##VIDEO ID:iYqCLrUMjZM## this meeting in the Mawa board of education is open to members of the public to be physically present members of the public uh that attend will be asked to follow the same procedures as all other visitors Shore schools those procedures can be found on the agenda page of our website Additionally the board meeting will be live streamed for viewing purposes only anyone wishing to view the meeting May do so via Zoom the webinar ID for this meeting is 83389 8825 and the required password is 2361 161 call this meeting to order at 701 roll pleas Mr Gallow here Mr use here Mr Kari here miss Jansen here Mr coflin here M Deano here Mr Denise here Mr DVA here Dr Mory could not be with us tonight adequate notice of agenda this meeting has been provided to the original news and the record specifying that the ma Board of Education will meet on October 9th 2024 in the administrative offices 60 Ridge Road MAA New Jersey a copy was filed at the Township Clerk 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 okay we do not need an executive session this morning or the beginning of the meeting agenda questions please limit your questions at this time to resolutions under new business on this agenda as a matter of fairness you're asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than 3 minutes if you're here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you're here as an individual please give us your name and address this section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes please specify the resolution you are referring to in your question I have a motion to open to the public Mr karski second by we're open at 7:03 seeing none may have a motion Mr Mr karki we are closed at 73 M casparian do you have a report for us tonight yes um my name is learing I'm a senior and a part of the SGA executive board at MAA high school and I'm the corresponding secretary and um coming up this this week is our spirit day and tomorrow is blue and white blue for the staff I mean blue for the students white for the staff Friday is sports Jersey day then we have country vers Country Club and then groutfit which is just an all great outfit um and then generation day like Generations obviously of Ages um and then we're ending it with the class color day every class gets a different color to wear and then it will like be with our spirit rally um and then tomorrow October 11th is our sta students um soccer game watched by their watched by their fellow staff and students um and then this past weekend we have that the marching band won in the tournament of fans open class group two at John F Kennedy Memorial High School on Saturday October 5th and then in terms of ma day we had the Junior and senior classes Habitat for Humanity Deca Community problem solving the cheerleaders hockey and the Leo Club who all participated um with like a a stand or a booth um and then we had the Maring B in the parade and the choir kids sing the national anthem and then I believe two weeks ago we had the senior Sunrise which was the morning for all the seniors who came out to the field watched the sunrise with their friends we had breakfast together and then we side to rock in commemoration of the class of 2025 and then this week is the week of respect and hope Club is running it and Monday is to wear blue Tuesday is kindness day Wednesday is gratitude day Thursday is respect day and then Friday is all about making connections and then lastly we have our our open house for all the eighth graders on October 23rd for all their parents to um just come see the sports and clubs offered at Ma High School great thank you thank you very much we have almost all of us are we have our our MAA stuff on for spirit week so we're we're all in so thank you you're more than welcome to hang out for the rest of this riveting meeting but if not you're welcome oh you going go personally thank you uh Dr deturo do you have a superintendent report for us tonight yes um I just wanted to to share a couple things a lot of good news to share with the board um just recently I don't know it's niche or Niche whatever you want to call it um this is the school rankings that a lot of people um hang their hat on this just came out for 202 five um I'm not sure if you were um aware but MAA is doing extremely well in the rankings and I just wanted to share just a couple um highlights of the rankings so Mawa for best school districts in New Jersey is 23rd out of over 388 districts um the Mawa high school was ranked 43rd out of over 498 uh public high schools M high school was and that's inclusive of all private high schol schools as well across New Jersey um and then Mel high school was also ranked ninth in Bergen County inclusive of all theems and all the private high schools in Burton County so I'm really really proud of the work of of our of our staff of our administrators and more importantly of our students um year over year we have constantly improved and obviously there's still more more work to be done but this is a point of Pride for ma as a whole so congratulations to all involved in let's keep up the great work that's number one number two in our ongoing effort for communication um we just sent out to the community that we are standardizing our approach for social media um this is um in conjunction with Laura Bishop um our communication specialist has come in and given us different feedback along the lines of what we're doing well but more importantly what we can do better to connect with our community and showcase the things that we're doing in our district they came in and we were able to ensure that all of our schools have an Instagram account at this point we started off with Twitter we know that over time it's now grown um into Instagram is just a better um tool to share the different things that we're doing within our our schools a letter was sent out to all the schools sharing um their handle I think that's what it's called still um and each School has been uploading content over the past week and a half so I strongly encourage everyone to follow our schools the handles are up there um the district handle is in development we are going to be building that um but our priority was to get the schools up and running first um and I've been able to um follow all the schools and it's great to see the variety of experiences across all the different schools um our next piece that I want to talk to you about and I'm going to keep ing this until it comes uh December 16th is our strategic plan 2.0 experience so we are at the the back end of our first strategic plan the MAA blueprint um we're extremely proud of um the production and the growth that we have been able to see in the past four years we're looking forward to closing it out this year and completing a couple different things but this is a really important Point um for our district it's an opportunity for all of us to come together and reflect on how the Strategic plan supported us over the past four years but most importantly we get an opportunity to hear from the community and when I say community I mean the community as a whole whether it's our students our staff our parents and then even our community members who do not have children in our district and during that experience we get a chance to ask them you know what are they proud of and what are some things things that they would like to see um continue to develop or an experience that they would like for their children to have all these things will be taken into consideration um as we build our goals for the 2025 to 2030 strategic planning the next thing that I would like to share is as we talk about there's a lot of different um experts within our community this is something that I knew nothing about this is my 14th year in MAA and thanks to uh Mr G um he was able to connect us with mea which is MAA environmental volunteers organization he connected us about a year and a half ago and we were able to work with them on a couple different projects but most importantly they wrote a grant with us last year I believe uh for $100,000 and that Grant is um there's a couple different aspects of that Grant one is is education and then there sustainability and a number of other things and what we were able to do is we were able to um connect our Elementary grades as well as our high school to the work that Neo does so most recently our third graders across the district were able to take a field trip um to the the farm that they have um over by Z Camp call right um and our our third graders which was great because we got a chance to to mesh the schools together um they were able to learn about seasonal eating Greenhouse tour tasting of seasonal vegetables support supporting our pollinators and beekeeping composting and different variations of seaing and planning so that connects to their curriculum they're currently learning and it's also an opportunity for us them to see a resource that's right in our backyard um at the high school level they're looking to engage our Juniors and seniors in the internship and externship program so that's in development now but we're constantly trying to build those offerings for our students so um I just want to thank all those involved especially Violet from who is really doing a great job with engaging our schools um another piece which I believe is in our agenda we're we're going to have two of our PE teachers at the middle school and the high school um taking part in a professional development opportunity so we're we are partnering with the American Heart Association and the New York Jets um two of our physical education teachers in District Zod delori and Justin jascot will participate in hands only CPR event alongside the New York Jets not only will those be in attendance receive the training but also receive CPR in Youth Sports kit and an AED system this Innovative kit contains all the necessary tools and resources to educate students of all ages on proper CPR techniques equipping them with the knowledge and confidence to respond quickly and effectively in the event of a cardiac emergency at present we have representatives from the following school districts who will be participating in this trading at the T3 building um northern Highlands Ridgewood Bergenfield pasac Hills pamis Clifton and Ramsey um a special thanks uh to Mrs delura one of our parents um who also works for American Heart Association who reach out to us to coordinate us hosting this opportunity so thank you to miss deloro um and that is all I have can we make with everybody else's rankings in Mr lamb what do you got for us uh just a short uh business administrator report our financial Auditors spent their last day here yesterday uh so they're finished with their on-site work they will be finishing up the remainder of the audit offsite uh we're hoping to have them meet with the finan fa committee uh sometime over the next couple of months to give a summary once they're ready for that and we have uh a bid opening for a waterman replacement uh here our athletic fields in field five the bid openings next week uh once the work is scheduled it will not interfere with our uh schools or with Athletics uh we will schedule around that um and on the agenda tonight is approval of Rod Grant uh for uh HVAC unit at Joyce Kilmer school and the good news is the state is reimbursing this for 40% of that cost that's awesome very cool thank you yes uh so the first piece I have to announce is a retirement agenda item 19a for Miss Deborah Rybeck um Deb has uh she came to region one after having spent years as a special education dis dispatcher at Scholastic bus company this gave her a working knowledge not only of the Pupil Transportation industry but also of the particular districts schools and families served by region one she put her knowledge and experience to good use at the region and always work to give students the best possible Transportation tailored to their specific needs um we wish Deb the best of her retirement and will be missed by the many people at the districts and bus companies who relied on her expertise every day all the other items um are some more great news attached to the district um first you'll see here uh we have uh some students at MAA High School who have been recently honored uh so Mr Pascal the principal of the high school announced this week that current students Ryan Richards Justin saves and Niti sha have been named to commended students in the 2025 National marit scholarship program a letter of commodation from the school and National Merit Scholarship corporation which conducts the program will be presented by the principal to these scholastically talented seniors based on their earned scores about 34,000 commended students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise so congratulations uh on this wonderful achievement for these three students uh our next celebration Dr atoro introduced Lucas's Bo construction at our last board meeting since then in Lucas's woodworking class uh he's since hand carved uh the Thunderbird on the right hand side of your screen um that will eventually sit on the tip of the uh bow of the boat um and as we promised we'll keep everyone updated on the boat's continued progress I mean it's really well done I mean the craftsmanship is is great yes is he be renting time we don't know I guess we'll have to wait and see at our last board me we announc our par professional job fair uh it was a great success you'll see on this evening's board agenda we have a number of par professionals that U we're recommending for approval this evening uh we had approximately 30 attendees uh come throughout the day uh and we were able to fill any remaining uh par professional vacancies and plan on filling some anticipated rol in the near future with uh those people who who attended so um most of those people who did attend were MAA uh residents so we thank everyone for the community for coming out uh next uh we have amaa High School uh recent graduate uh no wtel um he obviously just recently graduated and is currently studying at Stevens Institute of Technology uh when no was at MAA high school he participated in the investing club and deca uh he's recently donated $500 to our Habitat for Humanity club and it's ongoing quest to build a house locally um for a family uh in her thank you email to Noah Mrs gazinski as the adviser of her Habitat for Humanity Club expressed her heartfelt gratitude for Noah's incredibly generous $500 donation to the club Mrs gazinski shared in her email your contribution brings us closer to our goal of building a home for a family in need and I'm so touched that Noah thought of us even after graduating from Mo high school so um Noah thank you uh we appreciate you another great honor uh of a recent graduate is uh we are proud to announce the district's first AP International diploma recognition uh for Peter alexe Kaya graa uh class of 2024 the AP International diploma is a globally recognized certificate award to students who display exceptional achievement across a variety of disciplines although Peter currently attends Purdue University he received this honor because he earned a three or higher on five or more AP exams and sent his AP scores to a university outside of the United States so he actually was accepted to the University of Toronto and University of water Waterloo both in Canada um but again he's at Purdue but congratulations to him and um you know congratulations to Ma school it's another uh Thunderbird feather in our cap so uh AP honor rooll distinction from MOA High School uh that has just recently been announced um we've earned a place on College board's AP School honor Ro honor roll for the 2324 school year the AP School honor roll recognizes schools that have done outstanding work to welcome more students into AP courses and support them on the path to college success along with this honor rooll distinction ma High School also further recognized with the AP access award which honors schools that encourage more low-income and under representa underrepresented minority students to take AP courses uh the percentage of students in at least one of these categories who took at least one AP exam before graduation is proportional to or above our school student population demonstrating a clear and effective commitment to Equitable access to Advanced coursework so again congratulations we thank uh all involved in our AP programs inclusive of both our students and their AP teachers and lastly um I know that in the spring um I believe Dr Toro mentioned um a proposal for a Girl Scout Gold Award project here on campus uh Carrie prun who uh is a student at MAA High School um shared her prospective plan um and now it is completed uh Carrie is a senior High School who is part of our performing performing and communication arts career pathway uh she is an active member of our vocal ensembles and recently our theater program uh she completed this project to earn the Gold Award in Girl Scouts which is the highest award and Girl Scouts comparable to the eagle scout award for the Boy Scouts of America the Labyrinth area can be used by our mindfulness classes and students from the district so uh great work to carry and obviously she didn't do this alone had the whole team that uh she was Project managing so um congratulations to her uh congratulations to uh Mawa good things happening yeah you that's it I know right so I do not have a uh president's report from Dr Mory tonight but I just wanted I mean what a what an awesome report right I mean that that's really it's a testament to everyone in the district the entire team from you know central office building administrators teachers Paras the maintenance you know uh professionals that keep our buildings in good shape so that learning can you know take place and and do all this stuff I mean it really is makes you proud to to be part of this this organization it's what a what an awesome report yeah uh board committee reports Mr Denise poliy had a policy meeting on Monday October 7th we reviewed policies 1100 to 1230 minor language changes were made a couple of the policies that will be on the agenda for our first reading at the next board meeting I also attended the Bergen County School boards meeting on September 30th at Hasbro heitel holiday in the revised bylaws were presented voted on and passed it was also a presentation by the superintendent of ccal schools Peter Hughes on AI embracing the power of artificial intelligence um the takehold message was that AI is here to stay but can can be used as a powerful teaching tool and the challenge is academic Integrity apparently Strauss Esme is uh working on a policy concerning that my thank you anyone else hi friends um super quick I recently received an invitation um to attend the deating ceremony that's happening at Town Hall on Monday October 28th I'm sharing it with you guys so I would love for all of us if we can to attend um so essentially what's happening is to kick off DE they do basically a festival FL um a lighting ceremony on that Monday night before the holiday um I think it's really exciting it's I'm very excited that we have to Vol off this year I think it's a great commitment that the school board is showing on to our growing community and for us to be there at the lighting ceremony on Monday night um I wish primma was here but I did a bunch of research this morning um um just the meaning behind um the lighting ofas which I had to Google that because I would pronounce it the white girl way um but it's the meaning behind it is to be um investing in prosperity um so the warm bra glow emitted from AIA is considered auspicious regarding are regarded to represent Enlightenment Prosperity knowledge and wisdom um I think that's really beautiful theas represent the Triumph of light over dark good over evil with the most notable example of this being on the day of deali so this um celebration happens in a lot of their holidays and celebrations and festivals we just happen to be doing it to pick off the valy this year um so I will send you guys just r link I'm going to email it out to all of you I wanted to tell you about it before I send it obviously um but we're very excited for this I will be there with my daughter and I'm hoping that you guys can join us also um then just a friendly reminder that U Friday the 1st we're obviously off of school it's my son's birthday he thinks it's like a thing I'm not going to tell him that the calendar date moves year to year we'll just let him enjoy it this year um but I'm hoping that you guys will be there and um after the meeting today I'll send you out the RSP link so that they can kind of track who they can expect that night so it's 102 that Monday night from 5:30 to 6:30 at Tom Hall thank you thank you anyone else okay board member remarks or additional comments on non agenda items seeing none I'll take a motion on 17A minutes from last meeting Mr Mar second by Mr Hugh Mr Gallum yes Mr yes Mr K marski yes M Jansen yes Mr copin yes M Aero yes Mr Denise yes Mr Dila yes I'll entertain a motion on new business a through I'm sorry 18 through you 18 get there Mr Gallow second bite Mr karski Please Mr Yes except on 18a I will be abstaining from check number 17317 Mr use yes Mr korski yes M Jansen yes Mr cin yes M Deon yes Mr Den yes Mr D yes and I'll entertain a motion on 19 a through RR new business Personnel Mr Hughes second by Mr Gallow yes Mr use yes Mr K Mary yes M Janson yes Mr cin yes thank you to all the volunteers M daviero yes Mr Denise yes Mr yes but I need to abstain on P okay public questions or comments public participation board meetings is in accordance with bylaw 0167 at this time members of the public may ask questions or make a comment on educational issues or School matters of community interest as a matter of fairness you're asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than 3 minutes if you hear representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you hear as an individual please give us your name and address this section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes may I have a motion Mr hin second by Mr Gallow and we are open at 7:28 seeing no one at the microphone may I have a I got Mr karki and second by are closed at 78 um we do need okay so I need motion to recess to Executive session Mr Hughes second by Mr copin um so we are going into executive uh we will adjourn from there no further action will be taken thank you all for missing the the m game tonight to come and be with us this evening still one nothing still one nothing thank you very much thank you