##VIDEO ID:dvP_DqUCw30## 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 good evening everyone the public has been duly informed of this meeting in accordance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 by posting at least 48 hours in advance a notice on the bulletin boards in Stevenson and Churchill schools a notice to the Township Clerk and a notice to The Herald news and the prog progress please stand for the pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all let me start off by saying this is the best turnout we've had at a Board of Education meeting in six years so thank you all very much for coming out on this cold rainy night we greatly appreciate it uh one of the things that we've talked about on this board for a few months now is celebrating educational excellence and we feel like it's something that hasn't been done in a long time and we want to bring that back to this community because we have a a ton of wonderful students uh loving caring bright smart and they're truthfully the future of of this this community and our future in general so it brings me great pleasure to announce that tonight myself along with our superintendent Ryan and the board we're going to be honoring the highest NJ SLA scores from our 20 23 2024 school year so if you guys would join me and our superintendent Ryan down below that would be great good evening everybody um this is the best part of of what we do um now again these scores are from last year so they're all a year older in fact we have a couple students who are now at West Essex Middle School we were glad that they were able to come back and join us so um we're going to start with the third grade they're in fourth grade now so we're going to start with the highest nsla scores in ela so let's start with third grade math Ela three not only did this student have the highest score he had the only perfect score on the NGS La um three uh with a perfect score of 850 if we could have come up here as our first award is Jake [Applause] agustini this is for you now can you stand here for just a second turn around face all these people H right here Mr and the reason you're not going anywhere Jake is the highest score for the math three exam was also Jake agustini well done all right moving on to ELA 4 the highest score on the nsla ELA 4 exam with Aiden miaso [Applause] for El uh sorry for math for Cameron [Applause] Carter moving on to last year's fifth grade for ELA Carson Anderson [Applause] for math five we have Madison [Applause] Manning and fifth graders also take the nsla in science so for science 5 we have Joseph [Applause] pulo and for sixth grade who are making us now proud at West essic Middle School for ELA 6 we have ariela [Applause] Galindo and making us proud in math for math Six we have R [Applause] Soler all right so what we would like to do at this point is just uh give each one of the individuals an opportunity to take a picture with the board and then as a group if that's okay and if any of the parents want to take any pictures please feel free to do so so one more big round of applause for all of them absolutely an amazing achievement Jak come on up [Applause] come on up right on top over thank you [Applause] [Applause] in [Applause] [Applause] you ready [Applause] [Applause] everyone come on let's get this entire group Jake right in the center over B all right up come over here you know what let's get you got we don't want to up now one more round of [Applause] appuse so to continue with wanting to get more and more individuals to board meetings we are going to be handing out other things every month correct Ryan yes we will we have um we have Bulldogs of the month that we'll be doing we'll be doing Cardinals of the month and we're just going to find all different kinds of things that our students are achieving in the classroom outside of the classroom around our communities so if those things come up feel free to reach out to me you can say you know my my son did this or my daughter did that we just really want to applaud all of the awesome things that our kids do that you just don't get to hear about we hear about certain things but we want to bring all of that out and we're going to be doing that to staff too um and speaking of Staff a couple of thank yous those students who are up here students great job wonderful job very very impressive um and the staff that's here you have the teachers that that have been supporting you the parents you guys have been dedicated with them um some people you know you have to prioritize these things and some people will say Well testing is not that important well we know and I know from my years at West asex it is very important it's a skill that the kids can build and as they get that skill in elementary school it'll serve them well so thank you to the parents for supporting them for the teachers who who've worked with them all this way and of course the students themselves very very impressive I want to see you guys back here again now you have set the bar I want to see who comes back Jake two more next year no you pressure's on yeah um so we look forward to those Awards as well yeah and to the teachers that are here thank you so much for coming out obviously you are a huge impact in their lives so without you none of this is possible so let's give our teachers a big round of Applause let's give the parents for coming out a big round of [Applause] applause and although I might regret this we're going to give those of you that are not here for the remainder of the meeting an opportunity we're going to take a one minute recess we want to thank you for coming out merry Christmas happy holidays and if you would like to you kid leave at this point thank you so much for coming out congratulations students e e e e e all right for those of you that decided to stay we greatly appreciate it some familiar faces just a couple things on the president's report I want to thank the community members that came out and celebrated the winter wonderland event that the municipal Alliance put up it was a wonderful event it was great to see so many community members we saw some teachers there uh I want to thank Mr sylvestri for having the choir there they did a great job job singing it was cold um the kids had a blast uh it's a great event and we're we're very blessed to be part of it so thank you for those that came out I would also like to extend uh a thank you to everyone involved in the variety show I had the opportunity to uh attend it um it was fantastic Every Act was great the kids had so much fun and they put so much thought and effort into this and it was just it's great to see and it and again it's some of the things that we don't celebrate enough but we're going to moving forward so thank everyone uh that was involved all of our teachers and staff members that made it possible without you obviously the Ry show wouldn't be the success that it is so so thank you and last I have is uh this is a little bit of buildings and grounds but I'll put it in our president's report and an effort to move things along the paving project has been completed behind Stevenson so I just uh a special thank you to DLS Contracting uh to my understanding Ryan said they they did a little more than contracted to do uh you can elaborate on what they did I'm really not sure but you know thank you to them and hopefully it works out yeah they went above and beyond there were some issues back there that we didn't encounter and then there was an issue at uh Church Hill um that we wanted to fix so we just talked to them and said look you guys are here at Stephenson do you mind going over to Churchill there's an area right there that's causing puddles and things could you just fix it up no problem they went over so it's good that that's done just in time for the weather so now there should be a lot safer to drive back there both schools right and that's just about wraps up my president's report Mr superintendent all right so a lot of things going on a lot of holiday events going on the last couple weeks so I I jotted some things down so I didn't forget we had the very successful holiday Fair both Stevenson and Churchill thank you to all of the parent volunteers to make that um a worthwhile event a lot of kids bought lots of stuff which are probably at your house right now first graders at Stevenson got to watch The Polar Express not sure if you know but one of the parents um Nicole sudall she knew someone who actually does this profession so he came in dressed up as the conductor unbelievable spitting image he was great talking to the kids so we're happy to say that he's uh he's going to be coming back and doing that every year she's going to reach out to him he's going to do that for us so we're looking forward to that that was quite the experience I did not expect to see him when I popped in he looks just like from the movie um we had winter concerts at Churchill where students of the band choir and Orchestra performed beautifully under the direction of Mr sylvestri and Mr Lazaro um you guys had a very very busy week because as um Anthony mentioned you had the variety show on Friday it was literally a standing room only uh to watch a record number of performances so thank you to the members of the variety show committee and all the staff members and parents who helped make the show a huge success because it has grown so much and we had so many um performances in Acts we will be considering um you know maybe going to an evening or looking at a larger venue we certainly families did not follow that twers limit per child which is is why he was standing in the room only um but to be understood so we want we'd rather have it in a place and have it at a time where everybody can attend and we don't have to limit to to two people so we're looking forward to that even growing next year immediately after the show um all hands on deck we transform the gym into a cafeteria and it was like 5.2 seconds just tables coming out tablecloths going up serving everybody the class moms did an amazing job you can tell their veterans at this because they just knew where to go where to put things um so that went very very well they did a great job preparing the tables and getting all the food orders to all the students for the Church Hill Feast while that was going on over at Stevenson the students were participating in the winter carnival there were stations of events set up including a sled pull a ring toss they had a snowball fight set up and um Dr Shugo set up a little photo op where they could stand and and front and get a winter wonderland type picture thank you again to the class moms there who ran each station and Miss Brian for taking the lead um handling all the classro management when the snowball fight would get out of control she did a great job stepping in there and of course thank you to both principles for everything they had to do to make sure all those events in December um happened last but not least spirit week started today with pajama day at Stevenson um in case you were dropping your kid off at Churchill and you wondered why I was in pajama pants with with the Grinch on them it was because it was pajama day over at Stevenson uh meanwhile at Churchill it was wear something white or blue tomorrow both schools students and staff are encouraged to wear holiday or winter accessories like reindeer handlers Santa hat anything like that and also at Stevenson they they also made it into an ugly sweater day if they prefer to do that as well thank you to our student council members and advisers for organizing the different spirit days it should be a great week and that's it for super intense report thank you great thank you very much Wally RBA report yep I just have uh I just wanted to provide a little bit of an explanation about an agenda item um under the grant uh section there's a resolution that doesn't really go into too much detail so I thought I'd explain the grant a little bit um every year for the past couple years the department of local government services and Department of Community Affairs offer a grant for recreational purposes only um so it has to be spent on improving or maintaining um Recreation facilities so uh it's a competitive Grant it's a maximum Award of $100,000 um but there are exceptions to that cap and after discussions with Mr tupta principal truko building and grounds and our facilities director uh it was determined that the Stevenson school's playground area um would be this year's Grant submission so uh the resolution is for $200,400 and what that covers is multiple stages so while we were out there looking at the grounds um you recognize right the mulch may need to be replaced but in doing so well how are we going to prevent the mulch from washing away so then you start looking at curbing then you start looking at drainage um then you start looking at ashal so that encompasses multiple stages of a project and that's why it's up to $200,000 um once we receive a determination if we got receive the award um whatever balance of funds come to us then we'll decide how to proceed with that project are we going to do do the mulch are we going to do the asphalt are we going to incorporate some games into it um but that's basically what the project um encompasses and again it didn't really give much of a description and a resolution but I just wanted to make it aware that it has to be spent on that type of um it can't be spent on anything else other than recreational services and Wally just as a point of reference um just to clarify if the bid proposal comes in at 200,000 and let's say hypothetically we get $100,000 that $100,000 that we're of money which we'll be spending that's money that can't be used towards salaries or school books it's money that's specifically allocated for yeah it's specifically for recreational purposes for what the grant was written so the grant was WR WR for so I'm I'm sorry W I'm talking about the balance so I just want the general public to know that we're not going to take $100,000 away from curriculum we're not going to take $100,000 away from education we're not going to take $100,000 away from computer science that that money comes from an an aot It yes that'll come out if if we decide that let's say we get the full hundred and we decide listen this is a good opportunity to do the entire project that money would come out of capital reserves and that would be spent solely for the purpose of of improving the grounds I think that's important to to note given the current climate of the district's Financial State even though things look pretty good we just want everyone to know that we are being extremely diligent and the money that would be used if we so choose to complete the project is coming from money that's allocated for things such as that yeah that's actually come up a couple times where people have said if we had money for Paving or we had money for this why don't we use it for for instruction or resources that is in capital that money cannot be moved to the general fund so we cannot use the paving money to buy new textbooks or provide new classroom materials it's a totally separate account you can't move that back so whenever we talk about capital reserve that has to be spent on those types of things unfortunately you cannot move it back and and use it on salaries or anything like that and and the state wants you to do that because they want you to maintain your buildings you know because otherwise things go to disrepair and then then you have bigger problems so the state requires you to maintain building and put monies aside on the maintenance plan and uh along R facilities plan so that's where that capital reserve money um really helps out by having that wonderful thank you very much now we'll move on to board committee reports do you have anything Joe uh buildings and grounds just mentioned you mentioned earlier that we finished the paving that'll be in use I believe is that this week that's in use yeah we already started um and and in January we'll go over some future projects for this summer and potentially the summer after you know just to get things ahead of get ahead of it thank you very much Joe nothing on finance nothing on finance Melinda for special ed um I just want to mention that CPAC is presenting the digitally distracted parenting in the age of Technology a presentation uh by to kiring it's going to be held on January 16th 2025 at 7 o'cl at the Fairfield rack and just to give you a little background on exactly what they're going to be talking about uh his bio Tom ksing he's a nationally renowned psycho therapist author and television contributor he's the author of the best-selling books disconnected how to protect your kids from harmful effects of device dependency and raising healthy teenagers equipping your child to navigate the pitfalls and dangers of teen life Tom is a regular guest expert on many television news and talk shows where he offers insight and advice about parenting relationships and wellness Tom lectures throughout the country so this is really a wonderful opportunity to get the community out to get anyone out this is open to our whole Community um the group that runs CPAC these It's a Wonderful group of volunteers that really try to bring us valuable information so if you can make it on January 16th at 7 at the re Center we'd love to see you there please just mark your calendars I'd also like to task some of the individuals in the audience tonight I see we have our HSA co-president and a member of our our uh Education Foundation if you can really get this message out if we can provide it to you one way or another and even the teachers that are that are here tonight I had the opportunity to attend one of these events uh recently and it was amazing uh the work that Megan Kone and her team put in and there were so many things that I had no idea about that but didn't only pertain to special education and I think it's really important to get the message out to all the parents to kind of see you know what's out there um what help is available and to actually help guide you if you think you might have a question on as to where your child is or might be going or I think it's it's very helpful so if we can get their mission statement out maybe HSA and and FAA could really you know fef can get that out there and and email it and teachers as well that would be great we would really like this January meeting to be a success because it's so much valuable information that we think it's important for the community and for for everyone to come out and and really take part in it uh Angela is not here unfortunately uh so I'll just give everyone an update in negotiations we are happy to report that we've come to an agreement we've accepted the the teachers uh guide salary guide so hopefully they could ratify and we can get them their retro checks as soon as possible so we're very excited about that we can kind of put that chapter behind us and really focus on what's important which you know Joe's been saying for quite some time we're really longing for meetings where we talk really not so much about Finance but really education right and building that strong Foundation that we know all the kids are capable of and we know the teachers are doing daily so we're really excited and pleased that we've come to that agreement with them we've accepted their proposal and we can all kind of move forward and start 2025 you know full steam ahead so that's my report I don't think there's anything else in regards to committee so with that being said I'd like to open the floor for public comments on agenda items only name and address for the record although I think we know like build they're building in retention and clearly in this area we do struggle we were very fortunate that in the fall we had a very dry fall I think we all that maybe the last we not um but I know that typically in the community lot of concern around additional bills and put inal spes schol because it do have a non imp surrounding town so I would like to see if there'ss opportun there as well to pursue potential additional Mone that might give us creative outl as we consider how we're going to continue to you know evolve our drop off pickup process because I think so far as work I think better than MERS feed um but I don't know we're approaching the months and I think snow and ice May a little more challenging C make a little more challenging so um I think as we consider how we most utilize that space perhaps There's an opportunity there to see if there's additional money Avail to us and have additional water res then that might actually overal a big imp as well thank you and just to touch on um some of the comments that was one of the reasons why we decided to put a little bit of money into the fencing because we realized after evaluating where the kids spend the major majority of their time it's the black top and it's that it's that main field and that field the fencing along that field was was really dangerous uh the it was bent in several areas the the pipes were were broken and it was really a hazard for our kids to be playing kickball and dodgeball and baseball and whatever they play at lunch knockout uh so with you know a plan eventually to do a referendum which will affect that whole back area to to dump a large sum of money we didn't feel would be uh financially responsible so we started with the fields because the kids are playing there the most and what we're going to do is work closely with Recreation because Recreation does care for the fields back there and they do do all of our uh lawn maintenance back there so we're just working with them to get the fields safe which I believe they are now with the fencing the way that it is and we're kind of tackling these projects one by one in order of of importance um I think what you uh stated about pickup and drop off it is going extremely smooth smoother than most people would have thought but with that being said in the inclimate weather I just want to remind everybody that the first time for everything is always going to present a challenge so our first big snowstorm is going to be a challenge and we're aware that parents are going to be upset and it's not ideal but we want you to be aware that we have our teachers out there are doing a fantastic job right I see our superintendent out there on a daily basis I see our our building principles out there so just be mindful that every first is going to be a challenge our first major downpour right our first major snowstorm our first snowstorm that freezes over and relates to ice now I can tell you that I'm I'm working closely with our mayor who's who does all of our salting back there they are well aware that we are a school they are on top of things they are going to make sure that we have plenty of salt that our that area is taken care of and we just want everyone to be mindful that we're aware and as smooth as things are going that can change in a couple of days with a storm or an ice over I think one of the things Ryan had the paving contractor do was address an area that was kind of crippled at the end of the driveway that we just did that was falling apart and water was puddling and I I if I'm not mistaken that's where DLS kind of yeah the concrete was completely falling apart there just from the cars going over and over and it was just getting beaten down for sure if we did any plowing it would be a disaster and it wasn't the paving that they recently did it was it was decrepit from yes from years past it's old Paving so with that being said we're aware and you know we're glad things are working out and they're getting better um daily for you know from what I understand it Churchill pick up and drop offs relatively smooth which is a great thing and U yeah knock on wood uh I think Ryan did a great job and Wally did a great job finding out exactly what needed to be done in Stevenson and getting it done before we had these couple weeks of rain because you know for the people that have been teaching here for years and for the community members that have children that have gone through Stevenson it only takes one or two really bad rainstorms to swamp that area and then it becomes uh it becomes a whole another issue that now we're tearing up the fields that our kids use in the summertime to play various Sports so the turnaround between what exactly would work getting it on paper getting it out to bid and getting the work complete was a lot quicker than most people realize so for that we're extremely thankful for the hard work that went into that because you know you look at the forecast for this week it's not promising and I think eventually we would have been doing some damage to the grass and and at some point I think cars might have possibly gotten stuck so you know kudos to them for for getting it done and and doing it in a timely fashion so that we could avoid all that but again just please keep in mind that with all first there's going to be problem s and we'll work through them they they have a plan in place we'll figure things out as we go it's you know we'll I know Ryan has a is we talked about in climate weather we talked about uh snow and we're going to do our best to make sure that the impact is as minimal as possible for the least amount of time so thank you very much we appreciate your time and your comments as always anyone else on agenda items okay with that being said we will go to oh we have another one I put my head down too soon that's awesome stens school with a lot of beautiful tradition and the expr is a beautiful first Trad and from this year um and the maio family donated the little tickets as well the together and it was really even more magical than it's been in the past having seen many of them this was one of the best that's amazing so we thank you know we thank so much yeah thank you so much anyone else all right with that being said we move on to finance sure so page four under Finance the following Finance motions are made at the recom of superintendent of schools uh anything placed on this agenda items 1 to five will be voted upon in one motion and I would like to motion items one through five can I have a second second roll call Mr Fey yes M Street yes Mr D yes okay page six under grants the following Grant motion is made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools uh anything placed on this agenda just one item will be voted upon in one motion I will motion second second roll call Mr py yes M Street yes Mr deal yes page seven Administration uh the following administrative motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items one and two will be voted upon in one motion I motion second please second roll Mr FEI yes M Street yes Mr de yes okay page eight buildings and grounds the following buildings and grounds motions is made at the recommendation of the superintendent anything placed on this agenda item one will be voted upon in one motion so I motion M second second R Mr feedi yes M Street yes Mr DEC yes page nine Personnel the following Personnel motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent anything placed on this agenda items 1 through 4 will be voted upon motion I motion items 1 through four I have a second second roll Mr FEI yes M Street yes Mr yes okay almost there page page 10 no one's allowed to take off anymore curriculum program the following curriculum program motion is made at the recommendation of the superintendent anything plac on this agenda item one will be voted upon one motion I motion item one second please please second R Mr FEI yes M Street yes and Mr DEC yes okay page 11 policy the following policy motion is made the recommendation of superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda item one will be voted upon in one motion I motion item one second I second Ro Mr FEI yes M Street yes and Mr DEC yes thank you Joe oh you're welc and Melinda no problem appreciate your hard work during that portion of this meeting now I'd like to move on to public comments non-agenda items with that being said I'd like to take a second and wish Miss anise the best we are GNA miss you I know Mia is GNA miss you so health and happiness in the rest of 2024 and 2025 and we hope to yes take your time and we hope to see you yes we'll miss you our next meeting be it resolved that the next meeting will be held in person on January 9th 2025 Public Work session beginning at 6 PM followed by executive session with public session resuming at approximately 7:30 p.m. at the Fairfield Municipal Building may I have a motion for adjournment motion second roll r hi hi yes happy holiday thank you merry Christmas happy holidays Happy New Year