions and topics and difficult times that have to be wrangled by the five of us with the administrators um so I I truly thank you thank you for calling me thank you for handholding me this first year particularly and you've made a significant impact so um and final note for the two of you I it's bittersweet that I can only serve these 12 months with you um but I do want to say to the community that for those of you who have chosen professor tigan and Mrs pressimone time and time again to serve our community they have served it well and they have left a tremendous Legacy and big Footprints to fill so thank you both thank you very much and have a wonderful holiday to everyone Mr penar wow geez um all right I will uh I know my wife is out there with a with a stopwatch so I'm going to go through speed reing here uh congratulations to all the uh teachers who completed the Orton Gillingham and the ESL certifications Mrs Albin Mrs cuno Mrs masuchi Mrs Vitali Mr Garcia Mrs mlfy um congratulations to our coaches of the Year Mr uh coach shama and Coach Farrell and congratulations to the entire cross country team and um I don't know if ler back was here out okay so I'll leave that to the next one uh Bergen County School Board um uh I wanted to uh just mention that uh Mrs Mara was there obviously and I wanted to give a shout out to Mrs ricardi and Mr grck who were also there in attendance and uh I know that they had the uh training the three Rs roles responsibilities and rights for new board members I took that myself because I wanted to one have it serve as a refresher and two just to see what it is that new board members are seeing and I thought it was very well done hopefully you thought uh so as well uh there were some other things going on but they did do a presentation on branding and communication within the school district and I thought it was pretty uh well done effective I think we walked away with some good ideas of how we can uh Implement some of those ideas here in our district um uh so that's the County school board meeting the uh New Jersey State School Board uh Association delegates assembly I attended that on December 2nd in uh uh Trenton uh they discussed some I won't delve too far into it but uh they talked about things pertaining to funding Cuts uh ways to address the teacher shortages uh various pilot projects uh mandated training and other resources for local board members uh there's a new njsba connection online platform that is available for board members uh as a resource and uh also they've added some staff members as additional resources for local board members um volano Winter concert I attended that I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it uh I was expecting something different and I was very impressed with how well uh it was done how great the kid sounded uh thank you and congratulations to Mr Gibbs and Mrs Beckley for their work with the kids uh I I was amazed at the particip participation uh of the amount of kids that were in uh involved and uh they were just playing having fun uh they were raising their instruments and you know I hadn't seen anything like that so I thought they did a great job and uh I will tell you that the uh Emerson Winter concert is coming up on Wednesday so I encourage everyone to try and attend that and take in some holiday cheer um I hope everyone had a festive and happy Hanukkah uh I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very happy and safe new year and uh great holiday Tom per with everyone and we'll see you in 2024 time thank you very much uh Mr Smith yeah well I do want to congratulate Coes and athletes my first year every season seems we we uh coach of the year and Team of the Year uh nice Diversified a bunch of different sports uh also I want to congratulate [Music] ctif finally I want to thank think stated it's been a year only a year we work together um I want to thank you for the guidance I thank respect show me day one as a member in the room uh um you uh genely listened thought about any input we had um made sure you felt this felt that was involved at thank you very much for that thank you very much Professor T I have enjoyed an advantage for the 10 years I've served on this board to be alphabetically last and I get to bat last for the whole time I've been here occasionally using it as an opportunity to offer a onew board member report um and I'd like to uh exceed that but only by little um uh I I will not repeat the uh the you know the the entirety of uh what Mrs presmont offered but I too want to offer some thanks to uh the people that served in this board prior to me that um uh I I spent the first three years um listening and trying to learn acronyms very desperately quickly uh and get the hang of this um and uh it uh you really sort of stand on the shoulder of giants when you um take on a a responsibility like this um I want to thank um uh Dr nnof and and and Dr Gaton um uh for um our time together I count you both as as uh closed personal friends now um we we went through a lot um I want to thank um Mrs oerman um uh in particular uh for for our time together and I'm looking forward to our relationship fellow Emerson residents only um I also want to thank our two um new members um Keith and Amy and as you can see um Amy definitely got on my Christmas card list all of a sudden um and uh most importantly um I want to thank my girls in the front row here um uh as as as uh Dr gayon put it um they kind of families have to uh tolerate uh um conferences meetings um uh it's it's uh I I'm I'm glad to um uh Turn the Page um uh and and enter another phase of uh my relationship uh here uh but I'll continue to support every single member here um and uh I will leave it at that thank you very much um so I I good news is I've already said my piece about the other stuff so I I will just I won't do what Jeremy normally does and say I Echo what everyone else says so I will just since this is my last one just congratulations to the teaching staff for their certifications um they're obviously a very special group of people that were honored tonight but I think we all know that all of our teachers um have that same spark and that same desire to do the right thing for our children and that's what makes us so special um and it's one of the reasons why you know many reasons why when I leave this position I I really don't have any big concerns I think as many have said um even with our future board members coming you know we're we're a special place um we're not broken we don't need to be fixed um I think if anything it's about nurturing what we have and making sure that we continue the good work and effort that's been put in to make us the special place that we are um and the teachers that were here tonight are just a sample of of that level of dedication so I I congratulate them on the extra work and effort that they put in um also to Mr shama Mr Farrell um on their recognitions and all of the student athletes that are so fortunate to um be under their tutelage um and with that um just want to wish everyone a happy Holidays happy New Year and uh I will be on that side uh come January to welcome the uh new board members so um I'll see you then um Riv Miss Rivers oh my goodness thank you so I don't have much to say this time but I do want to say that our Key Club had their first midnight run we also had the opportunity to hear from our Middle School student council and get their opinions they create a winter spare we are also super excited to see our winter sport teams as they start their regular season and finally I just wanted to wish our concert a great Emma before before you finish our report thank you for your patience tonight by the way um for the benefit of the board who may not and perhaps members of the audience who don't know what the midnight run is you want to uh explain what that is so Key Club does a midnight run where they collect donations such as jackets um clothes really anything and they package up sandwiches and meals they bring it into the city at midnight and they go all over the city they go about 10 different stops and they hand out food clothes shoes to homeless people and people who don't have everything that they need and they try to get back and that's something thank you job thank you okay okay um I promise to talk fast so first uh I want to I want to thank the administrators that are here today uh Christian gagiano Jessica Espinosa Alice oerman thank you thank you for joining us uh we also have Sydney Duran the president of our teachers associations here tonight so we thank you uh we thank our new board members for coming as well and uh two of our former board members Mr kesi and uh Mr salemi Dr salemi thank you for coming tonight um the uh tonight we approved the uh high impact tutoring grant for about approximately $57,000 very exciting we're going to be having uh one one-on-one intensive tutoring over the summer for many of our students um some things that have been happening this month we had the uh coffee house at the at the high school a terrific event we had some uh Great Performances some of our newer teachers kind of jumped up onto the stage and uh worked with some of our uh some of our kids as uh Mr pazdar said the volano had their Winter concert and it really really was a fun a fun evening the kids just had fun and we're so excited about the amount of participation and the excitement in our music program and uh that really was a great event and yes the high school concert is this Wednesday here uh also slated to be an exciting event event uh as Emma said the uh High School sports season uh kicked off this week um this month we also held a uh junior family night uh the guidance department and Mr Hutchinson presented a uh uh preol planning for the junior class very well attended very well done uh we mentioned about the Cusack walkth through I just want to uh emphasize the uh fantastic job that John marora and uh Chris mcquain did in preparing our facilities uh just a tremendous amount of work and effort um into getting the facilities ready um dotting the eyes crossing the tees making sure all the paperwork was in order it was no small uh task by any means and so I thank John and uh Chris for that work you heard a lot about the Orton Gilling H and the succcess of that program that's the good news the good news is that it's it's over it's successful we're implementing it into our classroom now we have a demand for more and so how do we continue that and how do we get more of our teachers and uh that's going to be a challenge for us and we're looking forward to that challenge because we think it's really really valuable thank you to the board for approving our calendar uh tonight and for those in the audience who uh assisted Us in developing that calendar and getting that approved so that's all set um normally at today's meeting we would do a strategic Plan update we're not going to do that today that'll be in uh January um and with that just want to announce that uh uh January 8th I believe is our reorg meeting we will be installing our two uh new board members and with that everyone have a I wish everyone a a a a wonderful holiday season a happy New Year and have a great break thank you Mr mamora thank you um so first and foremost just uh thank you to Mrs pressimone and Professor tyan um even though it's been a short time that I've gotten a chance to work with you both um in my time here I could see the hard work that is definitely paid off and and how the district has benefited from you being a part of the board of education so um thank you for your service and dedication to the district uh as was mentioned before um cusac is going to be a common theme um that you'll be hearing about in the upcoming months so on Thursday we had our qack walkthrough with the county business official who visited Memorial and um the junior senior high school and was very impressed with the facilities had nothing but good things to say so as uh Dr noff mentioned um it's a it's no small task so a big thank you to all the staff that was involved the administration the principes uh Mr McQuade and the custodial staff and the teachers in the classrooms that helped to um make sure we were in compliance with all the County's requests um another event that happened since our last meeting um the cyber security task force met for the first time um which is made up of different District Personnel um from the IT department as well as Emerson residents that are experts in the field and it was um actually a really good uh meeting where we were able to discuss uh where the district's current uh position is on our cyber security position and we reviewed the actions that we've taken since the um incident in August and a great job to the IT department um the resident experts that were at that meeting um confirmed that we're taking all the right steps and we're on the right track and doing the right things to make sure that we're as secure as possible um the two 2022 2023 audit hopefully um should be closing up now hopefully we'll have a presentation of the audit for the Board of Education early 2024 and then finally as mentioned before by um Mr Smith we're in the middle of the uh 2425 budget development right now so meetings have taken place with uh different District personnel and the finance committee has met um we've already identified some early challenges um nothing new um salaries benefits uh so we're going to have our work cut out for us for this budget season uh and that concludes my report thank you so much um with that M uh Mr pastar can you please open the meeting me to the public for input and comments I move to open a meeting to the public for input and comments I second second by Professor tigan all in favor I I okay um Miss Mrs Mar can you please close the meeting to the public I move to close the meeting to the public for input and comments I second second by professor tigan all in favor I and Mr Smith can you officially close us out I move to close the meeting at 8:38 p.m. thank you the next meeting of the board of education is scheduled for January 8th 2024 at 7:30 p.m. in the High School auditorium um all in second Amy Mar seconds second thank you all um and all in favor okay we already said that okay thank you Mrs pron yes um given that it's your last meeting would you like to close it out with bang a gavl or oh sure I don't know if I've ever witnessed that but the good news is I hardly ever had to use this which is a good sign it was always here but it's dusty I move to close the meeting you all good call Bruce good [Applause] call okay where where can I send Chistmas and I know the rest