James Miss carasa Miss Carr Mr Cory here Mr Hayward here M mcnabola here Dr Robinson here miss garelli here miss Stevenson here M Rendell here we have a call Mr Cory will you lead us in the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all adequate notice of meeting in accordance with PL 1975 chapter 231 notice of tonight's meeting was mailed to the record in the Ridgewood news on January 3rd 2023 notice of this meeting was also mailed to the burough Clerk and was posted on the bulletin board of the Board of Education Office in the administration building on the same date copies of the procedures and effect for regular board meetings are available for the public at tonight's meeting Miss Stevenson will you read the mission statement the Glenrock School District founded on principles of education in partnership with the supportive Community provides an exceptional education to all students to cultivate resilient responsible and engaged Global Citizens thank you Dr Charleston yeah good evening everyone um welcome to to to tonight's meeting um we have a full full agenda uh I'd like to start um people may remember a couple of weeks ago we had a an actual fire at at Hamilton and I know that our students uh were were wonderful that day uh they followed all all the directions of Staff but I know they're also very appreciative of everyone's efforts to to keep them safe um and they wanted to to come tonight and kind of share their thoughts on that so I have Miss parites here to introduce our our students and um we look forward to hearing from them Miss PES and you're on okay so let me um yes okay so I just want to introduce you this is Zoe jaffy this is Zoe jaffy first grade Olivia Chapman first grade Ben hisy first grade and Zach elkus first grade the first graders wrote a big book to share their experience about the fire um right after it happened because children like to express themselves in writing um in our schools and in our district and so the best way to process what happened is they wrote a story and they'd like to share that with you one morning we were unpacking and reading suddenly the fire alarm rang then we walked to Academy of our Lady we went to the gym down down the stairs we went we SED in rows of grades we played hand games we were having so much fun we watched watching a movie and playing games we also played outside and we were all safe and we W safely home the end thank you okay you guys can take this and you can go sit down and we have two fifth graders and a fourth grader who have um their own description of the event it was a typical school day in Hamilton students were arriving to school some students were already in the classroom and some were on their lines outside suddenly the fire alarm went off and everybody had to leave the building luckily we had a fire drill the day before so it was fresh in our minds at first I thought the alarm was pulled by accents but teachers told us we had to leave the building it was scary when we realized it was a real fire some of us were not with our teachers the other teachers escorted us out and we found our class we heard and saw fire trucks and emergency vehicles approaching we all gathered at an evacuation spot and waited for directions my teacher said we had to evacuate to Academy of our Lady soon we started is working soon we started walking to Academy of our Lady once we got there they welcomed us and we went down to their gym they were so nice to us and they sacrificed their gym for us for the whole day when we were settled with the games and food we felt very safe after a while they sent us crayons and games and we even watched a movie even though it was still morning food was delivered and we all had pizza chicken nuggets and M Ella sticks everyone felt safe and happy being together soon after that many of our parents came to pick us up I was on crutches on that day and I did the best I could to keep up with everyone everyone was very helpful to me although it's a scary day Hamilton school is very grateful to our teachers for being calm and guiding us to safety there are superheroes We are grateful to everyone who showed up to help us the to the fire department to the the police department and everyone who made it less scary for us we are especially grateful to Academy of our Lady for welcoming for welcoming us and giving us their gym and helping us keep us busy until we got picked up thank you again to everyone thank you everybody e e e so we do want to um just talk a little bit more about you know really that day and and not to belabor the point but the students were were really wonderful um and the teachers and staff u under Miss PR's leadership really did an admirable job job getting the the students to to AOL safely and we do want to thank AOL for um all their Hospitality that day um the uh things I learned about AOL is that it's a lot of steps up from the top to the to the gym that was I got a lot of steps in that day um but uh the students were were supervised the entire time and uh it worked out as well as it could we did debrief uh a little bit as an admin team and we'll continue to do so there are some Logistics that we can clean up but that's more behind the scenes like in terms of of having the students picked up by their parents we try we'll try to streamline that a little bit better but in terms of keeping everyone safe uh kudos to to everyone so we do want to thank you for that and miss pries and to to the students uh thank you for for coming out tonight and sharing sharing your your experience um I think you're up now all right um so I need a motion to discuss P1 scarelli second m m yeah so on the on the agenda tonight um we have very very pleased to announce that we have uh the appointment uh to replace uh Miss PES at Hamilton uh Miss Kristen Gomez uh who will be returning coming back to to Glenrock uh we know that she was here for several years and really did a wonderful job here as a teacher instructional coach and also for for time she was doing two jobs as the interm uh supervisor of English and and yet she's still coming back so to us so uh but um I wanted to share some of the the the comments that her references had shared about her and also the uh the process so first of all the process we had 36 applicants for the position um those applicants had varying levels of experience some were sitting principles assistant principles um instructional coaches uh teacher leaders teachers and also we had several uh Middle School administrators apply there were four rounds in in the process so we started with eight candidates after a paper screening narrowed that down to four which was a full Committee of stakeholders narrowed that down to two another Committee of of stakeholders which included in each of those Committees of parents um or parent excuse me uh teachers other building administrators uh and Central administrators as well and now we narrowed that down to the finalist and and here we are today um some of the things that were shared and and we used uh references of where uh Miss Gomez currently is uh working and I think it says a lot about the positive impact she made in a short time that she's been away from from Glenrock for for people to share these things um I would hire her without without reservation um 100% uh feel that she's ready for for the job excellent leader and a good person just a huge loss for our district a collaborative an incredible leader she's grounded and well organized coaching background helps give her effective feedback to to staff she's great with parents uh puts in the time with them she knows the kids wholeheartedly recommend I have not one concern she is 100% ready and tonight uh Miss Gomez uh is here with her husband Alex and her her son Leo and we look forward to to your appointment and your tenure uh here or returning back here in Glenrock and at Hamilton at the same time I know Miss PES is here and we're thankful for all that she has done and we're certainly sorry to see her go but wish her the best in her retirement and I'll turn it back over to you does anybody have anything they would like to make comments on M I can't help myself I no I just want to say um how I think it speaks volumes for Glenrock that we have someone that has been working in this district and at various levels went on for a bigger promotion outside of our district saw that there was one here for her and didn't hesitate to come back so I'm so happy that you're coming back I'm happy for our district and our students and um I'm excited um to see what you will bring um I am sad to see Miss PES leave and I wish her all the best in her retirement I know we still have you till January so um we'll keep you busy thank you anyone else well I would like to say that I am so happy to welcome back um Miss Christen Gomez um something I've always loved about U Miss Gomez is that she has this way of like calmness about her and everything becomes calm when she's in there and I think that will be an incredible benefit to our district and Hamilton um of course very sad to see Miss pries go very happy that you will be taking her place so our children are in very good hands and thank you very much none V Mr Corey yes Mr Hayward yes M mcnabola yes Dr Robinson yes M Carelli yes Miss Stevenson yes M randelle yes motion carries hi I just um I wanted to share a quick story that I wasn't going to share but um I started teaching at Hamilton school when I first came to Glenrock um just for two quick months it was a maternity leave at the end of the year Irene Miss priy hired me um and as on the last day of school um I was packing up my things to move to Central School where I eventually taught for many years um I stopped at Miss PR's office and um she said you'll be back um and I never forgot that um and I actually thought you know recently well she was wrong um but it actually turns out she was right and she had the foresight to know that someday I would return to Hamilton um I guess we just both didn't realize in what capacity so I just want to say um how honored I am to be returning back to this special place um that I consider my second home away from home and um thank you to everyone for trusting me with such an important job um and I can't wait to get started thank you [Applause] again so um I know there's a lot of people here that don't want to be here for next three hours for a board meeting so why don't we take like a a two-minute break so people can leave and we could say goodbye to Mrs Gomez and her family and then we'll start right back okay so we're we're we're back um and I appreciate the the quick the quick pause um we have a lot to to to cover tonight and so um just so you know that when I do do presentations I'm usually about four or five slides Max Greg's at 53 so we cut it down to 50 all right so um just remember that uh but really important information that Greg and his team will will share tonight and we do thank our our supervisors for being here tonight and Greg for putting all this together so we k a little bit but I think it's important to show all the good things that are going on in the district in areas that we're where we can focus right so I'm going to turn over you Mr veness yeah thanks not only is it important but it's required by the state so uh here we are so we we are required to report on the spring administration of njsla testing by November 13th this year so that's why we always present the first first cow of November is what we we typically do so um I'm going to go through kind of some general things about the um about the test and then we're going to bring up the supervisors to talk about their subject specifically and go over the data there so just to kind of remind you in case you've forgotten we're required to report on this within 60 days that's November 13th this year um all of the data that we have it has to have a a sample set of at least 10 students for privacy reasons they don't want to identify um students and then uh we also have to present the per participation rate for each test so if you remember when uh Common Core came out and the park test and all that there were a lot of people opting out of the test so the state since then has required that we actually present to you how many of our kids took it so that that you know so what was tested um in 2023 was language arts from grades 3 through n is what we're presenting on here um maths grade grades 3 through eight Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 but this is only nth grade so the data you're seing does not include 10th or 11th or 12th only nth graders so that means some of these areas especially Algebra 2 are really small sample sizes uh really really small and I'll get to that in a little bit but I just want to point that out the other thing I'll mention and and Michelle will talk about a little bit more in detail is last year was the first year that we had redone the sequence of math classes in the middle school so this is the first time we're reporting math 8 in a long time or ever um because we didn't use used to give that test um so we'll talk a little bit about those numbers once we get there and then Sciences grades uh 58 and 11 uh the other thing I wanted to point out to you before we go on is who was tested so if you think about this year last year's third graders who were they they were in kindergarten in 2020 when school went fully remote in the spring in March if you remember that they were in first grade when we were in that hybrid environment they were in second grade in that return to school yes last year and then last year was a little bit more normal so I think it's important to remember that same thing our sixth graders were in third grade at that time there are for example in math some real fundamental math concepts that are introduced in third and reinforced in fourth there's not a lot of new stuff and forth so we have to think about what that looks like over the course of years when when some of these might have been the gaps that that they were looking at so it's important to remember who these kids are and and where they were and when all these things happened so I just want to put that up there so you can remember kind of kind of who we're talking about so let me get into the what I said is required about who what participation rates we had uh 99 or 100% in in all language arts our our kids don't by and large they sit for the test they don't refuse it um 99 means two kids didn't take it in each of these grades um it's it's a lot of of our kids take it in um math this is where you can start to see student numbers so in 2022 we didn't have anybody take math 8 last year 73 kids 73 eighth graders sat for that test which is um which is a change 97% of them sat for the test again that's two kids didn't um two kids out of 70 whatever 75 Algebra 1 you can see 191 kids sat for that um and I just I asked Michelle to get me the information on this that is by and large 8th grade it's 132 eth graders and 539 graders is kind of how the distribution goes there just so so you know where we are with that geometry is almost all nth graders um six kids that were Advanced from seventh grade took it I mean sorry eighth grade took it um but it's 136 uh ninth graders that took geometry almost over and this is where I talked about the very very small sample size of 21 kids reporting for Algebra 2 because most of our kids take Algebra 2 as sophomores right uh so we had 20 students that were nth grade and one one eighth grader ticket so that that's where we are with that when we're talking about these sample sizes though even when we look at like grades three and four when we're talking about 200 kids um that's a fairly good sample size but later you're going to see some slides that break it out by elementary school there are some sections some schools where there are only 44 kids in a Grade right again we get to really small sample sizes and so a lot of the variation that you you see in there might just be numbers right because with 44 kids 45 kids uh one kid moves it by 2% right it it really can move quickly so if you have a couple kids that do really well or had a bad day it can really change that so a lot of what we're seeing in the in those small sample sizes is a little bit of noise so really what we want to be looking for are Trends also not just you know up and down each each of those things so we'll get into that the supervisors will have it kind of by by school and and and that thing in science everybody took the test so there we go 100% when we're talking about proficiency here for whatever reason the state has language arts and math of four five proficiency levels but for science there are four I don't know why they use the language met expectations and exceeded expectations for language arts and math but they use the the language of proficient and advanced proficient for science I don't know why but that's the way it reports so on the slides when we're talking about the percentage of students students It's usually the percentage of students that score to four or five or score to three or four so in that red box is what we're looking at so just want to spell that out for you so you have it General My overall impressions of the data it's really similar to last year which means it's strong right it beats the state our our our scores are well above the state last year remember I did a whole comparison among other districts in the county and all of that we can't do that now because we don't have that data we'd have to literally watch everybody's presentation this week to gather all that data um but it's it's very similar to to last year so I anticipate it's similar compared to the county as well in language arts we're exceeding the state for meting exceeding expectations in all the grades um just all the way across you'll see that in a minute one of the things that we also noticed with um language arts is we're closing some of the gaps between the subgroups between gen Ed and special ed for example we're seeing a little bit um of closing that gap which is nice to see in math um the I think the biggest thing I can say in Michelle talk about this more is that more students successfully passed a test for which they sat so because we had kids taking math 8 which was where they were developmentally where they were what they were ready for mathematically they sat for the test that they were more successful on which we I believe I'll say that is going to set them up for further success right that's what we intended to do and we're seeing that so that's that's a nice thing to see and then in science more students are exceeding expectations in science and engineering practices than in past so looking at that kind of granular data that's that's a nice thing to see so at this point I'm going to pass the uh clicker over to Sherry cres she's our supervisor of English language arts and she'll walk you through the data for that green okay good evening everybody um so I'm going to talk a little bit about the ELA data refer back to some of the points Mr vaness made as we do that um but what you're taking a look at here is across District across grades how students are performing and primarily where we're concerned is in those columns on the the furthest to the right the four and five in District the students earning fours and fives in the state so as Mr vaness pointed out we are exceeding the state across the board um we continue to exceed the state average and fours and fives earned this year by an average of 26% um with a high of nearly 34% in fifth grade grade so we're looking at a global view grades 3 through n here but we're going to take a little bit more of a granular granular look excuse me um as we go through so this is the same data presented just those fours and fives comparing Glenrock to the state what you'll notice is as we pointed out already we're exceeding the state everywhere we do see some small dips across grades three six and nine that's where our performance dips a little bit but what you can see if you look at those red columns that's also where the state dips a little bit right in grades 3 six and N so tracking with the state those aren't unusual shifts there's a whole boatload of reasons why that might be third grade is particularly difficult to sus out because it's the first year that we test so we can't know is it K1 two or three is it just that the kids are new to testing probably a little bit of all of those things um but that's what we see going on broadly there we go thank you um okay so now if we take a look at this what we're looking at um are again percentages of of fours and fives comparing last year against this year right so those last two columns it's 2022 2023 performance this year is essentially on par with performance last year I mean performance is essentially flat um because as Mr vaness pointed out our our relatively small numbers mean that a difference in one or two students performances can have a measurable percentage impact um and that's what you're looking at here is percentages the biggest change that we see is in ninth grade um with a growth of 88.1% % so we've improved our scores in ninth grade we're recovering from that little bit of a dip that we saw postco um and what we're also seeing again this is just the same data presented differently visually um is that yeah there's a little bit of a drop off postco um as Mr vaness pointed out we can sort of track back where those students were over the years through through our closing and then the hybrid and then fully reopening um 9th grade is starting to show signs of recovery but what you can see from 22 to 23 is that basically flat performance we've basically done what we did last year so here we're looking at third grade specifically so here it breaks out across buildings and then by District again essentially flat I find that this is slightly more um useful to look at it this way just because um as an English person the numbers don't mean a whole lot to me but the pictures do um and what you can see is um from building to building again I would urge you to focus just really on those District numbers because from building to building we're looking at one or two kids really moving the bar um but you can see that districtwide we're performing pretty much exactly where we performed last year in third grade here are our fourth grade numbers again broken out um by building and then at the bottom by District here we saw a little bit of a dip in those fours and fives but what I want to point out and this is where the numbers are useful is that where those kids went so if they disappeared from four and five where did they go they went to three so they're at that approaching category right we're not talking about an explosion in ones and twos we're talking about a little bit of a dip in four and five but all that growth is in the threes um and here's what it looks like when you look at it across buildings and then across the district so this is between last year and this year fifth grade the the story is largely the same um again completely flat this year 87% of kids last year and 87% of this kids this year um earning fours and fives um while there's some variation at the school level that you can see performance districtwide is completely flat so again one or two kids can really make the difference at a building level performance when we look at it like this when we look at it like percentages as opposed to individual students sorry so as far as notable achievements go so we've outperform the state average not only in fours and fives earned but on all standards assessed in both reading and writing third grade through 9th grade which means that each question is coded to a standard we beat the state average on every single question every single standard every single time grades three through nine um so that's a great thing for our kids as readers and writers um grades three through five showed especially strong Improvement in standards that are tied to determining Central message and theme um and comparing and contrasting both in fiction and non-fiction so literature and informational texts that's tied to some of the key curriculum revisions that we made um in 3 through five and so it's nice to see that that is starting to have an effect we're starting to see kids develop strength or or get stronger I should say in those areas and as far as what we're doing for intervention strategies this year we are piloting a phonic program two phonic programs I should say in grades K through three um and so across all four buildings teachers will be piloting one of two programs um and that will be happening they're getting trained right now and then those Pilots will begin starting in January so teachers will start teaching with those programs then we're also investigating some word study options for grades four and five so while the the sort of Market of phonics Focus programs has exploded K through three four and five just hasn't kept up quite as much because four and five we're starting to look at differences in the way that kids are reading we're not decoding anymore um and so those products just aren't really on the market yet but we're looking um I'm also running along with the other supervisors I'll be running a learning team cycle with elementary teachers who opt into it open to K5 teachers it's going to be focused this first round will be FOC focus on improving practices specifically in the area of writing assessment so how do we respond instructionally to what we see in our writing assessments and then finally in the elementary schools the basic skills Intervention Program is currently offered and will continue to be offered and so that's what we're doing for our students in ela I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Mella Fortuna who's going to talk to you a little bit about math thanks Miss graes she is before before Michelle comes up um I just want to mention a couple math things thank you um so recently October 20th um a few of our teachers um but went to the math conference Association mathematics teachers of New Jersey fall conference but Lauren Slatterly and Michelle DEA funu co-presented at this conference they shared instructional practices inspired by building thinking classrooms by Peter I can't pronounce his last name uh the title of their workshop was where students work using alternative workspaces which focus on how to maximize the classroom environment to improve student discussion and engagement while building their critical thinking skills which is awesome to see our our folks out and about doing great things and then the other thing I I'm just going to keep feeding Michelle she can't smile anymore I don't know um she was selected as an Advisory Board member of learning forward New Jersey learning forward New Jersey is a network of Education practitioners from all over the state of New Jersey who are dedicated to planning and delivering the highest Professional Standards um she's also part of the learning forward cohort of the National Organization so as Mr melli we're hoping to get more people through this it's a it's a good organization so I just wanted to thank Michelle for these these great things she's doing outside the classroom and now she'll talk about what what's happening with our students in their test scores thanks so much yeah it was a really great experience being able to present along one of my teachers um we had a great time presenting together and I look forward to presenting with some of my teachers in the future ah there we go I pointed over here okay um so a lot of what I'll say will be very similar to miss Crees as far as the fours and fives being our markers for met or exceeded expectations so this is our overall data for fours and five in the district as compared to the state from grades three through Algebra 2 so these are our um our graphs as compared to the state so for most of our grade levels you could see that we're well exceeding the the state average we do have a very comparable in in math 8 because we have very few kids that take math 8 but that's something I want to look at over the next few years this is the first year we offered it in over a decade so there's a lot to learn from this and to grow from this experience so the ma a is definitely an area that I'll be keeping track of over the next couple of years these are comparisons from 2022 um again percentages are very very similar we're not seeing a huge change in percentages from met are exceeding in 2022 to 2023 so you could see that we have a huge jump in the algebra 1 um it's the highest it's been in a number of years which we're very proud of um Algebra 2 the past two years it's only been ninth grade so that's why you see those bars significantly higher than the other bars um most of the time over the years it's it's pretty consistent and again as I mentioned in the previous slide that I want to see our progression in in math 8 and see where that goes for us um we do we are implementing new curriculum and and textbooks in geometry and Algebra 2 so geometry will be an area of focus moving forward um all of my high school teachers are particip participating in professional learning this year and we're working on assessment so geometry is something that I do want to keep my eye on moving forward as well um I know Mr vaness addressed this earlier but our Algebra 1 that bar that you see there is encompassing of our our few seventh graders our eighth graders and our ninth graders although the majority of that is our 132 of them are eighth graders the geometry again is mostly ninth graders we have a handful of six six uh students in the grade8 that take geometry and Algebra 1 bar is only compressing of 21 students oh too fast so this is our grade three delineated by school um our you can see our our district overall so we're looking at the fours and fives from 2222 compared to 2223 so there's no real clear Trends in this data there is something that we're looking for because I know Mr vaness mentioned like our samples are so small so I do want to look for overall Trends um as a district we're fairly consistent um there's nothing here that is anything for pause of concern but I'm definitely going to continue to look for Trends moving forward this is our grade four percentages by school um you could see our district percentage of fours and fives from 22 to 23 um I did notice some Trends here which are worth noting um we see an increase in in the percentage of of students at bird meeting are exceeding expectations from 2018 2018 onward um and same thing for Hamilton we are seeing a trend up at those two schools so that's something worth noting and those are kind of the trends that I'm looking for um overall but as a district we're pretty much consistent over the years these are grade five percentages of met and exceeded expectations by school and then our by our district and then again we're looking for Trends here as far as um what is happening over the years so you know we didn't have a test in 2020 so we're looking from 2017 to 2023 there is that Gap that we're being mindful of with with coid that we're we're looking at um but we do see a trend upward in in bird from 2019 onward um which is which is note noteworthy um and then the district overall is pretty consistent over the years so one of our proudest achievements this year is that we went from um a 16% increase increas from 2122 in grade8 students meeting or exceeding um so that means like Mr van said the kids that are sitting for their tests are more successful at getting meeting or exceeding those standards grade eight assessment is grade eight standards so we love that that increase happened um Algebra 1 in particular versus mid middle school and high school together we see a 19% increase in in meter exceeding expectations similar to what Miss crle was saying we do get a report based on standards so each question is tagged with a specific state standard and that's something for me as an instructional person to look at how we messing up with those standards that the kids are getting assessed on and we have this really nice line graph that compares our percentage of kids that got that question right as compared to the state and from grades three through 7even we are always above the state average for the kids that get that question right so that's always a nice uh graphic for us to look at if we're looking to align our instruction to the standards that is really helpful for us that I usually dive into with the teachers some strategies so we are we as you know I'm here I feel like I'm at the board all the time we are doing uh curriculum revisions and adopting new textbooks as you all know we implemented it this is the second year in the middle school and this year we're implementing it uh in geometry and Algebra 2 um so that's something we are working towards to make sure that we're meeting those State Standards we did get new standards issued that we're going to be implementing for 2425 they're very similar yeah no we're we're good we're good no major revisions even though I just revised all this curriculum but we're in a good spot um so and you know I'm sure I'll be here again talking about the new state standards so I could fill you in at that point um in the elementary school we do offer basic skills intervention we use the state test as a data point to identify kids for that program and now I'm going to turn it over to Mr Valentino thank you good evening everybody all right let's dive into science okay uh we continue to outperform the state on all standards we exceeded the state averages of threes and fours proficient and advanced proficient across all tested grades 5 8 and 11 by more than double as we can see highlighted by this graph right here we also do see a dip in the Middle School six to eight band uh which tracks with a dip in the state average as well if we move on to these slides here we do see slight increases in student performance at the middle school and the high school levels and then it kind of tapers off and it levels out at the elementary school and also uh should be noted that there is no postco drop off in the scores we on here here we can see uh if we dive into the elementary schools at the district level the performance is essentially the same and there's a little variation between the schools the bird School uh is trending upward uh bird schools departmentalize for grades uh four and five for each block of instruction and over at Hamilton select teachers in grades three to five exclusively teach science uh with each trimester and again uh as noted before while small sample size can alter this data significantly we're we're looking closely at the patterns and trends that we we see here okay so notable achievements in science at the K5 level more students are exceeding expectations in their science and engineering practices since their initial launch of the Inspire program back in 2019 in grade five 27% of students exceeded their expectations in those science thinking skills like asking questions developing models um planning and carrying out investigations and analyzing and interpreting data and this represents a 33% increase compared to 2019 and finally for nope intervention strategies and science um this summer we focused on curriculum revisions to appropriately align instructional and assessment practices in those uh State Standards at the K12 level we imp implemented and refined complex skills-based Benchmark common assessments based on those njsls performance expectations at the K5 level we have revised our instructional practices to increase teacher Choice inquiry activities and finally at the middle school level we have taken a hard look at the 6 to8 grade level band for performance expectations and now they have been evenly distributed across all three GL grade levels which now deepen in complexity and application over time and we feel that that's more developmentally and cognitively appropriate given their age group thank you very much for your time and uh now Mr vess I passed the Baton over to you thank you um if you hand it to James he'll grab it brother um so the last few slides that I want to talk about I mentioned before is we have to present the the subgroup breakdown of of of data so how to different groups within our our district do and um so that's where we get a graph that looks like this which is which is quite quite a lot I think um that the numbers are all over and I I do want to remind you that these are this is again where we might see some of that noise from sample size so even if you look at language arts 5 there which is almost right in the middle um all all of the bars are represented many of the grades you don't see bars because it's fewer than 10 kids in in a subgroup there so I can't I can't even share that but even in the language arts 5 um we're reporting the scores of 10 Hispanic or Latino 11 that identifies two or more races and 47 with IEPs so these are small these are small numbers still right so I I just want to remind you of that um and you can see that there's there's some consistency in some grades and some in not in others it's just kind of all over the place um I'll get a little bit more specific with with some of it um math looks about the same right we we we see just kind of numbers all over the place um math 8 you see is really um tracking with it with the performance there which is which is where we're starting off with as Michelle was talking about and then in science here um I think that the bands are a little bit tighter I don't think there's a little less less variance but I think that's also um you know we're only testing three different grades here instead of every single grade so it might have something to do with that I took a little bit of a a deeper dive into one specific subgroup because it's it's one that we we focus on a lot um and that is our our students with IEPs so Dr McKay and I looked at this and looked at the data a variety of ways and I think this is one of the best ways to to represent kind of the work that we're we're thinking about we we're doing what I'm showing you here in blue is our scores of gen Ed compared to students with IEPs from 2022 and in green the same from 2023 and so I mentioned earlier that that Gap that we see between gen Ed and special ed in ela is shrinking a little bit right you can see that that the those bars are a little closer together the the light green and the dark green versus the light blue and the dark blue um we don't see that that Gap closing as much in in science and and math and so we're looking into why what what's happening there um some of the things that we're working on last year and this year quite heavily is we're we're looking at co-teaching environments instead of just resource and pull out um maybe that's working better with our language arts maybe that lends itself better to language arts I don't know we're looking into that um it's something we're we're definitely looking into we want to see these gaps close right we do these are our students that have learning disabilities they do get testing accommodations but the test is not modified right and so it it is a hard test for them um when we're looking at this kind of of data though I even had um for for administrator candidate had them do a task which was analyzing data and and they all said this is the big level data right we have to look at the small level data too so that means um informal data collection from teachers it means Running Records it means all of those things that we do internally but it also means especially for these students their individual education plan right we can't make broad sweeping generalizations about what special ed kids need because they all need something different right so that's what we're we're trying to F kind of hone in on with our data analysis so when we look at the njsla testing data it gives us really broad big big picture views of it and we continue to dig down we continue to dig down and see what else we can do to to find how do we help support these these students so some of the interventions I can talk about with with the subgroups that we're talking about that continued in looking at the alignment of instruction and instructional materials between our general Ed and special ed uh populations especially um as we move kids more towards a co-taught environment and a pushin environment that those are aligned a little bit more often than when we pull them out into a separate resource room something of that nature um the work that Michelle is doing getting new textbooks in for uh for our math classes right those include a lot more of that alignment of instructional material between the two and we're hoping to see those gaps shrink a little bit uh we continue to support staff and students I mentioned the co-teaching in initiative we have a consultant coming in we're focusing our professional development on it we're having um Mrs crpes mentioned learning teams one of them is going to be focused on co-teaching like we're we're continuing to support and support and support our our staff um to to help these students out the best they can uh targeted professional development reflective of specific population needs so that's part of that we're also bringing in somebody using our title three funds to really focus on our ESL instruction how are we supporting those who are multilanguage learners and we continue to focus on inrs and BSI and the referral process how are we supporting students before they're getting the child study team before they're getting through you know these kind of higher tiered supports what are we doing in the classroom how do we identify those needs that they they have and then as I said before we continue to look at individual school and individual student data it's not just the njsla right it's it's very very broad um so I think that is the end of our present do you have any questions for me or any of the supervisors um surprising I know I know I have a question not normal um no I want to thank the supervisors for being here this evening and putting together the presentation um truly appreciate all the hard work you've done just a couple of questions and actually Mr Valentino touched on it because of watching the trends especially at bird I wanted to ask if we feel that the de de yeah the departmentalization that we've done at those grade levels if we feel that it is truly having a positive impact on our students learning um and if it is that would be you know great if that was rolled out to the rest of the district so that they all benefit from that um because that was my thought it was not just science but it was also I noticed math I don't remember specifically the ELA but those two in particular were definitely trending up in those grade levels um and then my other question is I know we're tracking third grade to third grade but are we also looking at third to fourth fourth to 5ifth to see how they're developing year-over-year as they progress through the schools Y is my question yeah if if you know me you know I like spreadsheets and I look at those things so after preparing this that that's where we're going next is looking at how how are things trending from one grade to the next because comparing this year's third grade to last year's third grade well they're different children aren't they right they we can't we can't necessarily compare those things so I I'll be continuing to dive into that I think as far as the departmentalization as he mentioned some of the teachers at um Hamilton for example have have kind of focused in on on science or social studies things like that we're we're digging into that more and looking into how do we support them in that how do the supervisors work in that environment as well and and continuing to look at that yeah anyone else Miss Stevenson Greg um Mr curi about the way that you study IEPs um IEPs are very unique and tailored are there uh are there data sets where we look at how those IEPs might be more subject specific or is this a comparison against an entire IEP population as as a subset itself I'm sorry I don't understand your question so so IEPs are specific sometimes they might be more General in in need or they might be specific and more subject like like language or or or math and different when we look at the data when we get the data are they more um is IEP population the total I uh total student IEP population or is it um or are those calibrated to the different the three different testing metrics look at so the data that you have here this is all students with an IEP right so it could be a specific learning disability for one specific thing it could be that they rece re replacement classes for multiple classes so it's you're right it's it's very broad to to lump them together in here and that's why as I mentioned that the IEP process is a very individual process right each kid's uh successes and each kid's challenges are are used to to identify what what supports they need and one other question so we compare against State data is there other data from the state that breaks down to maybe compare Glenrock to other types of districts that we could compare the that might have more uh more like common Community environments more uh common teaching environments and see how we're comparing against that or is it only and that's what I did last spring because that data isn't out yet and so so I did that if you want to look at last Spring's data it does all of that against um all of the County schools and then all of the I and J districts in the county we we did that last spring y thank you st just more of a comment um first thank you for the presentation and I'm very happy to hear that you're going to look at third graders and how they did in fourth grade because it really as somebody who was in education you I never understood why are we comparing last year this year is when it's like apples to oranges so I'm glad that you're doing that because that data will be more telling than yep grade to grade anyone else thank you very much for that thank you to our supervisors was very nice yeah thank you for um for for coming out I think that you should stay for the rest of the meeting just I know you want to learn and and and so I yeah no they're leaving they're running away so um yeah thanks great job appreciate it thank you um so I'm going to turn it over uh to Mr caneles who has scheduled just so you know Mr vaness scheduled a presentation Mr canel scheduled two presentations Dr Charleston scheduled zero presentations so Mr Canalis all you Ides as an untenured ba I will not comment um this evening we yes we do have two presentations our first is uh by our audit professionals at uh Lurch Vincy and Bliss and we are uh honored to have Mr Paul Lurch this evening um and it was his team that conducted our audit for uh the fiscal year ending June 30th 2023 um and I will let him present the audit uh to you great thank you and good evening everyone um I'm here to present the results from our our audit for the year ending uh June of 23 I guess I'd like to say this is probably the earliest I've ever been here I mean it's not even election day right and and we're here and I think last year was it March or oh March April kind of date and um you know it's a combination of a lot of things and um you know uh when we start the process we always talk to the Bas about who wants to go first nobody wants to go first in the audit nobody wants to go last um so we always have this bell-shaped curve here um and I spoke to James about it and jam says well well you know what I'm ready he says come on in and so we said you know what we're going to schedule you first we're going to go ahead and go do the audit went through the process um believe it or not but we all know what was really holding up the final audits right and now was the information that we were trying to receive from the Division of Pensions um for whatever reason we are now in the sixth year and that information is here and that information came about I guess it's over a month ago we have no idea why all of a sudden it used to take nine months and now all of a sudden they released it um more than time I would have to say so um that's good news uh it's good news certainly so we're able to actually present with a hard copy of an audit not coming in and just presenting you know findings and going through just budgetary fund balance but you actually never had a report in your hand so this is something we did probably seven years ago um so you have two reports there right we have the uh the comprehensive uh annual financial report which is the larger of the two uh which has a lot of data in it you know we've got the mdna the the audit opinions the financial statements the notes statistical information and then you have the smaller two reports which is mandated by the state of New Jersey which is really the compliance report and I guess what I'll do is I'll just start off there with the compliance report because um we have no audit comments so if you were to look at that smaller two reports You' go to the back page and that's where we list any of the recommendations we do not have any recommendations this year so that's terrific and that's really what you're striving for it's wonderful um you know you've got great staff here and James can certainly attest to it uh the ladies and and the rest of the support staff that are back there are certainly doing a great job and it really shows um and and if I kind of go backwards a little bit and talk a little bit about the big report and then if you want we can just focus on exhibit C1 at the end which is Page 72 of the larger rep of the two reports so overall I'm going to say we have unmod modified opinions on the financial statements including single audit on internal controls and compliance in accordance with governmental auditing standards uh and with major programs on internal controls and compliance so I said a lot there but really the key word there was unmodified you've got a clean opinion on all those specific areas uh we do a lot of testing uh obviously there were no significant deficiencies and internal controls we would have discussed those with you um the District was subject to a state and federal single audit simply means at any time you have expenditures that exceed 750,000 in state proceeds as well as Federal proceeds it requires additional auditing it's identified and called a single audit um it just means that we have to do additional compliance work on those grants so State expenditures you had over $17 million in state expenditures now a lot of that is categorical a um that you get um but it does require additional testing um we did do that testing we have of course um there's no exceptions if we had compliance issues with any of those fe uh state or federal requirements um we would have reported it to you in the audit report itself um we then had Federal expenditures of 1.8 million and so again we exceeded the 750,000 we had to then identify what we uh classify as a major program major program typically is high dollars but it could be um a high-risk program um certainly we all know that now with the we're coming to the end of the arpa Esser Corona virus uh what else what am I missing um all of those funding mechanisms and so those programs were identified by the FED as as high-risk so we had no choice but to test those and so we're actually we're into our third year of testing uh either the Ida arpa Essa Essa 2 essa3 those those programs um and we had no deficiencies or or or issues with with those expenditures as it relates to the compliance on those programs um so that's that's good news um we don't know if we're ever going to get audited you know some at some point we think that the feds are going to come in and do some sort of auditing on all this money since it's basically trillions is it I don't know is it trillions it could be I guess it is trillions you know I'm losing track of billions trillions but yeah so um but that's good so those are those are the uh some of the highlighted things um what's new this year so this year it seems like every single year we come in we we talk about some new auditing pronouncement uh governmental auditing Standards Board the gby they seem to come up with these new ways of reporting and requirements and that's why we started getting into all these delays we started having to record pens record pension activity uh health benefit activity even though you're not liable for it um that was really what was holding us all up uh so now what do we have we had leases a couple years ago um the way we report leases changed and so now they've come up with a new uh a new gasby was effective for this particular year it's gasby 96 uh it's subscription based Information Technology agreements Arrangements um really what it means is that um somebody over at gby and I and and I don't know if this is true not but I kind of think you know they were sequestered in coid and they had to come up with what are we going to do now what are we going to do and they're trying to come up with some idea so now this new pronouncement says that if you have material amounts of subid is just an acronym um of these information technology in other words if you're leasing technology over a period of time we have to now record that lease of this right to use an asset that's what they're identifying as an asset on your financial statements and a liability it's a right to use an asset um so we went from hard assets to leases and now we're into Information Technology the right to use this particular technology uh for a period of time it was pretty complicated up front uh we went through this uh James went through and really put a a very detailed list together um after reviewing it and going through that list there are exceptions if if any of these contracts or leases are less than one year they're not required to be recorded if they're multiple year they are required to be recorded if they meet certain other criteria U we looked at the culmination of those amounts of leases it was less than um a tolerable material Level uh from our financial statement perspective so those are not being reported in the financial statements so you always have the ability and those financial statements are the Board of Education financials and and and James is um obviously the ba and that was the decision we went through those dollar values those dollar values were not material to the financials we didn't go through the process of recording it it just would have been additional cost again to the to to the Board of Education uh going through those individual scenarios coming up with a effective interest rate and all these calculations that that are P would have pertained to it um so I said a lot there but really nothing happened right um so uh just going down a little bit further we talked a little bit about the federal monies with with um arpa Co um all the rest of that um you you the Glenrock Board of Education was offered uh $1.9 million of all those funds so that's it's quite a bit of money that came through that whole um coid situation with all the various funding levels so the glenro Board of Education was appropriated one $ 1.9 million you're going to go through the final spending mechanism now pretty much everything's got to be spent by September of 24 um so um that should be the end of those proceeds uh and you know if if you were wise which I know you were a lot of that money wasn't spent on just recurring expenses because you're going to see then you're going to read it in the paper some of the board of educations that had gone through the process and started using some of these funds for for just normal operating expenses well now the funds are gone and what are we going to do um so that's not a problem for you which is terrific and I think that you like I said pay attention to the paper um you're going to see where you're going to have other districts that are going to be dire need of federal funding State funding and and these are really the reasons I'm not sure if they're going to be clear about it in the paper but um that's what we're kind of seeing out there um before I get into Surplus just Capital project fund so Capital project fund accounts for the facility improvements right you're winding down in any of those funds you have about $4 million left mostly smaller or or projects that were funded through uh capital reserve right we still have the one project from 1819 and that is being funded and funneled out through the use of the unexpended money towards Debt Service right we know that and there's a little over $2 million at the end of 23 um so not much activity left there uh food service is active back to being active again roughly 650,000 in revenues about a break even in the Food Service fund um which is where you really want to be I mean these these even though they're identified as Enterprise business funds you're not the idea is not to be making profit um but then we flip over we go to the Community School Community School is doing very well now as it came out of coid um sales are around 1.7 million and net profit was up uh 383,000 and net position is is now is $887,000 so it's very profitable right now and that's something obviously that that the Board needs to work through and figure out what are you going to do with that and what's the purpose of that net position um okay so that's that's some of the other stuff and I'm going to focus now just on the operating fund the general fund and so really the focus is on exhibit C1 and that's page 72 the large report and so what you're looking at in exhibit C1 is the budgetary comparison schedule for your general operating fund so this is the fund that you utilize on your daily activity it's the fund that you go through and you prepare a budget for um and obviously we have the results so when you look at that column called actual that's the actual results you come down to the end you can see that we ended the year with 12 million 12,500 79,000 down slightly from 13,905 the year before so what makes up the various components and I'm going to start really from the bottom so we have undesignated or unassigned here of 1,839 th000 that used to be 4% that is now calculated based on 2% of your expenditures and there's always adjustments that we have um so 2% of 2 % of that um operating expense is about $1.1 million and then we have an additional adjustment of unused extraordinary Aid and that unused extraordinary Aid gets you to the $1.8 million that you can retain when I presented last year that number was 2.8 million so you can see the the the legislature went through through Co they didn't really know how to react so they said let's allow Board of educations to retain 4% of their spending used to always be 2% that's how we got to the higher numbers that expired so now at the end of 22 23 you're down to 2% it just means that that different amount of money that 2% is going to flow back into other possible resources or the possible buckets and it really does flow back into capital reserve for the most part then we have designated 900 900 9,946 just means the amount that's budgeted in your 23 24 budget encumbrances of 347,000 encumbrances are nothing more than a reservation of equity goods or services ordered just not delivered um or perform prime example and I always use it as us right so we we contract with the Board of Education um we have a contract to execute a purchase order well that is a reserve of equity that's an incumbrance had I come in and perform the audit before the year end which is impossible it would be an accounts payable so that's why it's sitting as a reservation of equity and that rolls into next year's budget and then we come up into the restricted areas um Unemployment uh this was a a change that we had three years ago um unemployment used to be set up in its own fund and the trust funds now it's all Incorporated in the general operating fund um so this is relatively unchanged 773 th000 it's the amount of money that's set aside that you can use for future unemployment claims again there was a period where the the um Board of educations were not build by the state of New Jersey for unemployment um I know those are starting to trickle back again I just don't know whether or not you know they still are sitting on a sizable amount of federal proceeds that they didn't spend down so I don't know if they're going to use some of that towards unemployment or some other purpose um so that's good because you have a large reserve for future unemployment claims um emergency Reserve money that you set aside obviously for an emergent need um got a little easier to get at I mean you could use it for security purposes now it was a little more difficult back in the day um it's unchanged $29,000 so again it it can be used for security type purposes you could run it through the budget process if you wanted to it's not a lot of money it's and again it is unchanged and then you come to of course the uh the meat and potatoes which is the capital reserve right so you know typically what happens is is that you're funding capital reserve through either the budget process you're funding it through a resolution that you're doing in every June of every year which is basically establishing the fact that if you have excess monies in your current operating budget you'd like to transfer a certain amount of money of those excess proceeds that you didn't need in the operational side to go into a capital reserve and capital reserve allows you to do all the projects that you've been doing uh it's a great tool um you know every Board of Education should take advantage of it you certainly have um so that number started relatively the same believe it or not it was it was 6.3 million we're 6.3 and change overall it really didn't change but if you look at the activity it actually changed by four million bucks you know 4 million came into it through the budget through that resolution through unused capital reserve money that you set aside for a specific purpose that you didn't spend that money automatically comes back and then um yeah and then uh and then use through the projects for for project use so um six 6.2 6.3 million um nothing was designated in the 23 24 budget so that is available for future yes so is that that doesn't include the Hamilton project now it does so this is after right so the Hamilton project and J just correct me if I'm wrong that Hamilton projects is sitting down in your Capital project fund yes that's in that four million but it's around two million because two and change is really from an the old 1819 that you're using towards Debt Service so so out of the capital reserve into the construction fund right so it's out okay so as of right now we have six over six million in our cap Reserve that is correct okay thank you and so then we get to the end and we go through this progression we fill up all the buckets we we we look at the total Surplus that we have available and then we look at you know what's the maximum we can retain we went through that that's at 1.8 million we have the other various buckets you do the resolutions for capital reserve maintenance Reserve anything beyond and excess of that goes into excess Surplus which is just a way of saying that that money now is required to go back as a revenue line item in subsequent budgets so when we sat here last year and I'm sure this is not everyone realized this is not a coincidence right the number last year was 1, 521 1884 well the excess Surplus this year is 1,521 1884 and that's because the resolutions uh the way they're they're now um um set up is that it gives leeway to the ba and the Board of Education in the old days we had to estimate exactly how much we wanted to put in capital reserve now we do a limit up to whatever you want to call it X when the books are closed out what happens is is that we we talk to the ba and we say okay listen here's my excess Surplus right now if you do nothing where are we you know that number could have went from 1.5 million it could have went to $3 million or higher and what that does that causes imbalance for you and it becomes difficult because one year forced to do a revenue when I balance the budget of 1.5 and then the next year you're telling me now I have 3 million or I can fluctuate down to zero in a subsequent year so stability is the name of the game really and I think that's why uh the B Andi we we discussed it and and we basically said listen let's just keep it the same it's easy for budgeting purposes when you roll through those numbers at least the revenue side is going to be relatively the same um so I all in all it's a good audit I I think that the board should be very happy with the uh with the results and um if anybody has any questions anybody have any questions Mr miss mnol you you didn't have any problems with this audit the fact that we had two business administrators dealing no not at all and that was a certainly a worry in mine because you know when when when Mike first resigned and said he was going to leave and then I was looking at the calendar I'm like you know I even said to him I says well can't can't you just stay until the books are closed out you know maybe leave uh I don't know uh you know September one or even get get through the month of July uh because normally that becomes a real nightmare it really does um but James is you know that's obviously being a CPA um you know that's his Forte and so that transition was for me was seamless um so I certainly appreciated it thank you then I'd like to thank James yeah anyone else thank you Paul I think that was a oh I'm sorry did you have something well all right might as well we're GNA be here all night anyway so no so I just have a question though on page 12 it mentions under financial analysis of the district funds it talks about capital projects it says capital projects expenditure exceeded revenues and other financing uses by 745,000 like what is that in relation to our capital reserve account okay so two two different things two different things right so um the capital reserve account is money that we set aside for future Capital needs you can appropriate in the budget which we do if you do small projects that are going to be expended within one year it stays in the budget stays right in the current budget but if you're going to do large projects like the Hamilton project that money then gets goes through the budget it comes out of your general operating fund comes out of capital reserve it goes into a capital project fund because that fund now extends for multiple years I can't extend multiple years in in the operating fund and so that's the distinction so yeah y so we were so we overspent and that so we just have to move money in there it looks like we're no it just you know no because what happens is is that it's it's it's an accumulation so you know the first year that you funded if you didn't spend anything you'd say oh look I have all this Revenue I have no expenditures right so it's sitting in equity but the idea is to spend it all down So eventually you're going to get down to zero but you'll have years where you're not putting any new Revenue in right because you didn't transfer any project takes multiple years and you expend it out so it looks inverted but it's really not yep anyone else all right thank you Paul I think that uh was a fantastic uh experience um going through my first audit as a VA with your team um and and and more importantly I think uh it's a reflection of the the wonderful uh indiv indviduals we have in our business office that uh really kept the ship afloat um I merely just sat in the chair um just a couple of comments on items that you me mentioned uh just for the board's uh benefit so uh to the spend down on uh AR money uh Mr Van Nest um has been very diligent in spending that money down and if you were to go and look at some of the available public documents that show spend Downs of different districts um we are probably in the the the the the the the upper echelon of getting our money spent and we really don't have an issue uh spending down uh through the September deadline um the other item that you mentioned was the net position in the community school um to remind the board that's one of the items we just approved was the purchase of the school bus uh so that's one of the initiatives that we've taken there and then lastly a comment on the sabitas where we where we where we passed on further further audit work or even any accounting work and that's because it was really there's no value ad we would have done a top sided entry to our financial statements it wouldn't even make it into our operating uh budget so we just said you know what this is a waste of of District funds um and we're able to pass uh on making those adjustments so uh I thank Paul for his counsel uh during that process uh but we think it was the the best bang for the buck for us as a district but uh thank you Paul thank thank you and I think it made all the sense in the world because like you said that it's just those were just topend entries and it didn't affect your budgetary fund balance that's what you really should be concerned about you know we go from budgetary to modifi acrel to full acrel three different ways in this report and you know those other ends are really for you know um Bond Bond analysis and those type of things but um but yeah all in all very good thank you very much thank you have a great night you too all right that's all right so now we come to our second uh uh business related uh presentation we are uh privileged to have uh Mr Greg burns from dco Mr Rob pavano from dco energy and Mr Derek Jordan from cers engineering and design and and and they're here to talk about our EIP um our esip esip is an acronym that stands for Energy savings Improvement plan and if if we go back in time to the spring this was the contract that was awarded uh for an investment grade uh energy uh audit that is in the midst of being conducted and the gentlemen are here today to sort of kind of explain once we get to the ecms or or energy conservation measures how then those translate into dollars and thus into Pro into projects and how that's funded in a net zero zero impact on the district's budget so without further Ado um I will turn it over to Mr Jordan do you have a click I do good evening Derek Jordan with College engineering and design um my part today is going to be uh brief Hing the wrong button there we go um just real quick and an agenda for toight obviously we'll go through who the team members are um and then I'll introduce our partners dco which will take you through the Energy savings Improvement program um how that's being put together and where we are as well as the schedule and of the solar power purchase agreement or the PPA um so as I said I'm Derek Jordan with cers engineering and design we're the the district's uh engineer of record um our partner in the ISA project is uh dco energy I'm here with uh Greg Burns who's going to um take over uh the presentation uh right now thank you Derek uh good evening everybody as Derek mentioned I'm Greg burns with dco so I'm very happy and honored to be with here with you this evening so thank you for the opportunity um so we'll briefly so so as dco just to give you a brief background we're an Energy Services Company right what what does that mean so we're qualified by New Jersey Department of management and construction dpmc as an Energy Services Company in this in this model of your EIP program we act as an energy consultant to cers but obviously well as well as advising the district on their their energy spend and potential budget neutral Capital Improvement uh plan here so what is esip what does that mean what is that acronym that gets thrown around it's a way to fund Capital Improvements without impacting the taxpayers and it's done so in a budget neutral fashion so the uh simply the Energy savings from the upgrades are going to cover the cost over a 15 to 20 year period as an Energy Services Company we also offer an energy savings guarantee as part of that so that's that's simple that's high level of what the program entails um so I think it may have gotten a little messed up in in switching it so again there's I apologize for the graphics but there so there's there's three options school districts really have for completing cap capital projects and Capital Improvements first is esip right we're here to talk about that I mentioned it no taxpayer impact the the and the reason is because you just reallocate from utility budget line items to fund those Capital Improvements the other two the lease purchase right just your typical five-year lease purchase maybe for books or computers you can't get state aid Etc you just pay the the market rate for that and then obviously the referendum you go out to referendum you go to the taxpayers so esip is funded through your current budget without a net increase that here sorry um so so what is the so this is the law um so esip again is overseen by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities the the key takeaway is that every year annually it's not in year 15 it has to be cash positive it's year 1 through 20 the Energy savings has to cover those costs for the district and that's how it's able to stay budget neutral the Board of Public Utilities oversees this process so they'll review what we're in right now is called that investment grade audit so we're working with James and Don and the staff here who's opening every door letting us get into every and see every piece of equipment that currently uses energy so what we're doing is seeing how much those how much energy that equipment uses how much it's going to cost to replace and how much Energy savings will the upgrade achieve the Board of Public Utilities will review and approve our plan and that's not a nice to- do it's it's required by law this isn't just a madeup process this has been enacted since 2009 um in 2012 currently I'm um working with numerous districts throughout B Bergen County from tenly Ramapo Indian Hills Loi so quite a few districts throughout just Bergen County and locally here um going through this process now so how is it right budget neutral sounds awesome that's great sign us up move forward so how do what does that actually mean so right now now we're in the process of Comb compiling your current utility spend so if you spend uh that column all the way to the left is about called $800,000 in electric natural gas water sewer you're going to continue to spend that whether you implement any of the measures evaluated by cers and dco you're and that's going to increase at a at a rate based on psg's escalation and then right I'm not providing anything groundbreaking everything's getting more expensive including your utility costs so that number is going to continue to increase what esip allows you to do and why I like to use the word reallocate so we'll come up with a plan we'll work with James and Don to develop their priority list of upgrades they want to see to achieve for the district what what's top of Mind top priority so once we Implement those measures your utility spend will be cut anywhere from about 25 to 60% so now your new utility spend if we're using that $800,000 to keep it even numbers let's say it's a 50% savings so now you're only going to pay psse G 400,000 and the rest will be allocated to fund the measures over that 15 to 20 year period as well as as I mentioned it has to be cash positive annually so there will be excess Savings in the project for James and the district to reallocate as they see fit once the projects are funded over that 15 to 20 year period you're then obviously able to realize that excess cash flow as you best see fit in your budget again I'll just like to highlight the word it's the reallocation so what are we looking at how does this make sense to Glenrock how does this pertain to us so you can see a few pictures of the the current District setup so the the the graphic to the left is called an energy conservation measure Matrix ECM Matrix right now we're in that investment grade audit stage that means every item on that list up there you either have or we can potentially install to reduce your current energy consumption to provide you a self-funding project if it's a blank box and there's no check mark it either it means one of two things you either do not have that equipment at that site it or it wouldn't make sense at that site or the equipment there is not past its useful life so if a rooftop unit is only four years old the ashay useful life of a rooftop unit 20 25 years it doesn't make sense to replace a four-year-old rooftop unit so we're evaluating the top measures that use the most energy that are at the end of the useful life the the primary one that makes the the biggest difference that you're going to see is going to be the lighting right classroom students are going to leave one day they're going to come back brighter brand new LED lights so these are just some of the upgrades we're evaluating we're still in the I call preliminary stages but again this is everything being evaluated by dco and cers at the moment and everything we evaluate may not sell fund and most likely won't sell fund that's where you you pick the top priority so it's going to say hey if if James and Don and the administration want to move forward with XY projects it just has to self fund however the puzzle pieces of the puzzle fit together does that make does that make sense so what does the the timeline look like um for this for this project so we're we've worked with cs we've been on site since uh I think that was in in early August we started walking facilities counting lights having people on site um obviously we're here tonight we'll have our utility Baseline workshop with with James and Don in a few weeks and then the the one piece of information I'll touch on the next slide and get into a little more is approving to go out to bid for a solar power purchase agreement um you'll see there's future future um meetings coming up so there's a client shet in January that's really where we'll present all of our findings we'll say hey this is how much you spent if you implement these upgrades hear them out how much how many improvements you can see here's the cost savings and it's in real time you're able to pick your project so the the solar uh Power purchase agreement part of this what esip allows you to do is you're you're paying 12 13 cents a kilowatt hour and you're paying much higher rates at home I know because I checked my PS and Bill as well it's much higher than that at home but here at schools you're paying about 12 to 13 cents a kilowatt hour what we're doing what a power purchase agreement is it's a it's a way to lease your current space at no cost to the district for a reduced electric rate that's what a power purchase agreement is it's your we're we're primarily looking at roofs but you're leasing your your roof space to fund additional Capital Improvements so to keep it high level say we put solar on every roof and every square foot and it gets us one megawatt of solar and it may produce $150,000 a year of savings annually that's at zero cost to the district your rate's going to go from 12 cents for whatever the system the one megawatt of solar that it produces that's going to be your savings that's going to fund Capital Improv ments and I think what James wanted me to point out is what what we're doing um to not only eliminate the risk is we are submitting interconnection applications to psng so we're seeing what that system size is going to be approved by your utility company what we're I believe we're going to take to the December board meeting is an approval to work for dco and cers to bid a solar power purchase agreement that doesn't lock you into anything it's no firm commitment the ask is really just to allow us to do what I just mentioned was is to to bid it so we're going to work with James Dawn we're going to get as many solar power purchase agreement biders as we can find and try to get them to bid on the system size here at Glenrock to get you that lowest rate possible um I've bid two they're kind of on two recent projects I'll just give you kind of numbers of big Jersey City Public Schools we're working with it's over a 10 megawatt system and they're well below five four five cents I've buil um Colt Neck Public Schools in in Mammoth County is about only a 1 and a half megawatt system and they're still below that four to 5 Cent rate um tly Public Schools they're right around I think four to five cents as well so again we need to submit those interconnection applications in parallel of that we will need to work with James to release the bid get biders on site look at the electrical capacity of the grid and then if the if the board would decide to move forward at that that point after the bids are due we would come in with a recommendation and a full report from cers and dco to advis on our recommendation and if the board wanted to move forward with it as part of the plan so that's that's kind of solar I know was a lot uh high level I I speak a little fast so if you have any questions um feel free but again no commitment this is where we're at in the process and any questions feel free to to ask Miss Maola all right um we have solar on some of our buildings and when it was put in uh we were told at that time that you know based on the trees etc etc you couldn't have solar on all the buildings you had to have whatever I think there was maybe 25% more that we could have added which we never did right so are we talking about the additional solar that 25% that we don't have including the ones we do have so so it's a it's a it's going to be it's a depends question answer I hate giving that answer I it's a it's a depend so right it comes down to like are we allowed to to trim trees so when we put those bids out all the biders are going to come back with the with the helioscope outlining where they would propos solar that's where we sit down with James and Don and say and the board say hey here's where we're proposed solar where can we can and can we cannot put solar to answer your question that the plan we had initially talked about that's not set in stone at this point but we're evaluating is is because the the current panels are a little bit they're they're reaching the end of their useful life so what we're going to do to so the district wouldn't have to pay out of pocket any of those costs to remove it we're going to put in the bid for the solar providers to remove those panels and then replace them with new upgraded panels but with the solar uh Power purchase agreement bids we can put it as a base bid have alternate one have alternate two with options so you're not stuck to just one solution it's going to be whatever's best for the district the only thing I'd like to add to that is that the beauty of the power purchase agreement is when we originally did our our solar array uh the the the the most popular way to do it was to own the solar now and we were dependent upon the SRE Market to really generate savings the beauty of this is that we really own nothing but the roof upon which these solar panels will sit on we will enter into a guaranteed contract for the acquisition of power so there's zero risk we can tell you on day one when they go live what our savings will be over say 15 years um and and there's zero risk to us um in terms of Maintenance or what have you on the panels because the panels that are coming off not only are they approaching the end of their useful life um I think we are three companies removed from the the installer and they're beginning to break down and there is a single provider that we know of currently that can provide us parts so we're at the point where we really need another solution and this solution that hopefully we can bring to fruition it will be net neutral in terms of the removal of panels we own and the installation of new panels yeah I I I like this idea because it originally in my head I said oh we're going to own some panels and somebody else is going to own some panels but this now is is a broad everybody this goes with all the panels just one other question I don't think it's right for our district but um what if we decided to put up a parking garage let's say at Coleman school and put panels on top of them I mean there are other ways of putting panels other than a roof yeah no exactly so I mean we we could absolutely coordinate that depending on the timing again it would be we get the yeah yeah but it's something again if we could evaluate it have the conversations um that you wanted to have but yeah I mean it could be anything you want to evaluated we could put in that bid so at least you have an answer of what it would cost or take and you know if you have the base bid hey you get a base bid of 4 cents if we have to put it on that roof it's going to go up to seven cents if we have to include that so there there's different costs right it's no cost to to the district but the solar companies carry the cost and they reap the benefits When the the system sizes are when the systems are on and the reason just so just for educational purposes the reason we recommend the roof so the solar companies before right you got to probably you heard $700 per SRE was what you got day one and then all of a sudden overnight you went down like 220 and that's kind of where it is right now I I get it that that's what happened but now there like James said there's no risk to you um but just the panels are much more efficient now everything's a lot better so just again lot risk for you guys for the district thank you small question so the the the PPA would this be a fixed price long-term contract or is this a like a discount to a floating rate that we'd be subject to for a finite period of time yeah so the by by law a public entity can only enter into a 15-year power power purchase agreement can't can't go I guess you technically could go shorter we would have to let the biders know that ahead of time but you cannot go past 15 years in terms of the rate so there so we do leave the bid a little open-ended to to find the most competitive advantage in bid for the district so we have it two different ways they can either put it at 0% escalation but with the bid's going to come in at like a little bit it will probably come in a little bit higher typically we'll see about a 1 and a half% escalation but if you're getting a 3 4 Cent rate and it escalates at 1 and a half% you're still never really breaking seven Cent so you're still going to be well below that PS and grid rate that you're going to get so we always do look at that on the back end to make sure you're 13 14 15 you're not paying more than what you would get from psng yeah yeah so you're you're projecting out that that long-term price and this would be a a budgeted escalating fixed price over that time correct does that yeah that exactly right Dr Robinson good okay thank you for your presentation um I have a question that might not completely be you it might also be um Mr Canalis um with the Improvement in the lighting to the LED lighting um in other districts that you may have worked with I mean we all know the LED lighting is going to change um maybe the mood for the students you know just their overall sense of well-being and things like that is that is the lighting that typically gets changed um allow for like variable settings and like easy um access to change like the temperature of the lighting and things like that for for the students so what is it right if I take a first pass so what we we'll we'll do it our our next workshop with James and Don and so we look at so we'll come in with the energy conservation measures we'll talk about each specific one that was on that checklist and how we're pricing it up and what we're looking at so there's it's kind of just like going to Home Depot do you what type of like do you want soft white hard like what so we'll look at it from that perspective we've done projects where we've put in different colored lenses to to kind of change the mood for students so it's something if the district would want that evaluated it's again it's just esip is is designed for the the the the Energy savings need to cover the cost so again we can absolutely look at adding different lights different lenses the the cost of it's just going to go up so then and the savings will stay the same but if that's something you want um Mr canelos and us to discuss further absolutely we we absolutely can I think Greg Greg hit it right on the head is that when you start evaluating the projects as it relates to the savings it's then becomes a scope issue right if we want to if we're going to pile a bunch of money into one particular aspect that might reduce the overall scope of the project so everything will be considered and and sort of kind of the way Greg's explained it to me is we'll probably have a nice uh uh array of projects that we can do and then it's really picking and choosing and solving for x x meaning what's the savings versus the cost of those projects to get there indeed I understand um and with the lighting I would just ask ask that if if you have like a small sample that you could like test it in just one room just to kind of get a sense of what it is that you want and if that can align with the the overall goal with the budget um just to keep that in consideration absolutely thank you all right anyone else all right thank you very much thank you very good night have a good night thank you okay um so we're we'll move on to uh um Personnel so the Staffing update is uh as I've shared with with the board um we have several upcoming uh leave Replacements that we have to fill in the High School Middle School uh in particular um in in special education uh the board may remember that in in this budget we put in two uh K to2 teaching positions unfilled specifically for special education um we uh we filled one of those positions uh but we did not need at the beginning of this year to fill the other position through some scheduling things that we were able to to change so what um I'm going to to Pivot to because we're not finding anyone for a leave replacement would be to move forward with a uh a tenure track position to fill those maternity leaves um because we anticipate needing to use that position next year anyway and so um we just don't have the ability to to staff all those leaves with overages so we're trying to figure out a way to do that um so deposition sitting in the budget so we're going to propose to to post for a position and see if we can get someone coming from another District do that make sense any questions on yeah um I I I appreciate the the foresight in um in in bringing this to the agenda just so that we're kind of getting ahead of the situation that you anticipate happening thank you yeah so uh been kudos to to to Dr McKay um it's it's it's just a challenge and we all know that so I hope that we'll get some candidates this way and um we anticipate needing the position position next year and we should I don't worry about us having this extra position we'll be able to utilize it thank you all right um so I need a motion to discuss P2 and P3 Mr Corey second by Mr Hayward does anyone have anything to talk about for P2 or P3 right see Mr Cory yes Mr Hayward yes M mcnabola yes Dr Robinson yes Miss garelli yes Miss Stevenson yes Miss randelle yes to P2 I'm abstaining on P3 motion passes all right that brings us to policy okay so how much policy would you like tonight um you like talked out um so there are a couple of things I'd like to to go over and there are decisions that the board has to make tonight for first reading we'll go over all all of those first of all there is on on the agenda we have two um policies the school leadership councils which is p1524 to abolish and then P 6361 relations with vendors um we don't currently have those policies so they they kind of snuck on so we don't need to abolish them so Mr Canalis I've asked him to strike those from the minutes there there's not going to be a first reading on those so we do apologize um for that [Applause] so um does the board want me to go over in detail any of the policies or just the ones that we have to make decisions on I'm happy to do whatever I'm prepared to do uh whatever I know you have it all in front of you but let me know I think just the ones we need to make decisions on that sounds read the other one just let me I have have to pull it up my computer I lost my computer a little ago okay I got it all right so for the right to privacy which is um really really two um two policies there's for teaching staff and non-certificated staff or certificated non-certificated the board has an option um which really prohibits audio or video recordings my recommendation would be that we don't want that um but it's is a board decision to include it or not allow it you want you want to prohibit it yes you don't want yes um well we don't permit it now but this is a yeah they made some changes and this is an option that the board can consider yeah I just think you don't want to do anything that Pro prohibits or forces anything so if we're putting language in just to for that reason there's no reason to it's not something we're doing and it's I don't think it's something we I don't I've never seen any school do it so it's it's sort of not needed language in my opinion yes when they say audio and visual they also talking about recording on your cell phone and things like that yeah we don't want that all right so want to include it so I I guess I want I want to understand what would the harm be in including that we prohibit it I just as example uh coid we just spent the last two years throwing cameras in every classroom because we needed to for a reason and working with teachers and kids and doing all that stuff had we had that we'd have to change our policy to allow it I'm not saying you know nobody does in general but uh to prohibit something is does have towards the bottom of the policy an ability for someone to request to to do that I mean it does have to go through um the uh the principal um so there is a mechanism I mean and in the it does say that we it doesn't say we can't do what we're saying by doing virtual it just means that they we need permission we need to notify them that they're going to be recorded right yeah the options whether you want to include those or what's in bold yep and this will take care of the two policies right for 32 3324 and 4324 yeah one's for non-certificated and one's for for teaching stuff I don't I I I think I don't think we when I look at this policy I I look at in the option we don't want people pulling out their phones and recording teachers yeah I was say help disciplinary wise I think it's just to protect then it's a reason you've read in some districts that people are are are doing that and and it's a disciplinary policy if you don't have that in well that's what I'm saying if if it's helpful for that reason maybe it is I think it's okay to prohibit some things this would be one of them yeah I mean I think this would make our staff and teachers feel more comfortable yeah I mean I know I have there's a teacher out there right now I won't make her come up but um I'm sure that you don't want people videotaping you in class yes yeah so without your approval yeah yeah I would I would like to prohibit it all right so we'll keep we'll keep that in and then we'll have this obviously as you know when it's cleaned up all the Bold will not be there and all the strikethroughs will be gone for the next next reading and this will be included now this is for teaching and STA and staff members what about the children in the the school system can they be it says in the first sentence or student by any student no I think what Ron is asking is where where is it where's the policy to protect the students right right recording well that'll protect the teachers from the students taping them well this is it yeah this is it this is it Say by a student or any student or any student right are we okay with that so we consensus okay seems like it so moving to the next one that the board has to make a decision on is the education of homeless children and youths um and it's really uh at you'll see um towards the bottom there the school district Le aison is designated by the superintendent of schools for really are who are uh are our homeless uh liaison is the director of uh um of guidance so that's what we would include there and that's who's currently doing it anyway just want to sh that okay takes care of that and then the last one is Food Services and I know there's a long one there's option one and it's really long option two I asked Mr Canales to look at that and share his thoughts so option two is what the district currently um uh practices uh so that if a student were to come to the line and not have money in their possession or not have money on their pay schools accounts that we would continue to allow them uh to make the purchase and then we would um backtrack to get that money back um we do not have a significant uh unpaid B balance uh that's out there as compared to many other schools I last time I looked at it it was under $3,000 um and declining as as it was moving along so um that would be my recommendation to continue otherwise if you were to select option number one um the students would not be able to charge lunch oh I like I like I don't want to do that I want kids to be able to eat yes my kids would starve know we do it all okay so those are all the decisions for the policies again I'm happy to go into detail on why there are changes uh for that if not these would all be on for a second reading and approval at the next meeting we'll obviously remove the two that didn't need to be abolished in addition there are several regulations that go along with these policies and those would be on on the next agenda as well okay all right sorry so I have nothing else under policy if anyone has any questions or anything with that so I'll turn it over to Greg we have um the National Art Honor Society yeah so this is real quick um we like to approve new clubs one time of the year and um it came to our attention after the year began that somewhere between Dr parent and Miss J Lando's supervision of the high school um this Honor Society was meant to be approved and just did not get approved um it's not a student Club it's an honor Society there's an induction process there are requirements to be in it etc etc um and we want to make sure that it's approved by the board so we wanted to mention it today before we put it on the agenda for voting next time um just want to mention that now before you any questions sounds I think it's a great idea to honor an opportunity for for the kids that are into art and anybody who's ever been to the uh art show at the end of the year it's really it's amazing the work that our kids do and and and the teachers so I'm happy to see this for for those students yeah and there is a component of um volunteering that they have to do so I like that as well so it's not just you know them doing their art they actually have to give back so more we can have student give back is great great all right we'll make sure it's on the agenda for next time thank you all right okay okay so for instruction and program just a couple of things the high school middle school program of studies we're starting the process internally of working on that we anticipate being able to present not necessarily the program of studies but the changes that would be in that or recommendations of discussion at the December meeting I don't think we'll get to it for the next next meeting um and then we'll approve uh sometime after rorg I think we usually do it the the next meeting in in in January uh I don't anticipate any real significant changes or additions in terms of new classes or things along those lines in the high school middle school as you know we're well into our Middle School um uh reimagination the changes so that's well on its way um there might be some different alignments with some uh working on that eth grade and nth grade specifically for like some of our electives so there's more of a smoother transition between those okay we also might have um new math courses they we're looking into a pre calculus and and some of those aligning of those so there might be some small changes there yeah so we'll have we'll have it all lined up and we'll do you know have a thorough discussion in depth on on all any changes before anything's made okay uh the student exchange uh trip should be plural um so we have a couple of uh trips coming up I just wanted to share that we're excited about there's actually uh three aligned to our um World Language programs which is interesting so um we have uh it'll be coming across the board's desk soon is is are two one is a trip to Paris from for our our our French Club students and as the board's aware I had gone earlier um this school year to uh to China so we're also um finalizing a uh student exchange trip with similar to to the Czech Republic with students at Beijing Academy in in in China so we anticipate those students coming here um for about two weeks in in January and then our students going there um around spring break and that would be the same for for uh Paris and then we we talked already about Costa Rica and then uh Rome which would be the following the following year so uh more more more more to come on on on those but I had shared before we're excited that our students are and staff are getting back out and about and wanting to to expand the proverbial four walls right and learn from other C cultures happy to answer any questions on those no I I just think it's great we're back to doing these types of things and our kids have these opportunities to travel and experience other cultures so I think it's fantastic um these These are trips that are uh planned by the school or they planned by um the teachers who go for free etc etc think the parish trip will be more like the lad but the the trip with Beijing Academy a lot of it will be fun did by Beijing Academy so um and uh so that'll be not that won't be run through that that'll be us working with the parents to put it all together because yeah anyone else all right um that brings us to management and Community okay so um in backup you have uh a proposal on the Security Site assessment assessment um we know also that there is uh from the New Jersey Department of Homeland Security there is a the Bergen County prosecutor's office also will cond do a site assessment the Bergen County prosecutor's office is the one that you got back in 2013 um we have reached out to the new to the Department of Homeland Security um and uh Bergen County uh people have told us down at school boards they heard that that it could be done right away we're not getting that information and the people that we're speaking to and even if they're getting back to us some of them have not yet but the ones we have it's months out so I'm happy to to to go down that road and do that um or we can hire the private company and you see the the the the scope of work that they have in their proposal um if that's something that you want to do that could be quicker it can allow us to get um some some feedback and some recommendations and we also still try to schedule the free one behind it and maybe you can compare right so I mean there's things that you have options to do I think the cost for the private is $6,000 I don't think that's a heavy lift for us to to to to do that is obviously a board goal this is the first step in that process and to bring someone an outside organization in to give us a um a uh a site assessment but uh James and I can answer any questions that you have anyone m m um I didn't read this entire agreement what's the length of time so they're going to come in and do it and when will the board receive the report when we discussed it we we talked about like a two to three month frame from uh observation to recommendation okay so I would think the spring early spring I'm I'm thinking about the budget for next year Etc you know if we're if we're looking to put something in the budget that deals with whatever goes on in this report um you know it's going to be after the budget's approved one of the things Mr Lurch alluded to was the availability of our emergency Reserve to be used for security projects so that could be um an area of funding for us if there was to if something were to arise that would be significant in nature okay because as as it is it's a board goal so it would be nice I firmly agree that I know it takes a long time for the the state to get get in charge and if you have spoken to these people and you they can get started and get report to the board I'll watch it on TV um but uh then the board can go and help fulfill their goal uh as far as security goes for the building so that's good thank you thank you Dr Robinson um yes um thank you again for um you know attempting to chase down the state with regards to what we learned um at school boards um I I do think it would be beneficial still to continue that part and just kind to see um what it is that they offer maybe we can compare it to where we were in 2013 um I'm I'm in support of this private assessment uh just with the time sensitivity um and uh the communication that we've had on the board with regards to what we want um to understand about our own system um so that's my opinion thank you anyone else I just want to thank Rona for trying to set us up for Success it's key that we get the information in time that we can make a decision within the year and knowing how to tag it all in um when it comes to information more is more so this is good and timely else so what I think I'm I'm hearing is that we'll move forward with the private one um and then we'll also work with the county and who knows maybe they'll both be done at the same time but we'll okay yeah so we'll get on that first thing Wednesday okay um I we had shared this out the uh the Glenn Rock Police Department uh actually tomorrow at at bird will be conducting active uh shooter training so the flyer went out to Via School messenger to all of our parents so everybody's aware they're also going to conduct a training on Sunday December 3rd here at the high school our security officers are were invited to observe and watch um there will be uh I guess it's called Uh Sim Sim Munitions right is that it is so um there will be some like noise I'll use that term and then lots of police cars and stuff at bird uh tomorrow and then here at the high school on Sunday uh December third uh but we think it's beneficial for obviously everyone for them to conduct these uh these trainings good great okay I'm going to skip the the the cuz don't want to talk about it right now um but uh so the New Jersey well be fit um we just wanted to share with the board that we continue to uh uh work with uh staff on on this we know that if we get a certain number a little over 80 that the the district would get back about $70,000 um through getting 1% off of our premium for health insurance and then we would be able to utilize that money the incentive we gave to staff was that we able to utilize that for staff wellness and things climate and culture and things along those lines um as uh uh Mr canel has has found out that there are only a couple two districts in the whole state that have qualified for this um so we hope that our staff took took advantage of it I'm looking at who who has done it uh who did it last year in December of 22 when they run the number there was about looks like about 20 total um so we we we have to you know get get some more um and so we won't know if what we cuz we did bring I brought this up at convocation in in in in September we won't know until uh December if we hit the number this year but we're going to push for the following year as well so we'll see what happens right and I think sometimes when something runs more you know a few times that's how it worked you know when I was in at my school it's like oh you you don't do this it's like easy money for stuff we do so I think as that happens hopefully it snowballs because it really is something that I hope everybody does take advantage of because it really is it's a win for everybody yeah yeah I was just going to say while the district would get substantial money back that we could use for our staff they also are getting money back right in their paycheck right out of their paycheck um and I just had a question though when is there open enrollment because I'm wondering is when we do open enrollment too if the representatives of the insurance company come in if we do that I know we did that once but they should be hopefully they're educating the teachers about this instead of I feel like a lot of times they don't know about it right so which is what Karen is in Patterson where I used at the union did a lot of advertising for it too and sent a lot of a lot of emails out encouraging everybody to sign up for it I don't know if we do that I know we did it a few years back before Co I think I remember Mr R doing something with the union and presenting all the different options for their insurance um things we trying to incentivize them on what so those options have changed now right because now it still is beneficial to bring them in but now when you come in you have to be in New Jersey educator plan you don't have a choice so they're all only ones that are are like Legacy people that are still here yeah um but I think it it would be beneficial we have pushed it out I think Ashley's back there if she's are we annoying you too much when we keep on pushing out the New Jersey well stuff because we're sending out emails and we have our climate and culture people pushing for it so we're getting it out there um we we'll see what happens nice miss carpella the answer to your question uh on open enrollment open enrollment just closed yeah it's November to October 3 first um for next year all right draft calendar here we go I have handouts that um I think it' be better actually Greg Greg thought this um be better to have in front of you versus on the screen and this is for 2526 yeah so this is for 25 26 as as we know we went through 27 rounds for the uh 2425 calendar at the board is is a draft it's online and the board will approve that calendar at reorder right so this is for 2526 so what I what I did was I decided that we don't want to do 25 uh versions this year so we basically uh followed the framework of our calendars with a couple of of of of exceptions so as you can see anything that is um blue on the calendar those are days that the board has has uh can play with you can you know you could have school that day you don't have to have school that day um so what I have here in front of you is the students coming back on Tuesday after uh Labor Day and then that's your wiggle room of how you want it deal with that you have all of your holidays in there the board has options on what's coming up really this week right is the teacher convention and election which is at November 3D and 5ifth and I have some data today just to share with the board on absentees so you kind of get an idea of how many students were were out today um and then if you go to December kind of see that Christmas is on a Thursday so you got that 22nd and 23rd which I don't think is as critical but you got January 2nd which is on a Friday which is probably something that the board may want to think about um having school or not you only have a 3-day weekend on a President's Day in February um so the board has an option if they wanted to do a four um spring break is uh um would be the uh the week of March 30th through uh Good Friday which is April uh 3rd I highlighted March 30th 31st at Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday as an option maybe the board felt like that's too early for spring break and you wanted the following weeks that's kind of why I did that I just left it there and then you have based on this calendar if the board made no changes that we would have graduation on Thursday um June 18th and teachers last day would be Friday June 19th and then there to which side days no with not changing anything anything that's on this this sheet here which has the the script the blue days are just wiggle room so consider that as all all days that we're coming to school right so we haven't made any changes so there are two snow days built into the calendar so if we went with what exists in front of you and we had no snow then we would give two days back um if we have more than two days then it would come off the Spring Break um a couple of things to uh uh um to to think about here is that does the board want three snow days right do you do are you comfortable with two is three which is more normal do you you know so those are things to think about and if you say hey hey Brett we want we don't want to come to school on January 2nd like that's silly on a Friday whatever that then would add a day so then we would graduate on Friday June 19th does that make sense and you so or you could say you know what BR we want want to be off that but I don't want to go to school beyond the 18th so now we get back to the Labor Day thing like when do you start so there's a push and pull so that's why I did it like this so I think it's pretty clearer for you and the board can can see it in front of them and say you know what I really like I want that fall break again so then add two days to the back end or two days the front I want a 4-day weekend in in in uh February okay then where those days get added at the back end or the front I want three snow days right and so on and so forth while you're chewing on them um I [Music] will see I get us here it could be I mean I think it's the it's it's du the third Friday of the of the month or something like that um so it could it could be it's not one that is contractual that we recognize as what I'm saying that's why it's not highlighted Good Friday that's a contra yeah it's a contractual um okay so for attendance today and I'm not sharing this to say oh we have to have off this week but I wanted you to know because it was a big point of discussion so the high school has and we average so you know about 96% 97% attendance on every given any given day so the high school today had a 92% attendance rate which is good right um Middle School was 81% uh bird was 78% uh Central was 84 Coleman was 84 and Hamilton was 73 so it just gives you an idea of the numbers that are out there I'm sure Wednesday will probably be worse in terms of attendance but just wanted to give you that information that's in backup for the board to look at as well um is there is it 97% on average across the board or is it like across the board High School versus no across the board our attendance is excellent overall yeah I mean you'll get we'll get the Friday before winter break right whatever you'll you'll have higher abses but these two days are are big days so I'm happy to answer any questions about the calendar but I do think that the board would want to start having discussion so that we have a draft for reor does anybody have any comments questions thank you for entertaining my two questions so that's all that's all you have to say yeah that was it we're good so we're talking ideas here uh just are we uh stuck with a Thursday graduation or no no because the 2425 is we're not graduating on Thursday so just as a thought if we went not Thursday Fridays are difficult Mondays are if we went to the 20 2 3rd you could gain that week in November and maybe the last January 2nd day and that would be two solid weeks of kids being away from school and relaxing and teachers being away and I think that November this when with the attendance I'm sure if we looked at last year's attendance I know Wednesday's terrible so I it's just to me it's whether we like it or not I I think it just makes sense educationally when we did our calendar survey the last time uh was I feel like the November week wasn't some of the feedback was that it was more difficult because I guess they people weren't naturally off during that period of time and things like that so folks seem to be less inclined to take a vacation like use that as like a vacation week and that it might present um a challenge was do do do does anybody remember what yeah I I think because a lot of people leave they didn't care if we took it off or not honestly I think that uh Dr Robinson also the winter break the not the winter break the February yeah um that one was the one they didn't want off okay that was the one yeah that was that was the big one like the 4 Day weekend is fine but not a full week thank you thank you and I'm mean I I'm in support of not having people come back on uh January 2nd um you I would I would agree with that and you know to open up a building for one day or all the buildings for one day I don't know after being closed for those two weeks I don't really think makes much sense I agree January 2nd so for yeah so we would typically come back on the second but it's a Friday so it seems silly I don't have a whole lot of comments to make about the calar anyone else does feel free so January 2nd there's consensus on having that off and adding so we have to add a day somewhere correct so now that gets you graduate in on a Friday which is not a good idea which is why I just sort of cavalierly went for three days and said make it on Tuesday so you would say the third and the fifth of November 20 20 I would say the 3D and 5th of November to make that a full week because we have terrible attendance anyway and I think people would ultimately appreciate it and I think Friday uh January second would be hugely appreciated do we have off November week next yes so I think it might be hard that's right yes it could be hard to take that away I'm saying I'm agreeing with you oh then great I want to have an argument again no that was one time no look they're all pluses and minuses right yeah I totally forgot that does anyone have anything the issue with that would become child care for people is there any way the community school or could run some sort of no school care like after care or before care or two days but what right but there may be people who can't get off in that you know those days and they need they need child care that was a lot of the the community feedback in the November week is that that three day isn't really a corporate uh holiday off or a Thanksgiving Thursday Friday those are totally closed plus people want to be around to vote tomorrow's election day so they might not be considering that's a good time to go away either way yeah I mean I honestly I feel like any day we take off could pose Child Care issues for people so I think but when it's a week it's a little different like you can usually get a day here or a day there I just think a a week would could be difficult for some families if there's something that we could do to you know or see if any just to kind of keep that mind if I don't know if the community school can run something for those couple of days I I I don't know how that could work but a week off for for people could be difficult we've run um I know that in the past we've run uh like day camps during days that were off through community school so I'm assuming that that would still be able to continue perhaps be expanded but I don't I I mean we'd have to have that conversation but I'm positive that we've run like a Basketball Camp on November through Community School on like a Monday of uh things yeah so I think that they yeah I think that they can Up Programs yep yep exactly exactly there's another another time that you had mentioned that if we don't give the March through the 3 of April off if we give the 3 of April which is Good Friday and the next week then there's one day there a minus one day yeah but I'm saying plus another day I know there have been a a lot of people that have asked for uh with Easter Monday off because they're away for Easter and they're coming back on Monday uh so having Good Friday and then the following week off might be there there you you get a day there and I won't pick the other days but there's a day there yeah spring break would be six days it would be six days CU we have to give off Good Friday plus the additional five minus just the four we would have to be giving right we're giving off one extra day there right so that's what I'm saying that brings us up to four now we're on the 24th Wednesday then and then the other the board has to look at uh President's Day weekend too and decide a three-day weekend or a four um so are we okay with a three-day weekend in February for presidents yes all right um and we're good coming back to school on the second all right so I have November 3rd 5th January 2nd and we can talk about spring break spring break and also how many snow days so keep it at two so then it's um spring so just spring break what do you guys think about right now we're graduating on Tuesday June 23rd if we take off Good Friday and the week after it would be the 24th of June Wednesday that we would be graduating it would be an extra day do we know when Passover is that year it's Sun joh the second so then if we were off Good Friday and then the week of Easter it also would be the week of Passover not Friday no was saying but if we if we're off on Good Friday then have the week after that off that is that is also the week of Passover oh I see what you're saying yeah so you're so we'd be off Good Friday and then Friday and Easter week and it's it's also Passover week if I understood that correctly right yeah we'll do a deeper dive in in Mia that seems like they just researched it what do you guys think of that that sounds yeah if it makes more sense it' be a little warmer week later well if we're going to go with the spring break being the whole next week I think we take those I don't think we give the November days then too I think we I don't think we can should M graduate any later than the 23rd that's my opinion I think that's late okay but I could be alone in this I'm one remember I think the you know I I what would rather graduate sooner than later so so to me those two days that we gave in November I would put it towards this January 2nd and then the spring break week I I AG that would be my opinion I agree you only need one more day for spring break right yeah you got the 30th 31st 24th is not that's already accounted not acceptable you're just shifting I'm not saying it's not acceptable but I just would rather graduate sooner and then have less days off during the year know one of the complaints we had from the parents was all these days off during the school year I know at the end of the day it's 182 days at your kids in school but people did find it difficult or claimed it was difficult to get child care with all these breaks so I'm just trying to avoid the extra days off that we don't normally have off I don't know yeah I mean I also I'll go with the consensus and I really don't care what we do like I feel like I'm kind of done with the calendar but um I have also heard from parents that a week is much easier to find child care for than random one day here and there so I think there are lots of a lot of things about child care and I I have lots of um sympathy for all of our parents but I don't necessarily think that's our job right now in dealing with the school calendar if this is what's best for our school Community that's great that would be my two SS yeah I think what you said about so from a mental health perspective having a full week off you can energize much better for everyone teachers students parents than a day here a day there a day here those chopped weeks yeah so we got to figure out where like so that's a January 2nd right support yep third fifth second that creates full week full week well currently the only day I think that everyone agrees with is January 2nd um and now we're sort of toggling between an April uh 3rd to the 10th break I think and a third to the 5th I would not be in favor of that over that um so here's a question so on Monday oh got for you I can talk on Monday September 1st is Labor Day correct and we're having everybody come to the school on the second yes that's what it is now I would like the second for the teachers to come to school and the kids come on Wednesday so that just pushes us back another day well it's just it moves it to the 23rd I don't mind I'm not counting November I'm I'm eliminating November I'm putting here's this is what I'm putting in I'm putting in uh have the kids come on the 3rd of September we have the 2nd of January off and the um after the 3rd of April for um Easter week or whatever spring week whatever we want to call that's three days so so that's three days right so we so instead of ending on the 18th we're not ending on the 19 we're ending on the 23rd not the 24th yeah I don't see a need to push the kids off to the third teachers have two days of PD yeah if I could just share um Rona that we would the administration really wants the two days of PD at the beginning of the year so if you want so if you're going to do that then the students if you're going to follow that mod I would have the students come back on the fourth on the Thursday so we could do the two days of PD with staff yeah so yeah okay so so so Tuesday and Wednesday would be for staff and Thursday is when kid come to school yeah that would not be my preference does anyone like that I like it oops maybe we could like a priority we're also missing two board members tonight so I'm me I think this is just an on just a discussion yeah just a discussion I just want to remind that nothing is going to be finalized this evening correct just so that years from now right just I EMP you should say that every five minutes to remind the public I just want to say it's a remind it's a discussion nothing is being finalized tonight nothing's going to be voted on tonight we're just having a discussion just to emphasize that yeah um maybe as a group can we talk about just the prior the general priority sorry um maybe as a group can we just talk about the general priority like if we prioritize the spring break versus the November dates or you know like we're in agreement on on January or is it that you know like the priority is to um end school earlier or you know just like if because I think that would help us like identify which choice we have we just might not all have the same priority but we can try um you want to start sure um so in agreement with January um I am going to prioritize um the Spring Break dates of April 3rd through 10th and that would mean then we are in school on the 3D and 5th right it doesn't have to it's whether you want to me care about graduating on I no I because then if we if I if we do take the third and fth then then we would end up on the 24th right okay so would you rather I'm okay with the 24th okay so then all right so what do you guys think of that so that would be the November 3rd and 5th break would be off January 2nd would be off and we would take spring break April 3rd to the 10th and then we would graduate J June 24th and what day are we graduating this year just I feel like last year was a 26 26 it was 22nd 22nd last year I would agree with it whaton said that would be the week off in November correct yep January 2nd January 2nd off and then spring break would be moved the following yes following week plus right the third with a 24th graduation 24th graduation which I agree Sharon is not ideal I would like to graduate much earlier as well yeah I mean to be honest I like the one that was proposed to us from the beginning but I'll do whatever every board member wants but I would just go with the one that Brett put gave to this is too many days off he didn't actually propose a calendar no he did here he gave us this oh this is just contractual days off Oh I thought you put together a calendar no this is um if you follow if you so yeah so yes or no should correct but if you follow what I gave you on the on the list yeah yeah is that you would start school on on the second on the second and gradually out on the 18th on the 18th with two snow days but you wouldn't have November off you come back to school on January 2nd yep and you'd have the normal spring break we always have you'd have a three-day weekend in February I would be totally fine with that because they'd be out on the 18th I would be okay with this but that's just me every you know I anything we add to this changes I don't think opening up on January 2nd one day to open up the school buildings I'm not at the end of the day people are either going to send their kids to school that day or they're not just like they don't send them to school on Election Day or not so I understand it's not ideal but I I do like the fact that the kids get out on the 18th I think pushing off to the 23rd or the 24th next week it's just prolonging it's another weekend that's just my opinion of this calendar and obviously it's going to be a majority that decides but I'm totally fine with the one that was presented right I like the spring break a week later only because you know we're off on Good Friday and then for people who celebrate Passover they'll have days off to to to recognize that as well and it is nice to have off the day after Easter especially if you if you do travel but I think you know we're we're a district that has inclusivity and we want to be a part of that I think that that plays into it y right does anyone have anything else to say about the calendar we can continue to talk about it another another so what was decided what so I I think Jan uh I think we've decided on November break January 2nd week later in April graduate the 24th oh it's not decided that I will put so draft one no no just only one draft just it one draft that's that's all doors so so this calendar is going to be voted on when I'm no longer on the board so I will say again that I think I do like thank you I do like the April break when it will be after Good Friday I really do think that you should give the second of January off because I I mean I'm not a I don't go out for New Year's Eve but a lot of people are not around on New Year's Eve and to send your kid to school on the Friday talk about a day that's that that our attendance will be down that'll be a nice day for the attendance to be down so I believe in those two in those two but I also want people to think about what do we do in September how do we want September to look whether we want it on the 4th you know for teachers to come back and get it their training ahead of time whether we want half days in there for students to come in for half a day as we know Ely not parents hate that as well so but those two times I would say all right my final statement all right anybody else all right so we'll put together a we'll do another dive into making sure all our dates are accurate we'll put together what the board shared as our our one and only draft you want these do you want them back are they like confidential yeah I'll take them back yeah you have them electronically but I'll take them back you can keep it all right so that concludes uh my my my contribution to the Cal I think I'm going to turn it over to Mr canel Right thank you Dr Charleston um we have uh two really three action items uh this evening um the first is the competitive Contracting RFP for our new um accounting uh system that we are looking to uh to launch um what the the resolution does is it gives us the uh the permission to uh go out for um this competitive contract and for for individual entities to propose uh their product and cost structures to us uh so that is uh what is outlined in B2 um and then the other item we have and and and and and and I take full blame for this uh The Growing Pains of a new business administrator while I knew the comprehensive maintenance plant was due on the 15th which I did not know was that it needed a resolution to go along with it and since this is the only meeting before then uh we had to move that um on to uh our agenda this evening so you have my apologies and uh will not happen next year and then last but not least uh we um we had a vacation of our bus driver um and we needed to um go out and get a substitute bus driver which we were able to secure um which is miraculous uh for today and Wednesday and we just thought that that was important that the board approved that uh while obviously one day retro but in prospectively for Wednesday so those are the items that are on the the agenda for this evening um again the competitive Contracting doesn't bind the board to anything it just allows me to go out and uh solicit proposals all right so let's get a motion for discussion of B1 through B4 Miss Stevenson second by Mr Hayward does anybody have any questions for James or comments about RB items it's impressive what's even more impressive is that we had a substitute for the substitute today but that's neither here nor there all right okay Mr Corey yes Mr Hayward yes Miss mcnabola yes Dr Robinson yes Miss garelli yes Miss Stevenson yes M randelle yes items pass thank you um all right so that brings us down to our other uh section which typically we would talk about like our school board stuff um but it's almost 10 o' so let's do that next time but does anybody have and we are missing two board members that were're both there yes so um but does anybody have any Leon reports or anything that they want to discuss tonight and briefly so uh I think we all know I'm the Fourth of July parade liaison happens once a year so I thoroughly participated in the Halloween parade this year and noticed that well I could not tell if there were other board members in uh present with me perhaps your costume was good mine was Batman so that was me uh it's just another opportunity for us as you know as a member of the community as a body to participate so it as I got to the end in the Reign I thought this would be nice for us to have a table it's a trunk or treat there's ways for us to be visible in the community not just uh you know not just telecast but engaging in kind like soft relationships like that so welcome ideas like that uh then maybe we'll all dress up as our favorite administr next year I don't know whatever costume you want W okay that is an idea so yeah but just Community participation these events are out there for us so thank you Mr anyone else no all right so then I will open up public comment so for our agenda items only uh state your name your address you get three minutes it I will open up public comment at 9:46 anyone all right let's close it at 9:46 I need a motion to adjourn Miss Stevenson seconded by Mr Hayward all in favor I I meeting's adjourned get home