##VIDEO ID:RrC4lTWo5mM## I don't know that's [Music] itward I am calling the regular monthly meeting of September 6 2024 was reconvened and called to order at 7:30 p.m. at Thomas Jefferson School 37-1 Faron Avenue room 19 Faron New Jersey there are five members of the public in attendance can I have a roll call Mr here Mr B over here Dr berini present Miss Brown present Miss fa El is absent Mr Rosenberg here Mr Spindel is absent miss yman here Mrs Mayhem present we have AUM the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with provisions of this act the Fair Lawn board of education has caused notice of this meeting meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof distributed to the num the persons on the approved list posted in the Board of Education administrative office and sent to the Bergen Record and the Star Ledger the announcement posting for the regular monthly meeting along with the date place and time thereof was distributed on January 5th 2024 please join me in the flag salute I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for IT stand na indivisible and jusice for all so we are going to get started with our student representative report from Lindsay Samuel our faon high school student representative I do just ask the board that when you are speaking this evening that you be reminded to turn on your microphones hello everyone it's always great to see so many familiar faces at meetings like these um I just wanted to say that if you have if I had had the opportunity to meet you yet I'm Lindsay Samuel and I'm going to be the new board of education representative for this school year and I'm a current senior so it's a pleasure to be back at Fon High School especially as it is my last year Student Activities are already in full swing and all of our clubs and are in the process of having their introductory meetings and gearing up for our annual Club Fair on October 2nd at Club Fair each Club has a table where they display posters flyers and other information about their organizations and how students can get involved this is a great opportunity for students to explore all that we have to offer and figure out what clubs interest them aside from Club Fair we have a bunch of other schoolwide events to look forward to in the coming months our Student Government Association is preparing for our monthly General Assembly meetings fall Spirit Week our first ever Falon High School homecoming dance on October 25th and so much more yeah I'm excited too overall we have had a great start to our school year we're so excited to see what's to come and I'm looking forward to Future meetings this year thank you thank you Lindsay uh Dr Danio the floor is yours thank you Miss Mayhan thank you Lindsay and I'm not quite sure who's more excited about the upcoming dance if it's you or Miss Brown but I think she's willing to chaperone if we need extra sh so so uh tonight so tonight as we can see uh behind Miss yman we do have a presentation this evening Dr lactina and Miss DeFranco are going to be presenting on the graduation pathway data momentarily in a few minutes um so you're you're okay right now miss jman and uh and also on the district goals and objectives specifically the action items that we talked about last month that we would have a presentation tonight uh but before we get there I just want to Echo uh and thank Lindsay for being here tonight and being our student representative this year and uh it's an honor to have you here and to have our student voice being here amongst all of the adults so that way we can stay grounded in in the work that happens in our school so thank you for serving in this capacity welld deserved and as the board knows we also will have uh representatives from TJ and Memorial uh that typically will begin in October so our student Representatives will begin at the October 30th meeting uh but before we get into just a few highlights I did just want to uh say that we did have a very successful School opening this year uh everything ran very very smoothly uh and that's a testament to all of the Educators within our school district all of the staff members and certainly all of our students and our families as well so uh it's been a really wonderful start to the school year I think as Miss Hoffman shared were 16 days in um and uh looking forward to just a really wonderful school year ahead uh a few items that I do want to just highlight that have been prevalent within our schools first uh no place for hate initiative uh that started and stemmed at faon high school and we are expanding to our other district schools uh that continues to be a very important partnership that we have our student leaders this week recently shared some powerful words in a short video to explain the importance of signing a pledge to be a cutter uh and to be committed to what it means to be a cutter and to make sure that we have an inclusive and safe space for everyone uh activities at the high school occurred this past week and there was a commitment and signing of the Pledge uh we do have an update that will be going out in the next few days that will be sent out in the district uh superintendent Corner column in the communication and there will be a video that our students put together with Mrs vote and our administrative team around this really important initiative that was shared earlier this week we also had uh the start with hello campaign uh which is uh an effort that was established out of the Sandy Hook promise um that initiative occurred from September 16th through the 20th last week uh across all of our schools it's a program uh of assemblies and fun activities and making sure that we're welcoming once again and creating a very safe space and inclusive space for all of our students uh and there's a a video of our linest students that recently had a pep rally and they just had some really wonderful events over at linest and across our district uh with a kindness sprinklers uh initiative that they did we had arts in education week uh that celebrated our Arts education on our schools both Visual and Performing Arts um and it was just a really wonderful event to be able to see in all of the highlights of the amazing work that's happening in our Arts classrooms uh and now we are in National Hispanic Heritage Month um that takes place from September 15th to October 15th uh celebrating the history the culture and accomplishments of national Hispanic Heritage Month um so a lot of really exciting things spearheading and starting off the school year on the right foot we're really excited about a number of different initiatives that we're going to be focusing on this year um and I'm going to turn it over now to Dr lactina and to Mrs DeFranco who will continue with as you will all recall uh the work that we summarized back on May 30th which was the state of our schools presentation we will now be able to see how the feedbacks uh survey feedback that we received from our community really ties in and builds into the direction and the goals uh and the action items that we have moving forward for the 2024 2025 school year so at this time I'd like to turn it over to Dr lactina Who will start us off good evening everyone uh before I get on to the district goals and the associated action items we need to report out to you on the graduation Pathways data uh from our class of 2024 that graduated in June so we had 387 students that graduated from Fon high school and what the rest of this chart tells you is what were the assessments that the students passed required by the New Jersey Department of Education that allowed them to graduate from high school so the NJ GPA is the first pathway it's the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment 346 of those graduates passed that assessment in ela 345 of them passed that assessment in math those that did not pass the njpa were able to take take any number of substitute competency tests such as a PSAT an SAT an acup Placer for example 37 additional students passed it in ela and 37 students passed that in math there were several students that still needed to um meet one of the requirements the assessment requirements for graduation so three other students took the portfolio appeals process in ela while two took it in math um there are sometimes instances when students in their IEP it uh allows them to take a different alternative requirement for high school graduation so one of our students did that in ela three students did that in math and there were four students that were denied graduation um last year and that was due to uh a lack of credits they had did not have enough credits moving on to District goals hopefully we're all as excited as she is all right um as Dr Deano said um last year we gathered a great deal of data Dr n dionio sent out a thought exchange um in which he asked key stakeholders what are the points of Pride that you have in our schools what should we be celebrating and where is there an opportunity for us to improve and continue to grow when this got sent out it was sent to students it was sent to all of our staff Board of Education members parents as well as community members that perhaps don't have children in the school we received 2,423 responses from those responses those participants created 2,186 different thoughts about points of Pride and points for opportunity this number however is really incredible we also ask um our stakeholders to comment or rate those thoughts we have so students represented 54% of these responses and so on all of this information was gathered and here is a summary of what those thoughts were so there's a great sense of pride in our diversity our academic Excellence the extracurricular activities that are offered in our schools they appreciate that we celebrate different cultures different holidays the quality of our education um is believe to be a strength the variety of clubs and sports that we offer but they also highlight areas where we can continue to improve they talked about a need for more awareness programs on bullying and kindness better preparation for our high school students more focus on staff Wellness improvements in the physical infrastructure particularly the cleanliness of the bathrooms they also talked about um wanting more emphasis on Mental Health inclusion of more career Orient ented courses and better management of student Behavior those were the areas that we received from the over 2400 people that responded and the 53,000 plus um ratings so these areas right here the areas that our constituents said we believe these are the areas that we need to improve upon that became the focus for us When developing our district goals as well as the action items that went along with them they fit perfectly right into these three District goals Career and Technical education maintaining student and staff well-being and tiered academic systems of support so we're going to go through each of these District goals and explain to you the different action items that we're going to undertake this year to reach these goals so Career and Technical education we want to explore programs and courses of study that prepare students for the world of work by introducing them to workplace competencies and real world applied content so what are we going to do I'm going to backtrack a little bit in some of these slides to June July and August because we did not get to report that last year and it's important for you to see the Continuum so over the summer we talked about this last year but over the summer we actually finished completing the curriculum for the global Supply Chain management number one and number two course so those were written over the summer they are being implemented currently so first semester we will be offering Global Supply Chain management one and second semester we will then start to um implement the global Supply Chain management too if you remember we talked about uh student surveys that we did last year and we got a lot of great data from that and based on that information we now need to do something with that with those results so we are going to continue our discussions about how can we expand our elective options for our students in 9th through 12th grade we know that students expressed a desire um they like culinary so is that something we need to explore and continue to expand they talked about marketing these are areas that we want to continue to look at to see if we should be expanding and how we can do that we also want to ex explore those options for our seventh and eighth grade students as well if we can start to talk to our seventh and eth graders about some of these opportunities introduce them to more ideas more types of courses will that Inspire them to then seek out those opportunities once they get to the high school so we want to investigate that as well you know from last year that we talked about coding and computer science we're starting our new python course this year but we want to continue that work and we want to continue to explore what else is possible in the area of computer science the student survey said students are interested in it we interested in it what else can we offer is it cyber security is it app design you know what is um what are the interests of the students what are we capable of possibly uh creating as far as new courses at the high school in that area again we use those survey results um to sort of guide us in the direction of some possible new CTE opportunities for example vocational theater The Culinary one that I mentioned earlier so if we believe that we can possibly move forward with these we're going to create outlines for the three courses that we would need to have in order to apply for approval from the Department of Education um we're also going to be looking at just focused courses of study so even if it's not a CTE appro program is there a three course sequence that still would provide students with an expanded opportunity in a very focused area if we do become a CTE program we need to identify industry Partners we have to do that work in this school year so that we would have placements for our students next year we want to again uh look at possible computer science courses create those course outlines we need to meet with our budget committees to say hey if we're going to move forward with this do we need any money do we need to budget um anywhere um to make sure that we can actually hold these courses once we talk about that we can meet with the Board of Education present the um the viability of putting these programs into place and um I'm going to skip one for one second because I'm on a roll with the CTE we have to um do the comprehensive local needs assessments for our Perkins Grant we have to apply for approval for any possible CTE expansion programs uh and then over the summer we would obviously finalize and develop the actual curricula for those courses we also though in addition to all of this work want to also make sure that we are looking at program offerings and expansion of our general electives for our students with ipps as well to make sure that they also have these similar opportunities um so that's an important piece of our action plan I'm going to invite Mrs DeFranco up to talk about our maintaining student and staff well-being elect um goal yeah action um so in order to have wonderful Wellness activities and goals you need to start always with a committee so I'm always really excited because we have representatives from each of our schools that serve on our Wellness committee and have spearheaded a lot of these activities within the district um we'll be meeting probably another couple of weeks with this committee this year we were fortunate enough um based on your support as a board uh we have a different guidance structure at the high school level which includes grade nine um school counselors um these are school counselors that focus on our grade nine students their case load is specific to grade nine and works to make sure that transition into high school goes a lot more smoothly but also Al uh creating inroads and making Pathways for our eighth grade students they'll visit our eighth graders throughout the year just to make them feel more uh comfortable as they Venture into the high school experience that also relates into our CTE goal because they'll be speaking to them about what kind of Pathways and activities they would like to see at the high school so we'll see um their uh interest and um opinion um weaved into what we talk about later for CTE much of what you're going to see tonight when we talk about Wellness is not only our Wellness day and wellness activities but also a lot of PD that we want to be providing for our staff um which can then emanate out to the classroom setting um for years into the future so the first is um providing um professional development for student mental health and classroom strategies for our teachers so identifying at RIS groups and um making sure that they feel like they can handle those groups part of that is going to come from our suicide awareness training this year um and part of that came from um your feedback in terms of hey my student is struggling and having a difficult time some of that was from our even our students at the high school which most of which completed this survey and felt like last year this started and it continued into this year in terms of providing GR for how to manage when you're taking tests how to manage when you have a lot on your plate how to manage your time how to deal with the stressors that come in and out um especially uh at the secondary level we found a lot of feedback from that level um and also giving professional development from our school counseling staff and CST staff to teachers of high achieving Learners that also ties back into what Natalie has spoken to you about in the past with our gifted and talented uh Learners and our high achieving Learners and that was part of the audit that was done saying hey our teachers need guidance for this group of Learners um with that being said we also wanted to make sure that the students all students not just High achieving students could get access to our counseling and our resources so you'll see that at the bottom where it says um how to prepare for high stakes tests and activities this year again we're providing PD um for reacting to incidents of HIV um and bias um we are going to be having ADL training and the comegno Law Group provided Hib training last week we thank them very much for all of their service it was a wonderful training um for our uh School administrators on how to um recognize Hib um plan for it and um you know really gave us that good legal update that we needed in terms of that um we're also uh going to be implementing our um school-based activities for wellness it's going to look a little bit different this year our Wellness day is going to be building based instead of pulling a district-wide wellness day because as uh Dr dionio said before we're doing our no place for hate activities we're completing our ADL training um I mentioned earlier about suicide awareness training we have a lot of training that needs to be completed we try to prioritize our Wellness activities we didn't want our Wellness day to disappear or go away but we're are going to be doing it at the building level and the reason is that it just Pro provides us with a little bit more flexibility in reaching our staff that is not to say we're not going to have wonderful activities for our staff on that day and for our students but you might see that building per building we will have a theme for the district because as you know we still like to be consistent we like to be unified we like to uh work together as a group and as a team so that's why we're going to be meeting with our Wellness committee to come up with that team and at the end we will be con uh coning two meetings over our District's Community Leadership Council that Dr diano started last year which I think just ties everything together in terms of Wellness making sure our community members are present making sure uh different stakeholders are present at the table they were so productive and we look forward to those in the future and our final goal is the tiered academic systems of support um which will provide enhanced educational opportunities for our diverse Learners using differentiated instruction um so this is a continuation goal as well we we have done a great deal of work in this area uh again backtracking a little bit to June we had started using Dibbles last year we reported out on that but then in June we provided additional training to all of our staff in uh kindergarten grade one Elementary special special education and all of our literacy intervention teachers received that training we're also very fortunate that we have three literacy coaches in District they received the Train the trainer training um so that they can now TurnKey that to any of our other staff members that may have missed some of those trainings so that's a a great benefit to our district uh we are now going to be using a new Elementary reading assessment protocol which is dibles that is why we have such an emphasis on here we believe that it brings us much more beneficial and targeted information about our student skills so that went into effect in September we're also implementing a new literacy resour uh resource in grades three through four called no red Inc it's a computer-based adaptive uh writing support program that provides modeling for students on how to write um it shows them it gives them um opportunities to engage in exercises where they can reorder sentences and change grammar to improve their writing uh students so far really like it it's engaging it's based on their interests um so we've gotten some nice feedback from that so far as you heard last year we we updated and revised our grades K through six gifted program we implemented that this year so we are in uh in the midst of um identifying and doing some assessments right now we are going to continue with our reading portfolio assessment and dibble's work with all of our elementary special education students we started this last year we are going to continue that to help us with guiding their programs we did a great deal of work last year with data analysis that is going to continue We are Becoming much more proficient with looking at data and ident identifying groups of students to put together to work on specific targeted skills so it really helps to guide our instruction and what we are going to continue to do is use our grade level meetings at elementary to work with principes and coaches and our teaching staff to continue that data analysis work we're going to use faculty department and grade level meeting meeting time to uh do that as well to newer things we are going to now Target um not just looking at class level data and looking at the students within a classroom we're now going to look at Specialized programs we're going to look at our early intervention literacy programs and we're going to work with our coaches and the elementary literacy Specialists to drill down for those students needs so again anytime we have the opportunity to look at data and identify better ways for us to instruct those students it it benefits our children um we're going to do a very similar thing with our elementary coaches and our special special education teachers to specifically look at their students data in math and literacy again targeted skills instruction is what this is all aimed at differentiating the instruction to meet the needs of our students along with Dibbles we have something called amplify mclass and what this is It's a computer-based program that allows us to do very quick uh assessments of our students to gather data and then this program then is able to provide for the teacher activities lessons and strategies immediately oh a student is having a problem with this skill here's a relevant applicable lesson and strategy that you can use to address that child's need we are extending our professional development on the topic of multi-tiered systems of support we have already scheduled for our grades two three and four teachers this year and we are scheduling Middle School Math teachers as well so that will be coming up on our halfday PD days um in October January um and then we might be bringing um some of our professionals back at some other times to work with our our staff in follow-up meetings so at the end of the year it's really important for us to take a look back and reflect we are going to reflect back on our mtss work we're going to reflect back on our new gifted program structures and find out what works what doesn't work what do we need to tweak and refine and or expand for the following year questions thank you for the presentation as always wonderful um I'm glad to see the continuation of District goals um since it gives us the ability to focus on growth rather than just benchmarks and getting it done through the year um I had one question uh concerning CTE so I saw that most of the ones that we're talking about and the ones that are mentioned on the benchmarks are elective courses that we currently have but we're looking to change them into CTE programming it appears so that's culinary the theater uh just how we did with child care um but what's missing there I think and I don't know if this is a discussion of those that are traditionally considered trades I know we had talked about that in the past um but it just seemed to be missing up there and I didn't know what the plan was there yeah so when we surveyed the students last year we did ask about CTE Focus programs but we also did ask about vocational and trade programs so I'm just going to refer to my notes so I need glasses that's okay I could see far just not close up um so when we asked the students they we had 54% of our students say hey I'm really interested in electrical and we have 45% saying Automotive would be great they think that's interesting Plumbing 18.7% HVAC and Refrigeration 11.2% so you know we take a look at those and we say well Automotive that's that's really interesting and would love to do that that would involve a lot of uh facilities work right it would require buildings and special equipment and um a lot of more long range planning um so it's something that's going to be harder for us to implement in a district goal this year obviously right that's big discussion um and electrical same kind of thing we would have to that's a little easier we might not need as specialized rooms um so we are not discounting that we're not we want to look at this data as well um it's just a bit of a longer range plan um and also we have to consider kids think it's interesting will they actually apply to those programs so we might have to get a little bit more information from from some of our students as well we were just saying like hey what would you like us to consider implementing right but we do have to consider some of that in there as well um that has been a course of discussion as you know for a couple of years the trades um so you know we have Goods we have um you know with our design program and architecture they don't necessarily have to go to architecture school for that they could go into a trade um but I do understand what you're saying we have not forgotten that um it is still something that's on our radar it is going to take a different type of planning for us to consider some of those kinds of programs and if I may add as well um on that point you know part of the conversations that we've had are how do you uh introduce some of these courses to students to gauge their interest before we start looking at more of a larger scale uh building additions building rooms you know can we do something on a smaller scale really test out to see if the students are really going to number one truly be interested and number two fit it into their schedule with all of the other amazing course options that we have right so that's where we need to continue to work this year around what what that potentially looks like and then try to scale it from there if there's student interest um just to kind of PEB off of what Joe was saying too I know in your um presentation there was discussion about um Community stakeholders and um getting them involved too is that something that we could look into to see uh to gauge interest because I know that there are a lot of automotive shops in town is that something that we could look into uh utilizing excuse me when we're um thinking about that yeah I think like with any any program that we have any course offerings anytime that students have real world application outside of the classroom um that has significant tangible benefits for our students uh whether it's in advertising or in marketing or in automotives so similar to the other programs that we create you know creating those partners ship is is critically important and we have a lot of really amazing businesses within our community that are willing to help and are looking for students to come and learn and to contribute into these different fields so there's a ton of potential out there um I also wanted to thank the administration for their thoughtful and thorough planning um that's obviously in place to improve and continue to expand our CTE programs um and for all of our students in the district uh looking for Career Training opportunities for when we leave our Halls I'm really excited to see where these are going to take us like Joe said you know we're not hitting benchmarks we're we're in the business of showing growth in these goals so I really appreciate that um I also appreciate as a special education teacher that you have really been thoughtful in targeting PDS geared towards special education teachers and their students specific needs um because I've sat in many meetings that didn't apply to me or my students so it was nice to see in your planning um and in your uh goals that you have things specifically geared towards that so I thank you um I'm also impressed with the continued Community involvement as it relates to our district goals keeping those lines of communication are really really important um because like you said we have a lot of stakeholders who can um really help our district goals um outside of the school wall so I appreciate you doing that as well so I just want to thank you all thank you Dr berini I have a few points one I want to piggyback on what jean piggybacked on what Joe said so I guess I'm a double Pig H but I think if if space becomes an issue there's a shared programs with lincol tech and Eastwick that we could utilize if we have to uh secondly it was a quick slide but I think it's important to emphasize uh the graduation slide early in the beginning of the president presentation that less than 1% of our students had to used the portfolio program to graduate which is a significant point and a complement to both our staff and our students for their academic achievement second all I want to thank both Mr Franco and Dr Latino for the detailed presentation tonight I think it was it was wonderful and it shows where we're moving as a district and finally I'd like to recognize and applaud Dr lactina as she comes near her end as after 20 years in the district uh she could have certainly coasted through this year and said I'm done in December uh but obviously by the presentation tonight she she remained dedicated and professional to our school district so I want to appreciate that and thank you of course of course Mr Rosenberg wow that's what I want to say first first of all I I want to piggyback on uh Dr B more of a pig than you uh on Dr ber statement about uh the high school graduation rates um it very very impressive of course we would like there to be zero at the end but there's always going to be kids that don't reach their potential um as far as the uh District goals I have never in my 17 years here seen such a detailed plan um going forward forward and how we're going to look at the results and and um I really really really appreciate it um I know the CTE um it's it's hard and long process and I agree with Joe that we do need to start looking at some some of those trades traditional trades um because I've heard a lot from from the public about that so I'm glad that it's not you know I realize how long that's going to take but I'm glad it's not been forgotten certainly and I want to thank Dr um dionio for doing that research amazing results I've never seen anything in this District come back with so many respondents so um that's the way to do it certainly um so I I really appreciate it and thank you and thank you Mr Franco for everything you do especially for our um special needs population I really appreciate it thank you and can I make a comment is that okay sure um one of our strengths that perhaps was not listed up there um because not everybody is aware of it is our collaborative leadership in this District um and not not only the leadership but I think it's also the collaboration between the leaders and the staff um our all this work here that you're seeing whether it's graduation results or action plan is the result of a team of leaders and a team of teachers and other key staff members working together um for the ultimate goal of making sure kids learn because that's our job that's what we're here for it's about every single student um and ensuring that they learn so I am grateful to all of our administrators that have helped with these goals and have helped do the trainings and work with our staff and I can't say enough about our teachers our educational Specialists and secretaries custodians everybody in our district but the work they do every day with our students is impressive and I believe that we have a fabulous working relationship with them and it's because of that teamwork that we have results that you see right here and that's from kindergarten through grade 12 um and our preschool as well here at Edison so um I just wanted to say that I want to make sure that people know that it's this is the result of the the whole Community it's it's the village it's not just a couple of people that are presenting tonight thank you anyone else Miss yman I'm not going to piggy bank back um but I am going to say uh congratulations wonderful presentation and the comments uh that were made and what was presented really fantastic thank you so much sure this is the public portion on the agenda items only please limit questions at this time to resolutions on the current agenda please provide your name and municipality in which you reside and sign in comments are limited to 3 minutes and specify the resolution you are referring to in your question or comment this is not a dialogue between the speaker and the board all comments will be taken at once and when public comments are complete the board president or District administration will respond as best they can during the public portion of the meeting for other business the same procedure will apply the floor is open yes because we are recording for YouTube and fairon TV thank you my name is Joyce stus I've lived in paralon for 70 years I've gone through all of the school systems my children have gone through all of the school systems and my grandchild gone through all of the school systems I've seen many many changes in fairon some for the good and some for the bad as it should be because the world is changing what I'd like to say is I have a granddaughter who's 22 years old just graduated from college and she has said to me on multiple occasions Grandma you're so lucky because when you grew up in Fon you had fun we don't have fun anymore we used to have football games on Saturday we used to have football games on Thanksgiving kids would buy their parents of mum cage um there were hot dogs served there it was a fun fun thing Grandma stayed home and put the turkey in the oven but everybody else was watching the football game we've gone from no people going to football games and now we play on Thursday night it's absolutely terrible but the real reason that I'm here I worked for the board of ed for 25 years I was the secretary to the principal at Memorial School I retired about nine or 10 years ago I had a wonderful time working with all of the People Natalie Joanne Wilson and all the people that aren't here anymore but what I'd like to find out is been allotted to change the FL to a different logo and if it has doesn't the Board of Ed have something better to do with $20,000 than change a logo which was when I graduated in 1963 was an f and an L now it's a bubble now it has to be changed again what is the purpose of changing the what does it do does it make the district better does it make the kids happier could the kids have designed something instead of paying somebody to do this to me it's a waste of money and I have to say that when I worked for 25 years in Memorial I saw a lot of things that were wasteful and it's really disgraceful and I have to say that if this thing should go through and $20,000 is spent to redesign the FL I will never vote in another Board of Ed budget and I will tell all of my friends and I have many people who graduated with me and still are in Falon that this is not a good way for the board to be spending money I'm sure somebody needs a computer I'm sure a classroom needs an air conditioner I'm sure there's something I watched Memorial and TJ go from homech and wood shop to nothing they sold everything it wasn't necessary everything had to be a computer now I understand it's all going back in again so all those sewing machines and kitchens gone that's enough I can't say more okay well so that you know this is not acceptable in this town three minutes to say you're not doing Justice to this town is there anything on the Google form yep please be mindful that these are on agenda items only so I can't comment on this no we will be referring back is there anybody who has any questions or comments on agenda items only is there anything on the Google form there are no comments Mr derus we will respond if there is a is a comment or question in response to your statement at the end during other business as this is focused on agenda items only okay understood this is on agenda items only okay this is not a conversation I'm gonna move into board comments I'm sorry ma'am I'm now going to be opening the floor to board M comments on agenda items only I'm going to be moving into board comments on agenda items only seeing none the floor is closed can I get a motion nope can I get a motion for 3A so moved roll call please Mr yes yes yes yes yes Mr yes obain yes motion passes can I get a motion for 6 a through D so moved second it's okay I'll go back a motion I yeah I me roll call Mr baldowski yes Mr bant yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Mr Rosenberg yes M Yurman what was the number 6 a through D okay yes on everything and except an extension on 6815 thank you Mrs Mayan yes motion passes I'm going to go backwards um can I get a motion for 5 d and e so moved second roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Mr Rosenberg yes M Yurman yes Mrs Mayan yes motion passes can I get a motion for seven a through e 7 G through J so moved second roll call Mr balowski yes Mr B yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Mr Rosenberg yes M Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I have a motion for eight a through C so moved second roll call Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes Dr berini yes m brown yes Mr Rosenberg yes M Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I have a motion for nine a through C so moved roll call Mr balowski yes Mr bant yes Dr berini yes m brown yes Mr Rosenberg yes M yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I have a ro a motion for 10 a through Q so moved second roll call Mr baldowski yes Mr B yes Dr berini yes m brown yes Mr Rosenberg yes M Yurman yes Mrs Mayan yes motion passes can I have a motion for 11 A and B so moved second roll call Mr baldowski yes Mr B yes Dr berini yes Miss Brown yes Mr Rosenberg yes M yman I'm GNA abstain on both Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes this is the public board comments on any items no it's not this is the public comments on any items please provide your name and municipality in which you reside and sign in comments are limited to 3 minutes this is not a dialogue between the speaker and the board all comments will be taken at once and when comments are complete the board president or District administration will respond as best they can the floor is open Christine Weinstein Baron um I wanted to just quickly ask about the status of the high school digital sign that's outside I know last year we were asking about if it was going to be fixed by the end of the year I think they're waiting for a part I'm not really sure where we are with it but it's still blank a lot of great information is posted there all the time um congratulatory you know uh notices are always put up there it's really great to have that back so I hope that it's in the works to be fixed just would like an update on that uh the other thing is we had back to school night last night and it was so much fun I just have to say the high school is just an amazing Place meeting with my son's teachers and he's a senior this year and it's just I want to go back I want to sit there I said to him I'll go to school for you I'll sit there the teachers are just so engaging and wonderful and on this level hearing them talk about uh career opport unities and how they present this and they bring it into the curriculum and and just it's very exciting to hear and it was just a really a great night I just absolutely love the high school so I just wanted to bring a positive note thank you good afternoon on August 26th I stood before you and raised concerns about high ranking administrator using student images on personal website without proper consent instead of directly addressing the issue the website was quietly taken down without any public acknowledgement or transparency from the board after the meeting I was informed that the same administrator had a Twitter account where images of AirLand children were posted as of now the images of our student students remain visible on personal LinkedIn accounts despite these clear violations the board has taken no decisive actions to determine or even address these issues this these inaction seems to be direct conflict with Fair alone all access form federal and state laws for instance the policy 1920 which is a um board um policy states school district will not release or publish photographs of individual pupils without the prior written permissions from parents and legal Guardians the lack of response from the board is strugling failure to obtain proper consent before using images of minors is not just an oversight it's a serious offense yet despite repeated warnings and public concern there's has been no public acknowledgement of these actions after an elect as an elected body it is your duty to establish and enforce policies and protect the privacy and ensure the safety of every student in our district by by not addressing these concern the board is failing to fulfill this fundamental responsibility tonight I formerly request that the board immediately initiate an independent investigation to this matter the insur um the investigation must determine how and why high ranking administrator was permitted to post these images on personal platforms additionally I urge the board to take immediate action to develop a comprehensive and clear policy governing the use of student images this policy must establish where students images can be posted Define the scope of parental consent and ensure that the personal accounts of District employees are never used for this purpose I urge you to act now to protect our children's privacy and ensure that this kind of violation does not happen again really quickly in closing I wish to emphasize my unworn belief and importance of privacy I a principle I have consistently upheld during these public meetings by refraining publicly disclosing the administrator's identity something that they unfortunately fail to extend to the children of our community protecting the privacy and well-being of children should remain our top priority our laws exist to protect the right of every child it is our Collective responsibility to ensure these protection are enforced for the furthermore proper safeguards and checked must be put in place to prevent any one person or entity from welding unchecked Authority I trust that the board will take the necessary step to reserve conf confidence in our district system and protect the children of this community I thank you for your attention and in this urgent matter thank you so much e even Board of Education members and our community I'm binsky I'm a resident of Fon and I'm also a candidate for Fon Board of Education and tonight I would like to discuss the following few matters that we have recently going on so um matter number one is the use of fair loone logo by candidates for Board of Education the second matter is Islam in medieval times and Kingdom of West Africa is stated in Thomas Jefferson Middle School unit 2 in seventh grade enriched social studies curriculum pattern number three is the tradition of Fon High School seniors painting their cards and the policy on hate speech or political speech as slogan painted on a student's car and the last matter is the correct M of feon Blue Ribbon School status um I just want to say I appreciate the opportunity to be here today at the meeting to speak on these matters and I appreciate your time as well and the answers and I shall proceed um in regards to the logo as I mentioned I would like to mention that the fair loone logo is owned by the district my question is has the candidate who has been using the fearone logo on the campaign sign has obtained a permission to use the fearone logo for the campaign I would also like to ask if the candidate has been endorsed by the teachers union and I would also like to mention if this is permitted May other candidates for Board of Education use the logo for their campaigns as well because otherwise this seems like an unfair Fair advantage to all the other candidates who are not using the fair loan logo on their campaign signs um as I mentioned on my agenda for today the number two is the communication I had with the Thomas cherson social studies department and I would just like to get some clarification because this is a relatively new curriculum and I'm trying to get an understanding on this so I'm just going to read a little bit of my email back and forth I'm not going to mention any names so um I began by saying I greatly appreciate your understanding and sending over the syllabus I had reviewed it and I have a question regarding unit number two why is a public school teaching religion specifically Islam and also if we teaching about Islam when will our children learn about other religions um such as Christianity and Judaism Etc um as pertain to the medieval times I'm not trying to offend anyone I'm just trying to understand this method of teaching so I have the syllabus here um just wrap up okay I'll try to make a quick sorry okay you know what I'm going to move on to my next issue because this is a bigger issue actually yeah okay I'm sorry um this is a big issue this is um a failon high school issue so um we have here a student who PID ma'am if you wouldn't mind uh each person has provided three minutes I'm going to open this up to the duration of the audience and then I will go to the Google Doc you will get additional three minutes if we have not maxed out okay I'll be back thank you so much anyone else okay Google doc there are no comments on the Google Doc miss tolinski you can have an additional three minutes at that point we will be closing the floor to public comment okay so um as we mentioned that you know we have no no place for hate And in regards to so I know this is a a regular tradition that we paint the cars the seniors of the Fon high school they paint the cars with various slogans so I'm trying to clarify if we have a specific policy in place where they can't um use something so so extremely political because this is clearly it is stated by ADL which you guys work with that from The River To The Sea Palestine will be free it's a clearly anti-semitic um comment or slogan and I admitted the person's name for their privacy because I'm not sure what's going on with that and lastly um this is a small one it's actually just something that caught my attention yesterday's back to school night regarding the Blue Ribbon School status so um so here we have it says National Blue Ribbon School for the Fon High School which is correct because obviously the status does not expire but if you go on National Blue Ribbon schools. ed.gov it clearly states that a school's National Blue Ribbon status does not expire once a School receives the award it remains National Blue Ribbon School however the school Representatives must always use the year of the award when identifying the school as a National Blue Ribbon School for example Central High School 2021 National Blue Ribbon School is correct meanwhile just stating National Blue Ribbon School is not correct and if you do a Google search it is said that the last time Fon high school was sorry hold on just a second so it was basically the last time in 1990s so it would be just you know a good thing to mention when we talking about Fone High School being a Blue Ribbon School um here it is it says in both the 1990 through 91 and 1997 to 98 school years Fon high school has received the National Blue Ribbon Award of Excellence so this would be the and we should probably um look into why wasn't Fone High School awarded blue rbon award since then thank you for your time I apologize I took extra time thank you the floor is closed I will now open up the floor for board comment on other business not at this time you do okay you know hold off on board comments Dr deer the floor is yours thank you Miss Mayhan um just two points that I'd like to address um taken some notes on some of the items that we will follow up on uh but specifically as it relates to comments from a member of the public regarding the student photo media consent uh parent permissions are obtained uh via the media consent form that's sent out to parents uh prior to posting on school affiliated social media uh platforms social media blogs including but not limited to newsletters such as principal newsletters superintendent Corner column and District messages permissible under board policy as far as the earlier comments this evening related to the logo and District branding there is a follow-up message that will be going out tomorrow you will recall that at the last board meeting I had stated that there's going to be additional feedback that provided um the Practical objectives around that initiative is to develop a comprehensive branding tool that ensures ensures consistency and ease of use across the entire District it also helps create a unified visual identity that strengthens the connection between our schools and the district as a whole the initiative is aimed at refreshing and unifying our District's brand identity and we believe that a strong cohesive brand will not only reflect our shared values but align our district messaging based on the valuable input and the feedback that we've received from the community that survey feedback will be shared again tomorrow and then we will be collecting over the next two weeks additional feedback around this initiative and then as far as the digital sign that is something that we will follow up on I do know that that was an issue that came back up or came up in the spring so we'll follow up on that and we'll respond back when we have an update open the floor for board member comments Mr Rosenberg Mr balowski thank you Mrs Mayan um a couple things first of all I had the pleasure of attending four I think four back to school nights this year um Edison TJ Memorial and the high school oh and for so five um and I really got good feedback from some parents um and I'm really excited for this year because the parents are are most parents are with us and they really had a good time especially at the high school I I just want to say something about the high school because it came up tonight first of all I believe that this is the first year that seniors did put stuff on their cars I don't remember that ever happening to the extent especially that happened this year and I really liked it for the point that um the kids were really getting into their senior year and really happy you're right no no no place for hate and I'm I'm sorry that a student decide to make it hateful um hopefully we could find out what student that was but it was not a it's not a tradition and it's not it wasn't something that's happened every year but to that end the football football games first of all there was Thursday night games I believe I correct me if I'm wrong Dr Dean E I believe it was it wasn't the norm it was because of stuff happening those weeks and with the other schools um the whole idea of having lights on the field is so that we could have Friday night games and but I have to say seeing the first football game seeing everybody in town the the stands were absolutely full it's the first time I remember that in a in a long long time the cheerleaders were cheering the administration was out there cheering with the kids the the the kids were the kids were having a ball um this is what it's supposed to be in Falon and we haven't had that so I really give the high school credit because we are getting back to what we were hoping to do and to to M to Dr dionisio's end one of the whole reasons for Branding and and getting everybody together I think it's working that way uh and I hope to I I can't wait to see I think a lot of people after the last board meeting were um mistaken about what branding was and they thought it was just about a logo it isn't just about a logo it's just about all six all 10 schools being one district and that's what it's that's what it's all about you might not agree I I'll I'll end in one second you might not agree with it but um but I think if we if it accomplishes what we want it to it would be great thank you as we just approved it I wanted to recognize 10p which is the collective bargain agreement with our custodial unit um I just want to thank the board's team uh especially Denise and John uh for the work that they've put into that um for what was a extremely productive and respectful negotiations uh extremely not extremely quick in the sense that it happened quickly it did happen quickly but it was was meaningful conversations and mutual respect um so I just want to thank their team as well the custodial unit um for all the work that they continue to do and for a good negotiation so thank you Miss Brown um I just wanted to thank the District administration for a great start to the school year and for a great school opening um I unfortunately only got to visit one school because both of my sons are at Memorial now so I missed out on West Morland so I have a little bit of fomo uh shout out to West Morland I miss you um but I they did a great job as always um Memorial did just keeps getting better and better um and I I just commend everybody there um and the administration team there for doing such a great job um and their Rhymes are unparalleled throughout the district I think that they're the best so I just wanted to thank them so um just I just wanted to commend you guys on a great school opening thank you okay the floor is closed our upcoming meetings will be on October 30th 2024 it is our regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Thomas Edison school on November 21st 2024 is our November regular monthly meeting at 7:30 at Thomas Edison school on December 19th 24 is our regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. at Thomas Edison school please note for these next three meetings this does deviate from our fourth Thursday of the month so these are not our standard uh time of the month for these meetings so just please take note of that can I have a motion to adjourn so moved all in favor have a good evening