e e e the regular monthly meeting of July 2824 wased and call to order at 8: pm. at Memorial Middle School 12001 Street Media Center fa New Jersey there are members of the public in attendance can I get a roll call please Mr valovi here Mr Man here Dr ber isent Miss Brown here miss pich pres Mr Rosenberg here Mr spel present Miss yman pres Mrs Mayhem pres we the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest discussed or ask in accordance with the of this act the fair loan board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof distributed to the persons on the approved list hosted in the Board of Education administrative office and sent to the Bur record in the star ledare the announcement posting to the regular monthly meeting along with the date place and time thereof will distributed on June 14th 2024 please join me in the flag Sal I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation godp liy and justice for all can I get a motion to go back and to close session sove all in favor we will be approximately a half hour we will be returning and certainly action will be take and we'll get to our regular uh agenda then we're sorry to hold up the public we've had a heavy hearing uh agenda in exactly we're moving it along as quickly as we can thank you talk some much your St time we weren't here 15 minutes you're allowed to leave e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e can you hear me is it e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e [Music] as yeah Mr Rosenberg here Mr spendel present mman present M man pres Dr diio superintendent than hey good evening everyone um hope everybody is enjoying their summer uh it's good to see everyone the school district has been extremely busy since we had our last meeting with uh a great number of projects across the district primarily as many of you know uh summertime is an absolutely amazing opportunity to be able to do improvements to our facilities to our grounds to our buildings and infrastructure structure um so miss manuso uh Mr yobs the entire facilities team has been doing a tremendous job um and the main reason why we are actually here this evening at Memorial Middle School and we'll be here again in August is because the Edison school is having a roof replacement so work is coming along very very nicely um but we will be here again in August and at that time we will will be able to provide an update on the progress that has been made in anticipation of opening up school I see in the back of the room we have uh Rebecca vote Miss vote is our new Communications uh liaison for the district our new Communications officer so she joined us on July 1 we are very happy to welcome her as a member of our administrative team um the interview and selection committee were was incredible rly impressed with her credentials her background her experience she has really hit the ground running uh and getting to know the team so welcome and uh we're extremely excited to have you on board we recently uh on July 16th and 17th we had administrative uh Leadership Retreat meeting uh over the course of two days a combination of a lot of professional learning and team building uh that was very uh energizing for the group uh and really reflecting on the past year that we've had and working together on looking forward on establishing our goals for the upcoming school year so we actually had much of the work happening both uh Happening Here on both days uh and we had a number of activities and and it was really a great experience so uh we're very much looking forward to the work that we will continue to sustain in the coming months and all of next school year and then uh last but not least I save the best for last we have uh the conclusion of the superintendent report is I'm going to pass the the torch to Dr lactina this evening uh because she's going to have an assessment update that she's going to be presenting that's part of the requirement uh for the Department of Education uh as I understand that I believe the deadline we recently received August 15th and our next board me Board of Education meeting is not until after August 15th uh so we are required to be able to present that information uh so we're going to give her our undivided attention we thank you for putting that presentation together on such short notice and uh I want to turn it over to Dr lactina at this time thank you Dr dionio uh we're just going to pull that up on the um Promethean board there uh so good evening tonight I'm going to report out on the results of the njpa that was administered this past spring to our grade 11 students um of course it does not want to oh there we go all right uh didn't want to cooperate at first thank you um so first of all just to remind you that NJ GPA is required by the State Department of Education we must provide an assessment to all of our students in grade 11 uh the njpa consists of two components Ela and Mathematics each of these is scored separately and students receive a score to indicate whether or not they are graduation ready those are the two scores um you either are or you are not um the ELA component is aligned to grade 10 standards while the mathematics component is aligned to Algebra 1 and geometry standards so students have to meet a minimum score of 725 if they don't currently this class of 2025 has some alternatives we are not sure what's going to happen in the future but as of now there are are alternatives so the first step would be to retake the ELA or mathematics portion if you did not pass we will also provide um supplemental support for our students to assist them with that and then after that there are a variety of other assessments that a student can take ACT accuplacer SAT um and similar assessments those scores can be used as a substitute for the NJ GPA and if students meet that cut off that will count as indicating that they are graduation proficient um if that does not work then we have something called called the portfolio appeal process and you might remember that I reported on that back in February where our students were actually just getting to that point we had about seven students I believe that had a take that last year and um all passed all our graduation ready um so again as I said you are either um not yet graduation ready if you score below the 725 or graduation ready if you score above that so one of the things we need to report out on is our participation rate because we need to have a 95% participation rate and you can see we had 425 students that could have taken this assessment in ela and math we had 420 of our students that were uh that sat for the test and got enough answers to to be able to get a valid score so you can see that our participation rate was a 98.8% which is really great so you will see here I'm going to bring your attention to that red circle um what we are showing you here is how did our students are last year's 11th graders how did they score in ela and Math and how did that compare to the state of New Jersey so in ela the state of New Jersey the average was an 81.6% passing and our Uh current Fon 12th graders um have a 92.4% passing rate in ela um so 92.4 of our percent of our students are graduation ready um in ela in mathematics uh the state of New Jersey has a passing rate of 54.7% and in Falon our graduation ready rate is 78.1% um and again sometimes there are um you'll notice on a lot of our slides that everything might not always add to 100% due to rounding um so if you're looking at that it's not always going to be 100% um so that is how our students did we're very proud of them um this slide actually shows you how have our students done over the past three years so this test was fairly new in Spring of 2022 it was actually a field test it did not count for graduation proficiency um and the graduation testing requirements you can see in ela we went from 54.5% for our field test the next year's group of students 86.8% were graduation ready and again this past spring 92.4% of our students are graduation ready so we have been improving each and every year um with the percentages of our students that are uh taking this assessment and showing that they are graduation ready in mathematics in 2022 for the field test we had a 68.6% passing rate in 2023 that went up to 78.1% and again last year in 2024 we again had 78.1% of our students um meeting graduation Readiness in the area of mathematics on the next two slides you're going to actually see all of the subgroups that we need to report out on um so it shows you from left to right because it is a little small female male Hispanic Latino American Indian Asian black African-American native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander white two or more races or not indicated so on these slides we need to have 10 or more individuals in each subcategory in order to be able to report out on the results um and that's for confidentiality reasons um so that's why you might see an NA which just indicates that there were fewer than 10 students in that category so again these are percentages of students in each category that are graduation ready this slide is showing you the other subcategories um and these groupings are not economically disadvantaged economically disadvantaged students with disabilities generally education which does not include the students with disabilities students with 504 plans um not MLS um the other category is MLS it says elll we now call them multilingual Learners um and then we have not migrant students and migrant um we actually do not have any students identified as migrant in this District just so you know so again you can see we have scores really for every category there meaning that there are more than 10 there are 10 more students in each of those categories so again you can you can see that we did um quite nicely in most of those categories so what are some of the notable achievements um so our Fair Lawn 11th graders last year scored higher than the state average in ela by nearly 11 percentage points the percentage of fairon students who are graduation ready in ela increased nearly 38 percentage points since we first started taking this test three years ago Falon students scored higher than the state average in math by 23.4 percentage points and the percentage of fairon students who are graduation ready in math increased by 9.5 percentage points over those past three years um so we're happy to see that growth in our students so on the next two slides you're going to see some of the interventions that we put in place to help our students to gain proficiency and graduation Readiness um we have academic level classes in ela for students in grades 9 through 12 we clap um cap the class sizes at 16 to make sure that we have a lower student teacher ratio we have Learning Ally which allows our students to access grade level texts um so it's more on their grade level their reading level rather um we put into place timed reading and writing units to get our students used to that kind of um an assessment environment that kind of an activity um we also use the njla and NJ GPA rubrics to support all of the essay work so again students are used to being scored according to the way these assessments score our students um again lots of resources for our staff thanks to um the support of the Board of Ed and the budget um we have lots of resources um leveled readers that are online in print we have resources such as newella um to support our students in addition to the Learning Ally that you saw um a couple bullets above that and we also have open response questions uh so that students um in math um modeling and reasoning is always that one area that kind of trips up our students and so we make sure that we incorporate certain kinds of questions throughout the years in math classes so our students get used to that type of assessment question um we've done lots of curriculum work again thank you you've approved lots of those workshops over the years for us and we have modified our curriculum we look um we do data analysis and we look at those standards and areas that again are challenging for our students and then we go back and look at our curriculum to make sure that we are providing additional support for our students making sure we hit those priority skills prior to our assessments so that students are exposed to those high priority skills uh we have an algebra 1 math class um an njsls or NJ GPA um math class at Fon high school we have resources such as Alex software that helps again support our students um with practice in Algebra 1 um we have math ancillary so we have additional support in those classes to support our students bringing the uh teacher student ratio even lower uh we help our our ell or our ml students in their Algebra 1 classes as well with additional teacher support we have our ferland high school Honor Society that assists our students with tutoring again we use our linkit all the time for data analysis and we can create very targeted skills groups um in that platform so that we know how to group our students um in order to teach them on the skills that they need in order to be successful on these assessments um and then we also have coach taught and pull out math classes available uh for our students and that's it does anybody have any questions first thank you for the presentation and for putting it together so quickly then um this is more of a larger scale question so I don't know if it's applicable to Fair Lawn per se and in your role um but across the state it seems that students are struggling with math and this is a state issue and has the state taken any actions or said any ways that they're going to start addressing this because the field test has been two years ago now so it's not just a fluke they've had two years to to address this is there any interventions from the state that will be coming to the schools nothing that I'm aware of um um it's it's interesting when you look at the assessment scores we have a higher percentage of students getting graduation ready scores in ela but yet the spread between fairon and New Jersey in math is is huge right so our students in math are really outperforming um compared to other districts across the state um so we're just going to continue to work on our curriculum as you can see end with our Workshop um requests that we make um again huge focus at faculty meetings department meetings fre level meetings with data analysis we're always looking at that and trying to figure out how we can continue to supplement um what we do in the classroom and we take a look at that even in um October we'll do some more NJ GPA makeups or retakes rather and we will look at that information and data analysis and react to that through our grant writing um as well as after school for students so we really try to provide as as much support as we can for our students and continue to move ahead even if the state doesn't necessarily give us anything thank you yeah you're welcome I can speak thank you so much for the presentation what what kind of uh I'm a little upset is that 22% 92 students out of 420 did not pass the test and I understand we do all these wonderful interventions but I think one of the things that we should look at and I've been trying to in committees and education committee but unfortunately last education Committee in June a ran out of time so I was not allowed to discuss it and this month education committee meeting it was cancelled because we have no time topics even though we do have topics is the curriculum for grades K through 4 which is the everyday math I think everyday math as a math expert someone who has a masters in math has been teaching math has devoted most of her adult life in math is not easy to understand I look at the kindergarten curriculum and it's all words they don't know how to read yet and you're expecting them to do things that are all in words words um and I also looked at the curriculum it keeps jumping back and forth if kids don't have great foundations in K through for math no matter what interventions you do in middle school and high school they will never understand math it's just because it's too the teacher was like well they should have known this topic they should have known that topic and therefore we're just moving on because we need to get through the curriculum and I think we need to really think about the math that is taught K through 4 which is the foundation and unfortunately for example in I think it was third grade he talked about barass then it talked about time then it talked about pyra it had no rhythm or rhyme to it each chapter it's very hard for parents to help their child with everyday math because some of them don't even understand what they're asking I've been advocating for Singapore dimensional math what I like about Singapore dimensional math it's all very picture-based and when you have picture-based parents can help because they're like oh this is what they want from me great kids also see it it also has a lot of equity in it because when you explain the material the material has different characters and they expl uh explain different this is Emma what likes this is what desan likes this is what and it helps kids understand so although we do a lot of interventions starting seventh grade and I think that's wonderful I think we need to do a better Foundation there's two um high schools currently that I as much as I did research that do Singapore Math that's Milbourne and Livingston and both of their math uh scores have been exceptional above and beyond what Fair loan has and I think our kids are wonderful smart intelligent and we should be able to think about doing a different type of math than Everyday Math especially since parents can't most of the time help their child with this math and they don't have the right foundation so although we Pat ourselves on the back that 78% passed the state test we should get 95% because we should have better foundation for our children thank so thank you for your comments um so just a couple of things we actually are using Everyday Math k through6 um we have been so thrilled with the results from K to four that we actually moved it into 56 and since we've done that we have seen an increase in our sixth grader sixth grade scores on our standardized assessments we used to see a dip in sixth grade and we don't really see that dip anymore um so we're really pleased with that um The Everyday Math actually has a spiral approach so what that means is we constantly are revisiting Concepts so we know that when you do things once it's easy to forget it but if you revisit it over and over again it helps you to remember so the everyday math takes a spiral approach where every couple of months it revisits the topics and reinforces it for our students so that again is another thing that really um we like about the everyday math program we've again I was in the role of Elementary principal when it first got instituted and yes it's different for us and for parents because it's not how we learned but we have found from the very beginning that our students are mathematical thinkers and I'm going to give you a very quick example um we had somebody doing a demo lesson in a second grade this was years ago and she was doing something with charts and graphs and she asked the students boys and girls how many boys are in the class so a kid raised his hand and said 10 and the teacher said great well how do I write that because was going to write it on the chart paper and the student said 2 * 5 and the teacher was really surprised and said well you know that's true but how else can you say it well it's 11 minus one somebody else said it's tally marks somebody said it's an X that's Roman numerals and finally the teacher said okay or it's a one and a zero because that person who is my age says you know how do you write the number 10 and most people answer one Z our kids became such amazing mathematical thinkers in second grade that not one of them gave that answer they thought about that in five different ways and that's the beauty of this program is it helps kids to approach mathematics in multiple ways it's not just one way to solve a problem e there's a home link that goes home for parents so they can see what is L multiplication what is all of this stuff I'm not aware of there is a companion that goes home specifically for parents for guidance every single parent we did look into Singapore MTH years ago we were asked by this board we looked into Singapore m point information Natalie I'm actually going to be sending that presentation to everyone this evening oh perfect um we gave a presentation and what we found was that Singapore Math to the standards like everyday math is I think that the bottom line for us is we have seen tremendous performance from our students in math again when you see how far we outscore students across the state of New Jersey it's hard for me to say that our mathematics books are not doing the job that they should um and we are going to continue to work with our students to get more and more of our students to be graduation ready that is what we are called upon to do and we will continue to do that um I'm myself and the supervisors and the administrators and teachers were very thrilled with how our students are doing um using everything that any other questions Mich um just comment thank first of all thank you for the um for the presentation I was watching in fact that there as I was listening as I was having comp across College um I just want to tell a story real quick when I first came on the board and this is a long time ago um I was very interested in Everyday Math and the reason I was interested in Everyday Math was because when it first came into the district I actually did my student teaching in fifth grade the first year it was in the distri district and a matter of fact it was the last thing that I got to teach was math because the teacher that my supporting teacher was actually learning the math at the same time I was and there was a lot of professional development given to the teachers um and I got some of that professional development which was good because otherwise I would have done worse well I bombed that lesson um and I have to do another lesson on math um for my last thing before I graduated um but anyways I was very interested two years later when I got on the board to see the difference in the test scores if there was a difference in the test scor and what was amazing was and was there was a tremendous difference in the test SC as a matter of fact it was actually amazing how much we went up in test scor now saying that to be fair Everyday Math has changed over the years they've had updates and everything else I have a niece who went to a pretty prestigious um uh private school for for elementary and middle school and she was doing they were using every every day math and my sister was really really really was really really really uptight because she couldn't understand everything and one minute minut okay and I said you know just give it time and and look at the parent the parent book and it ended up that it worked out um I think the problem is in the test not necessarily in the programs because most of the schools around us are seeing the same rates practically so that's just my opinion on it thank you U Miss Brown um I had a couple questions because I noticed on one of your slides that you had co-taught math classes um so I was wondering if you could speak to how many co-au math classes you have in each grade and whether or not are those classes capped at the 16 16 students that you had referred to I think on the previous slide to that and then I know our Ela scores are very good and they're a lot higher than our math but do we have co-taught Ela classes as well that are supporting the St supporting students yeah so I don't have the numbers of those classes by grade level we can certainly get that I don't have that um data with me um we do have them in ALA and in mathematics um the ones specific to here are high school that I'm talking about yeah um and a lot of that is with our additional ancillary support um I mean it could be anywhere between 8 and 12 is with our ancillary support um and there could very well be um more once we start looking at some of our special education classes um but I don't have those numers um thank you I also wanted to know too if maybe those were those co- talk classes also being trickled into like a science course because dur in science courses you do a lot of like the modeling with the math and really having to think critically think through the math so is that being are there co- talk classes that are going cross-curricular to help support too CU I think in a roundabout way that could help support the math scores as well so with our MLS we do some of that um I'm aware of um I'm not necessarily aware of any other subjects um but definitely with our MLS we uh assist them not full-time but periodically we do provide our MLS with support um I don't know professional support in those class sometimes we have canc in those classes and that could be something that we discuss as we talk about the budget for the 242 as we prepare for the next school year thank you anyone else Miss just everyday and mention that didn't have some of the that um Everyday Math cover what makes what makes two different math programs that one is okay for New Jersey curriculums and one all the I'm this is particularly this Q&A is particularly about the presentation if we'd like to talk to curriculum we can defer that back to the education committee at this point in time I'm going to please ask that everyone refer their specifically to the presentation um I justed I'm just I want to make sure that we're just keeping it to the presentation has do can be when our English is higher than our math usually find that your math be I'm going to Deer to our um councel can you give an answer in three sentences or L school districts are allowed to choose and adopt the uh textbooks of their choice their job is to address all of the New Jersey student learning standards and the textbook does not address it they will have to supplement it other materials anyone else reiterate starting Algebra 1 geometry higher level map we don't do approaches we teach everything point of information we are specifically answering questions directly related to presentation you're not talking about curriculum here so unless you have a specific question that's related to the presentation I'm going to ask again that we limit our conversation two presentation questions that we can move on to the agenda actually talk about it is not related to the presentation I am going to ask everyone that we unless you have a question that is directly related to the presentation that we move on okay last thing so just saying 78 so practically 25% of our graduating C uh sof uh students that took the test did not pass math the math section of are not graduation ready unfort in my personal opinion 25% of students not passing a test is not a good sign that's all thank you okay so we are moving in to public comments this is the public comments on agenda items only please limit your questions at this time to agenda items please provide your name and municipality and which you design 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 do we have anyone on the Google sheet we do great uh we have we have one uh we have two comments but only one at this time that's related to an agenda item uh so Erica muli um noted uh as fairon educator uh states welcome to the new hires especially my younger sister Jessica muli I'm so excited for you to be a fellow cutter in the fairon school district my home away from home you're going to absolutely love forest and make such a difference in the lives of many kiddos congratulations and that's all I have in relation to agenda items okay the floor is closed I will now open the floor to board member comments on agenda items only I wanted to congratulate the class of 2024 we are approving the graduation today so congratulations I will not vote on the textbooks because I believe every textbook before you adopt it should be piloted we uh most of the Publishers have online textbooks so you can pilot for a year with different authors and determine which textbooks the whole department will use just looking at a textbook by not teaching it is kind of wasteful because I as a student went to F high school and many of my textbooks were beautifully stacked in the back of the room and never used by anyone so I will be voting no for that I will be voting no for the Web Master because the sipen which is of $10,000 7 E6 the reason why I asked if there's a job description for this for this position and I was told there's no job description so the district will be paying $10,000 without knowing exactly what will be accomplished so therefore I will be voting no I will also be voting no on the uh the I will also be voting no on hold on on the policies tonight because we received the policy on Saturday and five policies we are not allowed to discuss it only the people in the Committees are owed to discuss it every time I've tried to discuss it which is my job as a board member to uh make policies and adopt policies I'm always told it's 8:00 at night it's 9:00 at night we shouldn't discuss it we will not discuss it so therefore I will not be voting yes because I am prevented to do my job as a board member by allowing me to discuss policies during the board meeting nextly I'm asking again this is the second time that I'm ask that I'm saying that the administration is not following bylaw 0155 an agenda is what you're going to be discussing and minutes is what happened in the meeting if you look at uh bylaw 0155 line number seven it says clearly committee agenda shall be sent to the entire board not just the committee members unfortunately the com the board only receives the minutes not the agenda which is clearly said which is clearly part of the policy 0155 I'm asking again this is the second time I'm asking for the administration to follow this uh bylaw thank you floor is closed wait I can go second time around you said once said 30 seconds didn't you yeah I thought I would come back you said 30 seconds and I assume that second go around so that I'm not in the middle of my sentence okay so on the bills I saw it says Ruby delissio $25.88 I asked for the bill and I was given a bill for $360 for Treetop Adventure I was wondering why is there a discrepancy what's on the bills and what's on the bill that actually represent zents uh the amount and then and then lastly uh I wanted actually I'll talk about it after thank you the floor is closed can I get a motion um Miss manuso will get back to you she does not have the information in front of her I'll vote no for and I'm not explained why there's a discrepancy and why is there it was it it was you were G you gave no I didn't know there was I asked for the bill and I was not explained why I resp spending on Tree Tops we're not having it back and forth right now um Dr ganio can answer what he can answer I'm going to defer to him thank you Miss May hand um so miss felich so the board and the administration are actually in accordance with bylaw 0155 um I've repeated this I've actually answered this question in public meetings on several occasions the board of education does receive even if you're not on the committee does receive the committee agendas um they're all shared with board members in including yourself so they not sent please please you should check your email because I'm just going to remind the entire board this is not a conversation or a back and forth any board member who has asked a question we will do our best to answer it but it is not a conversation or a back and forth among board members and administration I am asking everyone to be respectful of that and abide by that precedence that has been in place for several years and then uh thank you Miss Mayan and then uh lastly as Ms manuso has already stated um the bills list will be provided it was provided in accordance with the request and it will be provided if there's some other bill that you're requesting then the administration will follow up accordingly in the future I think you mis misunderstood my question my question was on the bills list it was 29 215 and when I asked for the bill it was 360 so my question is why did we spend 360 and why was it only reimbursed 25 why is there a discrepancy in the two numbers that's why I don't understand because they're two different reimbursements I don't recall what the reimbursement for Professional Services was tree toop I didn't finish yet so Treetop was a reimbursement for Leadership Retreat location that was off site that's what tree toop Adventure is around team building the 250 is a reimbursements for professional service that I paid out of pocket so both of those are things that I paid out of pocket for the district and to be able to be reimbursed in accordance with our procedures okay so if you have a specific request that'll be followed up by Miss manuso in the business office as we stated earlier but I just want to make sure we understand this 0155 it doesn't say look at board docks it says sent it it literally says the word sent point of information again this has been asked and answered all of our emails should be checked regularly both in Outlook and Google we have had this conversation both en closed and in public session we have two emails we are all now aware that many of our emails when it comes to Google Docs goes to our fairon SDS email I have sent reminders in order for everyone to remember to check that at least once a week if you are not doing your due diligence to check that as well as your outlook you are welcome to put notific on both emails to ensure that you are regularly getting notifications if that comes to you thank you can I get a motion for 3A so moved second roll call Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes Miss Brown yes Miss pich yes Mr Rosenberg yes Mr Spindel yes Miss Yurman no but there's just an error in numbers of one particular vote and I forgot to mention that before I apologize okay Mrs Mayhem yes motion passes can I get a motion f for five a through e so moved second roll call Mr baldowski yes Mr B yes Miss Brown yes Miss pich we number what number five a through e yes Mr Rosenberg yes Mr spendel yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for six A and B and then six D through G all moved roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr B yes Miss Brown can you come back to me please miss fich no and 6G Mr Rosenberg yes Mr Spindel yes Miss Yurman yes Mrs Mayhem yes and miss BR yes motion passes can I get a motion for seven a through Q roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes m brown I apologize we're voting on seven okay yes Miss B no on 7 B5 7 D2 7 D6 7 E6 s sorry 7 D6 E6 and E6 okay 7 D2 7 D6 7 E6 7 q1 I'll repeat again 7 B5 7 D2 7 D6 7 E6 6 7 q1 thank you Mr Rosenberg yes Mr spendel yes Miss yman I'm GNA estain on 7 D4 and yes on everything else Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for a a through C and F roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes Miss Brown yes Miss pich yes Mr Rosenberg yes Mr spendel yes M Yurman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for 9 a through H so moved roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes Miss Brown yes Miss bellovich yes Mr Rosenberg yes Mr Spindel yes Miss yman yes Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for 10 a through e and 10 G through Q so moved second roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr Banta yes m Brown I miss bich no on 10 C 10 J as in Judy I'm sorry Mr Rosenberg yes Mr Spindel yes Miss Yurman no on 10j and yes on everything else Mrs Mayhan yes motion passes can I get a motion for 11 A and B so moved roll call please Mr baldowski yes Mr bza yes Miss Brown yes Miss bovich no on 11 A and B Mr Rosenberg yes Mr spendel yes Miss yman no one 11 A and B Mrs Mayan yes motion passes this is the public comments on non-agenda items please limit your questions at this time to new business 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 com comments are complete the board president or District administration will respond as best they can the floor is open I'm sorry can you also print your name yes I'll do that but I may not speak because I may have a misunderstanding of the agenda uh public comment requirements because this is you said only new items you can talk about so it's not necessarily new items this is just information that you'd like to discuss that's not on the agenda which is not the same as new item because this is an item from last month's agenda so I want to be sure that I'm good to go I think you're good it really should be called other business awesome perfect great just don't want to be kicked out in the middle no can youat your name again for me yes my name is Asuna trishka ready yes okay okay uh I'm a lifelong Fon resident Class of 1978 I'm a mother of two Fon High School alum Sean class of 2012 Zoe class of 2019 I'm a retired public school teacher having worked at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Tek for over 25 years I'm talking fast because I want to do the time I'm currently an Adjunct professor at Bergen Community College and a Monclair University Mentor for student teachers my comments are about the last um something on the last uh uh agenda uh there was time ran out so I couldn't share I don't really feel the Google form is the appropriate form for me it's specifically about fan high school guidance counselor Dina DeSantis uh being moved from the position of middle uh from from guidance to middle school student assistance coordinator I met Dena in 2008 first as an audience member at back to school night but also through emails related to a battle of the bands that she was organizing to benefit a veteran in need of service dog if Deen hadn't helped us with the last minute registration of our sons band they wouldn't have won and that was really just a sign of what was to come for the next several years Dena right there when you need her to help students and also sometimes parents whether it was her ready and nuanced knowledge and guidance about courses and scheduling selecting and applying for colleges or her noons reality checks or comforting counsil when kids needed it Dina always provided the appropriate support I cut out a bunch of stuff hope I'll be under time sometime in 2015 I began planning faron's first Relay for Life an overnight benefit for the American Cancer Society this was a major undertaking and I needed a core but small group of folks who I could count on to be reliable resourceful and respectful of everyone's time and agendas and of course I went directly to Dena I asked if she would be on the leadership committee and without hesitation she signed on she worked tirelessly to get our relay off the ground and to enlist colleagues recruiting art teachers to have students create gifts for cancer survivors working with interact and Honor Society advisers to boost participation and volunteering for the event and to support mem ways I didn't even know I needed I could go on but mostly I can't stress this point enough kids see what Dena does they see her commitment to what's best for them her commitment to service and rescue dogs her commitment to the community at large they know that she along with her colleague Christen Burke is responsible for the military tribute Memorial in front of the high school she is a force of nature 100% committed to her students and simultaneously committed to putting service above self she is an exemplary role Moder for young people of fairon High School ready to go out into the world of college work and civic responsibility those are the notes I wrote for the previous meeting but I wanted to add this question for the record whether it's answered here or not can the board explain why taxpayers such as myself are not owed an explanation as to the process involved in determining why a highly highly qualified experienced dedicated and effective Fair on high school guidance counselor not to mention handsomely paid is being transferred to a position she didn't seek and for which she is neither highly qualified nor recently trained and will be paid the same amount she currently receives which is approximately $114,000 a year this is approximately double from my understanding of the average salary for a middle school student assistance counselor this seems like an unusual use of taxpayers money and certainly doesn't seem to be in the best interest of both middle school or high school students so I'd like to understand to put it plainly if the board's policy understandably is to not discuss Personnel issues publicly can it nevertheless explain the process by which such a decision is made thank you thank you is there anyone else Google uh form yes there are two other comments um one in particular is actually something that is stated that relates to um confidentiality related to a student and a family and upon consultation with board counsel um it would not be appropriate to share these comments in public um to protect the student and Family's privacy so the administration will be following up directly with that family tomorrow to be able able to address those concerns and answer any questions privately so hopefully if that parent is at home they just heard that and we will be following up accordingly with them um the second comment is from Olga Ginsburg from Falon the comments are that I would like to follow up on some of the most frequently mentioned opportunities in the thought exchange survey that I strongly agree with number one the school lunch quality this was a shared concern by the parents and students I understand that our school lunch will be provided by the same company that provided lunch last school year therefore I would like to understand how the concerns shared in the thought exchange survey are being addressed can we expect healthier different school lunch choices in 2425 school year number two video instruction and electronics use Chromebooks and smartphones many parents mention the overwhelming use of the Smartboard video instruction educational video games or YouTube videos at recess in elementary have this has this been looked at looked into and how will this be addressed is the district considering new smartphone policy regulating or limiting the use of personal smartphone devices and social media in our middle high schools thank you in in response to um Mrs ginsburg's questions and comments um the thought exchange feedback is something that the administrative team continuously takes a look at and reviews um both of these are items that uh the school lunch topic has been something that's been a topic of conversation for a number of years uh most recently Miss manuso and the team have made significant strides and improvements with mashos um as with any situation there's always an opportunity for continuous feedback and to continue to improve uh the Administration has worked with mashos provided them feedback and as part of the iterative process will continue to take a look at areas that can can be improved upon and continue to get feedback from our students uh as far as video instruction electronic cell phones that's actually something of of late that has really popped up again I mean I I feel like we talk about this quite frequently uh but most recently there have been a few articles the last uh board meeting or two we had some members of the public also comment um the author Mr hait Dr ha uh has uh recently written uh a book um citing a lot of research uh the APA has recently come out with research I think it was back in April so it is something that our administrative team is taking a look at um as part of our examination of our policy um that's something that we're going to be looking uh looking into in the coming months um but also looking at how we can Implement something into practice that works for our community and works to support our students and works to support our teachers are we good with the Google form yes so at this time just to um follow up with you miss trishka um we do not discuss Personnel however I can refer you to policy 4130 which is the um assignment and transfer of Staff yes the floor is closed board member comments the floor is open I'm just gonna say I'm G to speak twice so that if nobody else speaks please let me so the fair loan TV I've been advocating that fairon TV will pick up our meetings since February I was told I had to go through a lengthy Comm uh committee process first the finance committee had to discuss it then the shared services committee had to discuss it then we had to wait for the fairon TV fairon TV has um has emailed the district almost over two weeks ago and the district has not responded I'm just wondering is there a reason there's a hesitation to uh put our videos on fairon TV because it seems like if somebody writes an email from Fairland TV two weeks ago to the administration within two weeks I think is a reasonable time to respond maybe I'm wrong so I would like to ask the administration where is it that if not by August board meeting I will just make another motion for it it to be put on Falone TV because the Fone TV is more than happy to put our videos on their webs on their TV and unfortunately something is not being done which I don't understand okay that's number one number two I wanted to go back to the uh the math curriculum higher level math starting algebra geometry and calculus pre-calculus whatever you want to do it's not a spiral even in fairon high school we don't have integrated math we have it where it's Algebra 1 Algebra 2 spiral approach was so wonderful then we should have integrated math integrating math is the same spiral approach it doesn't work and also people for example I am an e l student or MLA student whatever you want to call it my first language is not not English my parents looking at this book my parents would not be able to help me with math they would not be able to understand and I know people say oh there's a booklet that can explain you everything that requires you to know English very well and be able to understand and there's people that are have discussed that have a college degree have to call their friends to help them with everyday math and that's a problem I know as a as a person who has a math background I ask a high school teacher give them the book for everyday math and ask them do they really understand do they think it's very thoroughly explained and I guarantee you most High School's teachers will say this doesn't make sense to me so I really hope that we can think about um Singapore Math also if it did not cover all the curriculum Livingston and Milbourne one of the best districts in our in our state of New Jersey would not have them as their math curriculum if you look at their scores for grade six seven eight n they're amazing and there's no reason for us not to have that we have wonderful students and wonderful teachers so we can definitely get those kind of scores but I think we need to change it especially since 25% of our students almost 25% of student are not graduation ready so that's a problem in my book three minutes does anybody else have any questions comments statements Mr Rosenberg because I'm tired of hearing the same subject over and over again can I ask that the math department be take a look at the math program and see if the math department are are experts High School point of information it was handled in 2022 and without a consensus we cannot move forward with this so if you are making a motion that is your choice if not we can defer it I will not make a motion at a meeting you can request that we defer it to the education Comm can you defer defer it to the education committee to to see if the math tomorrow will look take a look at it I'd be happy to do that thank you that's our experts great okay Miss Brown um I'd also like uh the use of smartphones in schools to be deferred to the education committee as well noted thank you anyone else M so since school lunches has been a a very important topic for many people in Fair alone schools I was wondering can the board with their dinners see what the school lunches is because our school our dinners don't compare to what the school lunches is because we we just approved the menu we should have the school lunches should be similar to the dinners that the board should have this way the board can actually see what they're feeding the children if it's good enough for our children then it's good enough for the board point of information the finance buildings and grounds committee was provided um a number of those samplings back in February Miss manuso I got to benefit just because I was leaving no I'm not saying um only a few selected board members every board member should be uh should be privy to this type of lunches that are served our children not just a priview of three board members or four board members whatever it is I think everyone and should be what whatever is on the men for that day so on Thursday if you have hamburgers and cheese that's what we're going to give hamburgers and cheese to the board same thing or whatever it is I don't know what it is but I I think it would be fair so that as a board when people have concerns of our school lunches we can actually say yes we ate them we like them or no we don't like them well anyways so the first thing is I opena this the administration uh hired a company called sky sky Dylan to and I'm going to quote this this Administration was to Rebrand our school it's Sky Dillan design the contract says that they will create a new monograph to Rebrand our schools so basically the fair loan logos and all the logos that the students um have in each elementary school middle school and high school will be redone by a corporate by a company as a Fairland graduate and this will cost the district TW the taxpayers I'm sorry $220,000 what I found interesting about these this contract is uh the fair law school representative on the contract did not sign it did not stamp it it's only the representative from the company signed it but not the person that not anybody from our from their present fearone second of all it was never approved by the board and third of all as a graduate of Fon High School I am proud that our logo was made 20 seconds was made by a student and it's student oriented that what makes fairon fairon not a corporate company says here's your logo enjoy I would want some for our students to make our logos for our students to have contest of them not a company and not pay $20,000 which could be used for something more useful such as uh adding better furniture for elementary school improving some of our rankings for elementary schools things like that thank you your time is up thank you I just want to point out that uh taxpayer dollars go to all opras that take up time and energy of our Administration so I do appreciate that there is some taxpayer money that goes toward the rebranding that all of our community had a hand in but so do the opras that um we get daily that takes up quite a bit of time I will I will if you'd like to sure before you get what why don't you go ahead and speak to the contractual component very quick so I'll just respond quickly just piece so the purchase order is what I sign and that serves as the contract between the school district and the vendor so even if that I'm sure that we do have a sign copy on file but that's just a quote it doesn't mean anything the the signed contract between the districts yeah I'm telling you that doesn't mean anything it's the signed purchase order which is the state required document for the district to make purchase so we're in comp thank you this is not a back and forth she answered the question um your time is up Miss F uh Miss yman I would also like to refer the cell phone situation to the finance committee so that we can look at any uh technology or pieces of uh cases or I forgot the name of it but oh the Yonder y y can um if everyone is comfortable I will refer it to Education First and then uh Finance they're typically opposite weeks okay yeah just so that we get an idea of if x if we're going to do X that we know how much it's going to cost that's it thank you very much the floor is closed Dr Janie would you like to respond to anything I would love to so as the board knows for my communications um related to Sky Dillan the sky branding um it is an initiative that the district has undertaken uh it is one actually that has come from not only members of the board but members of the community um I too am always impressed with student work um the current logo actually for those don't know was actually developed and designed several decades ago by our students to replace the prior logo so every so many decades it's an opportunity for us to take a look at our district and actually how we are communicating and during my interview process and I believe I've shared this with the board before I'm not sure if I've shared it with the public but one of the main areas that the board was really committed to amongst a lot of them uh was how we're communicating with our messaging across the board and the design and the cohesiveness across all 11 buildings is critically important um we do have a cost that's associated with that but these professionals are not doing it in a vacuum they have sent out a survey that we've received I believe five or 600 responses from our community members uh through the the uh design initiative um or I should say the discovery phase which is phase one we've also had focus group sessions with almost 200 members of our community also open to the entire Board of Education so the history and the traditions of the fairon public schools and the fairon community are integral right because it has to symbolize whatever the new logo is going to become um it has to capture what Fair Law Public Schools are and that's really the the goal and the initiative of the professionals um and the way we found out about this is actually similar to the way we found out about the njw program that we've recently implemented in the district and it was actually at the New Jersey school boards Association Convention um where other districts were there presenting on their re brand and alignment of their messaging so um I think it's a great initiative we've received a lot of really wonderful feedback um and we're in the discovery phase now in the design phase around taking a look at all of that and then we have an upcoming meeting with Sky Dylan Associates in order to be able to start to work through that and we'll keep the board apprised of the progress so that's all I have thank you our upcoming meetings are August 22nd 2024 which is our regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. here at Memorial Middle School in our media center um bring a jacket it gets cold and then September 26 2024 will be our regular monthly meeting at 7:30 back in Edison school we should be up and running well before um the opening of school 26 can I get a motion to return to closed session so moved second um please know that action may be taken uh we will be going into close session at 9:48 I'm going to ask that everyone take a seven minute recess if you need to go to the bathroom please do so and uh meet us back in the stem lab thank you all for coming